It was not only a proof of cruelty enacted into law, but was such a defiance to the spirit of the Emancipation amendment that it subjected the Legislature which approved the amendment and enacted these laws, to a charge of inconsistency so grave as to make the former act appear in the light of both a legal and moral fraud.
It was declaring the negro to be free by one statute, and immediately proceeding to re-enslave him by another.
By a previous law Louisiana had provided that all agricultural laborers should be compelled to "make contracts for labor during the first ten days of January for the entire year." With a demonstrative show of justice it was provided that "wages due shall be a lien on the crop, one-half to be paid at times agreed by the parties, the other half to be retained until the completion of the contract; but in case of sickness of the laborer, wages for the time shall be deducted, and where the sickness is supposed to be feigned for the purpose of idleness, double the amount shall be deducted; and should the refusal to work extend beyond three days, the negro shall be forced to labor on roads, levees, and public works without pay." The master was permitted to make deduction from the laborer's wages for "injuries done to animals or agricultural implements committed to his care, or for bad or negligent work," he, of course, being the judge.

"For every act of disobedience a fine of one dollar shall be imposed upon the laborer;" and among the cases deemed to be disobedience were "impudence, swearing, or using indecent language in the presence of the employer, his family, or his agent, or quarreling or fighting among one another." It has been truthfully said of this provision that the master or his agent might assail the ear with profaneness aimed at the negro man, and outrage every sense of decency in foul language addressed to the negro woman; but if one of the helpless creatures, goaded to resistance and crazed under tyranny, should answer back with impudence, or should relieve his mind with an oath, or retort indecency upon indecency, he did so at the cost to himself of one dollar for every outburst.

The agent referred to in the statute was the well-known overseer of the cotton region, who was always coarse and often brutal, sure to be profane, and scarcely knowing the border-line between ribaldry and decency.

The care with which the law-makers of Louisiana provided that his delicate ears and sensitive nerves should not be offended with an oath or with an indelicate word from a negro, will be appreciated by all who have heard the crack of the whip on a Southern plantation.
The wrongs inflicted under the name of law, thus far recited, were still further aggravated in a majority of the rebellious States by the exaction of taxes from the colored man to an amount altogether disproportionate to their property.

Indeed, of property they had none.
Just emerging from a condition of slavery in which their labor had been constantly exacted without fee or reward of any kind, it was impossible that they could be the owners of any thing except their own bodies.