Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1866-05-22
Labor Laws I'm Louisiana.

From the New York Tribune, May IO.l
Ex-Governor Hahn of Louisiana-who
never was reckoned a very tempestuous
/ radical-has written a letter to Senator
Howe in calculation ofthe laws passed by
the Louisiana Legislature relating TO
freedmen. The Louisiana Legislature had
no doubt Of the merit of their work, for
they printed it ali in a pamphlet-but
that was for home consumption, and cal
culated, like the almanacs, for tie meridian
of New Orleans. OF the code as a whole,
Gov. Hahn justly remarks that however
much credit may be due for the skin with
which the dnimus of these laws was sought
to be disguised, there is nevertheless really
very little desire to do justice to one-half
of the people of Louisiana
The first statute requires the freedmen
within the first ten days of January Of
each year to make contracts for the whole
year. That is what is called free labor in
Louisiana. Suppose we transfer it to New
York, in order to test its value. Put a law
in the statute book of this State, requiring
every mechanic or day laborer on a farm
to dispose Of himself for the whole year
by q bargain to be made in the first ten
days Of the year. If he refuse, if he can
not make a bargain to his liking, if he
find capital leagued to control the labor
market during those ten days, if he see
employers conspiring to fix wages at five
dollars q month, and therefore the me-
chanie or laborer decline to sell himself
for such a price-call him a vagrant, sub
ject him to arrest by a Justice of the
Peace, and sell him at auction, or put him
at forced labor as punishment for his
contunacious independence. That is
what the law of Louisiana does for her
free laborers. We can imagine what the
w~orkingmen of New York would think
of it. They would say this is a law
which makes a laborer nominally free for
ten days in the year, and really a slave
for the other three hundred and fifty-nve.
They would say, we will not respect nor
obey a law so foolish, unjust, rand inhu-
man. And they Ewould be right. Is
there, then, any difference between New
York and Louisiana which can make a.
statute which would be wicked here a
righteous law there?
The contract required in Louisiana
must be entered into in writing before q
Of the peace, and when written
aAdAA 10 COnCAuhANo SNlQcuc6 OF the IN Il
tent of the parties thereto One of the
thereto is a negro who by the law
Of the State for fifty years has been for
hidden to learn to read or write. How is
to know what the written instrument
contains? There are to be two sdisin-
Witnesses Who can they be
Not negroes, who can witness nothing
white men, planters, planters friends,
1eighbors of the justice and of the
with every bias on the side of
heir own race, and every prejudice
the negro. A contract thus en-
orced, thus put in writing, and thus wit
lessed, is practically a contract of which
he freedman knows nothing, in which he
las no representative, and in which his
interests are at the mercy of those whose
interests are in every way opposed to his.
The workingmen Of New York may
az this distant injustice does not concern
hem. They are mistaken. They will
ct learn that the interests of labor arc
ne same throughout the country, and
nat it is not possible to pass q law OPP
labor in Louisiana that does not
.rike at the rights of labor in New York.