Reconstruction and the Constitution, 1866-1876Burgess, John William
History
Reconstruction and the Constitution, 1866-1876
Burgess, John William
Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877); United States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1877
The second Act provided, that "all free negroes and freedmen in the
State, over the age of eighteen years, found on the second Monday in
January, 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business, or
found unlawfully assembling themselves together, either in the day or
night time, and all white persons so assembling with freedmen, free
negroes, or mulattoes, or usually associating with freedmen, free
negroes, or mulattoes on terms of equality, or living in adultery or
fornication with a freedwoman, free negro or mulatto, shall be deemed
vagrants, and on conviction thereof, shall be {49} fined in the sum of
not exceeding, in the case of a freedman, free negro or mulatto, fifty
dollars, and in the case of a white man, two hundred dollars, and
imprisoned, at the discretion of the court, the free negro not
exceeding ten days, and the white man not exceeding six months."
It further provided, that in case the freedman, free negro or mulatto
should not pay the fine within five days from the time of its
infliction, the sheriff of the proper county should hire him or her out
to any person who would for the shortest period of service pay the fine
and all costs, giving the preference, however, to the employer of the
freedman, negro or mulatto, if there should be any, and, if no person
would hire the same, should hold him or her to be dealt with as a
pauper. It also provided that the freedman, free negro, or mulatto
refusing or failing to pay a tax should be dealt with by the sheriff in
the same manner.
And it provided, finally, that the same duties and liabilities existing
among white persons in the "State" to support indigent whites should
attach to freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes in regard to the support
of colored paupers, and that in order to carry out the same a poll tax,
not exceeding one dollar a head, should be levied on every freedman,
free negro, and mulatto, between the ages of eighteen and sixty years,
and should be collected and paid into the hands of the treasurers of
the counties to be used in the support of colored paupers.
The third Act provided, that freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes might
acquire, hold, and dispose of, personal property in the same manner and
to the same extent as white persons, and might sue and be sued in all
the courts of the "State" as white persons, but that they should not
rent or lease lands or tenements except in {50} incorporated towns or
cities, and under the control of the corporate authorities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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