"forfeit the arms for the use of the informer, stand in
the pillory" (and be pelted by the mob) "for one hour, and then whipped
with thirty-nine lashes on the bare back." The same penalty was
prescribed for any person of color "who shall intrude himself into any
religious or other public assembly of white persons, or into any
railroad-car or other vehicle set apart for the accommodation of
white persons," and with a mock show of impartiality it was provided
that a white man intruding himself into an assembly of negroes, or
into a negro-car, might be subjected to a like punishment. This
restriction upon the negro was far more severe than that imposed in
the days of slavery, when, in many of the Southern States, the gallery
of the church was permitted to be freely occupied by them. A
peculiarly atrocious discrimination against the negro was included in
the sixth section of the law from which these quotations are made. It
was provided therein that "if any person or persons shall assault a
white female with intent to commit rape, or be accessory thereto, he
or they, upon conviction, shall suffer death;" but there was no
prohibition and no penalty prescribed for the same crime against a
negro woman. She was left unprotected by law against the brutal lust
and the violence of white men.

In the laws of South Carolina the oppression and injustice towards the
negro were conspicuously marked. The restriction as to fire-arms,
which was general to all the States, was especially severe. A negro
found with any kind of weapon in his possession was punished by "a fine
equal to twice the value of the weapon so unlawfully kept, and, if that
be not immediately paid, by corporal punishment." Perhaps the most
radically unjust of all the statutes was reserved for this State. The
Legislature enacted that "no person of color shall pursue the practice,
art, trade, or business of an artisan, mechanic, or shopkeeper, or any
other trade or employment besides that of husbandry, or that of a
servant under contract for labor, until he shall have obtained a
license from the judge of the District Court, which license shall be
good for one year only." If the license was granted to the negro to
be a shopkeeper or peddler, he was compelled to pay a hundred dollars
a year for it; and if he wished to pursue the rudest mechanical
calling, he was compelled to pay a license-fee of ten dollars. No such
fees were exacted of white men and no such fees