ent, or other things,
shall be guilty of a misdemeanor," and might be punished by a fine of
two hundred dollars and costs, or he might be put in prison, and be
also sued by the employer for damages. For attempting to entice any
freedman or free negro beyond the limits of the State, the person
offending might be fined five hundred dollars; and if not immediately
paid, the court could sentence the delinquent to imprisonment in the
county jail for six months. The entire code of Mississippi for
freedmen was in the spirit of the laws quoted. Justice was defied, and
injustice incorporated as the very spirit of the laws. It was
altogether a shameless proclamation of indecent wrong on the part of
the Legislature of Mississippi.

Louisiana probably attained the worst eminence in this vicious
legislation. At the very moment when the Thirty-ninth Congress was
assembling to consider the condition of the Southern States and the
whole subject of their reconstruction, it was found that a bill was
pending in the Legislature of Louisiana providing that "every adult
freed man or woman _shall furnish themselves with a comfortable home
and visible means of support within twenty days after the passage of
this act,_" and that "any freed man or woman failing to obtain a home
and support as thus provided shall be immediately arrested by any
sheriff or constable in any parish, or by the police officer in any
city or town in said parish where said freedman may be, and by them
delivered to the Recorder of the parish, and by him hired out, by
public advertisement, to some citizen, being the highest bidder, for
the remainder of the year." And in case the laborer should leave his
employer's service without his consent, "he shall be arrested and
assigned to labor on some public works without compensation until
his employer reclaims him." The laborers were not to be allowed to
keep any live-stock, and all time spent from home without leave was
to be charged against them at the rate of two dollars per day, and
worked at that rate. Many more provisions of the same general
character were contained within the bill, the whole character and
scope of which were forcibly set before the Senate by Mr. Wilson of
Massachusetts. It was not only a proof of cruelty enacted into law,
but was such a defiance to the spirit of the Emancipation amendment
that it subjected the Legislature which approved the amendment and
enacted these laws, to a charge of incons