The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1866-11-14
CHI A r L E S T ON .
WEDNESDAY MORNING. NOVEMBER IA, 1866.
NEGRO BONDS.

1t has rarely happened that any people has
been in such state of uncertainty upon the
subject of their legal rights as are the people
of the Southern States at the present time.
revolution 80 radical has seldom been before.
The political structure hoo boon ovorthrown;
constitutions have been abrogated; q people
who have governed themselves have hopelessly
come to the government Of others; four years
oflegislation has been run upon them without
their knowledge of the fact; for four years they
were violating laws of whose existence they
were unconscious; their domestic relations
have been broken; that which was property
has become n people; IN enormous chattel inter
est has been Withdrawn from us, to be vested
with legal rights we are bound to respect; for
the purchase of that property they incurred
obligations after il was declared not to be pro-
perty by the General Governments; real and
personal estate was purchased by men who
were declared by acts of Congress not to be
capable of making legal contracts; for four
years and more our only medium of exchange
was a currency which snow declared to have had
paid; in reference to that, obligations were in
Cured; in that currency and in bonds Of the
Confederacy the estates of minors, lunatics and
distributes of decedents were invested; in
that were paid the proceeds Of sales into the
hands of public officers; the debts due to men
and merchants at the North were taken by force
of the then existing law into the Confederate
Treasury from oil these varied facts result
a mass of legal questions without parallel in
b,,n btofn {ha r;o oP oil
classes and conditions. There is scarce an in
dividual, from infancy to age, without some,
interest involved; upon these there has yet
been no opportunity for adjudication; upon
facts SO novel there is no one can determine
what the adjudication will be; the pre-existing
law is but an insufficient guide to them; and
such state Of uncertainty, therefore, in refer
ence to their legal rights, has rarely disturbed
the peace and composure of people.
Among these questions tho most interesting
perhaps, arises in reference to the validity of
obligations incurred in the purchase of negro
property. Negroes were regarded as property
long after they were declared not to be so by
proclamation of the President under the au-
thority of nm act of Congress; and to debts so
contracted there is n very common feeling that
there is the right to plead want, or failure of,
consideration. The general allegation is that,
| inasmuch as they were not slaves by reason of
| n proclamation which, whatever may have been
its legal efficacy, came in fact to have the force
and effect of law, the thing that was purchased
was without existence, and, 30, could not sus-
tain valid contract; and, though it is admit
| ted that in cases free from fraud or other
imposition, n very slight consideration, and,
therefore, mere transfer of the possession Of
the subject, would be sufficient to sustain pro-
misc in consistcnce with general law upon the
subject of contracts; yet, in this State ut least,
the rule of discount has been much extended.
Defendants have been at liberty to plead de-
hciency IN the quantity, of defect in the title
quality of land, unsoundness or defects, or in
suiciency of estate in personal property. And
1t is contendcd that under tho principles of
these decisions, the want of the element of pro-
perty in the negro, which was the considcra-
tion Of purchase, would be legitimate subject
of offset.
The objection, however, to the validity of on
legations incurred in the purchase of slaves, is
not confined to that class of cases which has