ax and the costs incident to the
proceedings growing out of said arrest, for his services for the
shortest period of time." As the costs as well as the capitation tax
were to be worked out by the negro, it is presumable that, in the
spirit of this tax-law, they were enlarged to the utmost limit that
decency, according to the standard set up by this law, would permit.
It is fair to presume that, in any event, the costs would not be less
than the tax, and might, indeed, be double or treble that amount. As
a negro could not, at that time, be hired out for more than seven
dollars and a half per month, the plain inference is that for the
support of the State of Florida the negro might be compelled to give
one month's labor yearly. Even by the capitation tax alone, without
the incident of the costs, every negro man was compelled to give the
gains and profits of nearly two weeks' labor.

A poll-tax, though not necessarily limited in this manner, has usually
accompanied the right of suffrage in the different States of the Union,
but in the rebellious States it conferred no franchise. It might be
supposed that ordinary generosity would have devoted it to the
education of the ignorant class from which it was forcibly wrung, but
no provision of the kind was even suggested. Indeed, in those States
there was scarcely an attempt made to provide for the education of the
freedmen, and the suggestions made in that direction carried with them
another display of studied wrong. As an example of rank injustice the
course of the Legislature of Florida may be profitably cited. That
body passed an Act concerning schools for freedmen, in which the
governor was authorized to appoint a superintendent of common schools
for freedmen, and in each county the county commissioners were
authorized to appoint assistant superintendents. These officers were
directed to "establish schools for freedmen when the number of colored
children in any county will warrant the same, provided" (and the
proviso is one of great significance) "that the sums hereinafter
authorized shall be sufficient to meet the expenses thereof." The
funds provided for this seemingly philanthropic design were to be
derived exclusively from a tax upon the colored man. The law directed
that all colored men between the ages of twenty-one and fifty-five
years should pay annually a dollar each, to be collected at the same
time and in the same manner as the three-dollar poll-tax, whi