The Black Codes
Essay by 24 • December 9, 2010 • 4,521 Words (19 Pages) • 3,322 Views
The Black Codes
The Black Codes were laws passed on the state and local level mainly in the rural Southern states in the United
States to restrict the civil rights and civil liberties of African Americans. While some northern states also
passed legislation discriminating against African Americans before the Civil War, the term Black Codes is
most commonly associated with legislation passed by Southern states after the Civil War in an attempt to
control the labor, movements and activities of African Americans.
An Act to Confer Civil Rights on Freedmen, and for other Purposes
Section1. All freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes may sue and be sued, implead and be impleaded, in
all the courts of law and equity of this State, and may acquire personal property, and chooses in action, y
descent or purchase, and may dispose of the same in the same manner and to the same extent that
white persons may: Provided, That the provisions of this section shall not be so construed as to allow any
freedman, free negro or mulatto to rent or lease any lands or tenements except in incorporated cities or
towns, in which places the corporate authorities shall control the same.
Section2. All freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes may intermarry with each other, in the same
manner and under the same regulations that are provided by law for white persons: Provided, that the
clerk of probate shall keep separate records of the same.
Section3. All freedmen, free negroes or mullatoes who do now and have herebefore lived and cohabited
together as husband and wife shall be taken and held in law as legally married, and the issue shall be
taken and held as legitimate for all purposes; and it shall not be lawful for any freedman, free negro or
mulatto to intermarry with any white person; nor for any person to intermarry with any freedman, free
negro or mulatto; and any person who shall so intermarry shall be deemed guilty of felony, and on
conviction thereof shall be confined in the State penitentiary for life; and those shall be deemed
freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes who are of pure negro blood, and those descended from a negro
to the third generation, inclusive, though one ancestor in each generation may have been a white person.
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Section4. In addition to cases in which freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes are now by law competent
witnesses, freedmen, free negroes or mulattoes shall be competent in civil cases, when a party or parties
to the suit, either plaintiff or plaintiffs, defendant or defendants; also in cases where freedmen, free
negroes and mulattoes is or are either plaintiff or plaintiffs, defendant or defendants. They shall also be
competent witnesses in all criminal prosecutions where the crime charged is alleged to have been
committed by a white person upon or against the person or property of a freedman, free negro or
mulatto: Provided, that in all cases said witnesses shall be examined in open court, on the stand; except,
however, they may be examined before the grand jury, and shall in all cases be subject to the rules and
tests of the common law as to competency and credibility.
Section5. Every freedman, free negro and mulatto shall, on the second Monday of January, one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, and annually thereafter, have a lawful home or employment, and
shall have written evidence thereof as follows, to wit: if living in any incorporated city, town, or village, a
license from that mayor thereof; and if living outside of an incorporated city, town, or village, from the
member of the board of police of his beat, authorizing him or her to do irregular and job work; or a
written contract, as provided in Section 6 in this act; which license may be revoked for cause at any time
by the authority granting the same.
Section6. All contracts for labor made with freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes for a longer period
than one month shall be in writing, and a duplicate, attested and read to said freedman, free negro or
mulatto by a beat, city or county officer, or two disinterested white persons of the county in which the
labor is to performed, of which each party shall have one: and said contracts shall be taken and held as
entire contracts, and if the laborer shall quit the service of the employer before the expiration of his term
of service, without good cause, he shall forfeit his wages for that year up to the time of quitting.
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Section7. Every civil officer shall, and every person may, arrest and carry back to his or her legal
employer any freedman, free negro, or mulatto who shall have quit the service of his or her employer
before the expiration of his or her term of service without good cause; and said officer and person shall
be entitled to receive for arresting and carrying back every deserting employee aforesaid the sum of five
dollars, and ten cents per mile from the place of arrest to the place of delivery; and the same shall be
paid
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