slave. But, on the other hand, many of the requirements were for the protection of the Negro. Such, for instance, were the statutes requiring contracts for service to be in writing and the terms of them explained to the Negro; that helpless ex-slaves should not be evicted from their old homes within two years from January 1, 1865; that Negro paupers should be cared for; and that the master must teach his apprentice to read and write, must give him good food and clothing, and treat him humanely.
A discussion, however, of the merits of these early laws is out of place here. But it is only fair to remember, in reading them, that the Southern legislatures were, in many instances, only following precedents that had been set by the free States in dealing with free Negroes, and that the States, either Northern or Southern, had not yet looked upon the Negro as a citizen with the rights guaranteed him by the amended Federal Constitution. Industrial conditions in the South were so demoralized by the War and Emancipation that the legislatures considered it imperative upon them to take immediate and positive steps to establish an industrial relation between the races.
Practically all of these laws were repealed or became dead letters as soon as the Fourteenth Amendment was passed or, at least, as soon as the government of the Southern States went into the hands of the Reconstructionists. But they are still interesting historically as having furnished an argument for the radical régime of Reconstruction which Thaddeus Stevens and his supporters inaugurated and advanced.
