I Must Mention, In Explanation, That One Of The Laws Passed Directly After The Insurrection, Was To Prohibit Negroes, On

Any pretence, to be out after nine, p.m. At that hour, the city guard, armed with muskets and bayonets,

Patrolled the streets, and apprehended every negro, male or female, they found abroad. It was a stirring scene, when the drums beat at the guard-house in the public square I have before described, preparatory to the rounds of the soldiers, to witness the negroes scouring the streets in all directions, to get to their places of abode, many of them in great trepidation, uttering ejaculations of terror as they ran. This was an inexorable law, and punishment or fine was sure to follow its dereliction, no excuse being available, and as the owners seldom submitted to pay the fine, the slaves were compelled to take the consequences, which, in the language that consigned them to the cruel infliction, "consisted of from ten to twenty lashes, well laid on with a raw-hide," a murderous whip, which draws blood after the first few strokes, and is as torturing, I should imagine, as the Russian knout, certainly proving in many instances as fatal as that odious instrument. The crowning severity of the enactments I have referred to, remains, however, to be told. So heinous in a negro, is the crime of lifting his hand in opposition to a white man in South Carolina, that the law adjudges that the offending member shall be forfeited. This is, or was, quite as inexorable as the one I have before spoken of, and when in Charleston, I frequently, amongst the flocks of negroes passing and repassing, saw individuals with one hand only. Like the administration of miscalled justice on negroes in all slave-holding states in America, the process was summary; the offender was arrested, brought before the bench of sitting magistrates, and on the _ex parte_[A] statement of his accuser, condemned to mutilation, being at once marched out to the rear of the building and the hand lopped off on a block fixed there for the purpose. I noticed a block and axe myself in the yard of a building near the town-hall, and on looking at them closely, saw they were stained almost black, with what I have little hesitation in saying was human blood. My conductor, however, tried to divert my attention from the object, and knowing I was an Englishman, refused to enter on the subject.

[FOOTNOTE A: The writer was assured, when in Charleston, that this was the case in five out of every six cases.]

Another of the many cruel laws put in force after the _emeute_ of the negroes, was to prohibit any coloured person from walking on the pavements, and forcing all males to salute every white they met. These distinctions, although falling into disuse, are not even yet abolished, but still, with many others equally odious, disgrace the Carolinean statute book. I saw several negroes from the plantation districts, walking in the road instead of on the pavement, in accordance with this law, touching their hats to every white passer-by; they were consequently obliged to be continually lifting their hands to their heads, for they passed white people at every step.

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