Usually one must be an elector to be qualified for jury service. The great majority of the Negroes have been unable to satisfy the suffrage tests and have been disfranchised. They are, consequently, not electors and not eligible to serve as jurors. Hence, if the selection of jurors is conducted with absolute impartiality, there will be comparatively few Negroes retained.
SEPARATE COURTS
South Carolina appears to be the only State which has ever provided a separate court for the trial of cases in which Negroes have interests at issue. That was called the District Court, provided for by a statute[60] approved December 19, 1865, which statute was repealed September 21, 1866; so the law was in force less than a year. The seventh section of the act of forty-nine sections is: "The District Court shall have exclusive jurisdiction, subject to appeal, of all civil cases where one or both of the parties are persons of color, and of all criminal cases wherein the accused is a person of color, and also of all cases of misdemeanor affecting the person or property of a person of color, and of all cases of bastardy, and of all cases of vagrancy, not tried before a Magistrate. . . ." The Magistrate was given jurisdiction over small disputes, controversies and complaints that arose in his neighborhood between persons of color, or between persons of color and white persons, and of petty misdemeanors committed by or toward persons of color, between master and servant, between master and apprentice, and between employer and laborer, and civil suits involving not over twenty dollars
