The entire code of Mississippi for freedmen was in the spirit of the laws quoted.

Justice was defied, and injustice incorporated as the very spirit of the laws.

It was altogether a shameless proclamation of indecent wrong on the part of the Legislature of Mississippi.
Louisiana probably attained the worst eminence in this vicious legislation.

At the very moment when the Thirty-ninth Congress was assembling to consider the condition of the Southern States and the whole subject of their reconstruction, it was found that a bill was pending in the Legislature of Louisiana providing that "every adult freed man or woman _shall furnish themselves with a comfortable home and visible means of support within twenty days after the passage of this act,_" and that "any freed man or woman failing to obtain a home and support as thus provided shall be immediately arrested by any sheriff or constable in any parish, or by the police officer in any city or town in said parish where said freedman may be, and by them delivered to the Recorder of the parish, and by him hired out, by public advertisement, to some citizen, being the highest bidder, for the remainder of the year." And in case the laborer should leave his employer's service without his consent, "he shall be arrested and assigned to labor on some public works without compensation until his employer reclaims him." The laborers were not to be allowed to keep any live-stock, and all time spent from home without leave was to be charged against them at the rate of two dollars per day, and worked at that rate.

Many more provisions of the same general character were contained within the bill, the whole character and scope of which were forcibly set before the Senate by Mr.Wilson of Massachusetts.