Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2: From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860Blaine, James Gillespie
History
Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2: From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860
Blaine, James Gillespie
United States -- History; United States -- History -- 1865-1898
Accompanying the Act establishing this court was a law prescribing
additional penalties for the commission of offenses against the State;
and this, like the former, was framed especially for the negro. Its
first section provided that where punishment of an offense had hitherto
been limited to fine or imprisonment, there should be superadded, as
an alternative, the punishment of standing in the pillory for one hour,
or whipping, not exceeding thirty-nine lashes, on the bare back. The
latter punishment was reserved expressly for the negro. It was
provided further that it "shall not be lawful for any negro, mulatto,
or person of color to own, use, or keep and bowie-knife, dirk, sword,
fire-arms, or ammunition of any kind, unless he first obtain a license
to do so from the judge of probate for the county in which he is a
resident." The judge could issue the license to him only upon
recommendation of two respectable white men. Any negro attempting to
keep arms of any kind was to be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor,
compelled to "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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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