It must be remembered, however, that at the time of the passage of the Stevens resolution by the House of {46} Representatives, only two of Mr. Johnson's reconstructed "States" had passed any laws upon these subjects. These two were Mississippi and South Carolina; and a close examination of the text of these enactments will hardly justify the interpretations placed upon them by the radical Republicans. The South Carolina Preliminary Act came first in the order of time. It provided that "all free negroes, mulattoes, and mestizos, all freedwomen, and all descendants through either sex of any of these persons, shall be known as _persons of color_, except that every such descendant, who may have of Caucasian blood seven-eighths, or more, shall be deemed a white person; that the statutes and regulations concerning slaves are now inapplicable to persons of color; and although such persons are not entitled to social or political equality with white persons, they shall have the right to acquire, own, and dispose of property, to make contracts, to enjoy the fruits of their labor, to sue and be sued, and to receive protection under the law in their persons and property"; and "that all rights and remedies respecting persons or property, and all duties and liabilities under laws civil and criminal, which apply to white persons, are extended to persons of color, subject to the modifications made by this act and the other acts hereinbefore mentioned." The acts to which this one was preliminary were not passed until the latter half of December, and could not have served, except by prevision, as grounds for the Stevens resolution. Moreover there was little in this Act which was really calculated to arouse any pronounced hostility at the North. It evidently recognized the emancipation of the former slaves, and the prohibition of future slavery, as fixed facts, and provided for substantial equality in civil rights between persons of color {47} and white persons. The discriminations which it referred to, rather than made, were those of a social and political nature, matters which to that time had been controlled, if controlled at all, wholly by the "States," except of course in those parts of the country in which "States" had not been erected. [Sidenote: The Mississippi Acts.]