Not only were offices withheld from them, and the right of suffrage denied, but they were not even allowed the privilege of an oath in court, in defense of their property or their persons.

They might be violently assaulted, their limbs broken, their wives and daughters might be outraged before their eyes by villains having white skins; yet they had no legal redress unless another white man chanced to see the deed.

It was not until 1824 that this oppressive enactment was repealed, and the protection of an oath extended to the colored people; nor was it then effected without a long struggle on their part.
Another law, equally worthy of a slaveholding legislature, prohibited any white man, however wealthy, bequeathing, or in any manner giving his colored son or daughter more than L2000 currency, or six thousand dollars.

The design of this law was to keep the colored people poor and dependent upon the whites.

Further to secure the same object, every effort, both legislative and private, was made to debar them from schools, and sink them in the lowest ignorance.