New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1866-10-12
LOYALTY At THE SOUTH.

short extra session. took an important and laudabie
| stem toward the true restoration of the Union in
superscding or sotenng all acts which degrade and
Cypress tho majority of her people because OF their
race and color. We have already chronicled tho
fact bu! the act is that deserves to be placed on
| record Here are its exact terms
| AN ACT TO DECLARE THE RIoHTs OF PERSONS LATELY
KNOWN As SLAVES AND AS FREE PERSONS OF coLoh 8,
Re IL enacted de- That all persons hitherto known ~ "" 49,,
this State slaves free Of color shah ac ' h
right to make and enforce contracts 10 sue W. lease ali
atlantis and give evidence to inherit 70 pty make wills
hold convey and assign real and personal Opt Of the rights
and ana 70 nav" s% and property
of all remedies and proceedings for the enforcement nu pu
bee OF sg 10 "n other or different punishment pain
atty for the commission OF any S ~ ike acts or onss
SIC Tha. all and parts Of acts specially relating 70
aC slaves o a nS 1S with any Of it, provisions
be and and arc hereby repealed PROVIDED Inn,
eighth section OF an act entitled to establish
and regulate the domestic relations OF persons OF color ana 20
amend the law In relation paupers and yagany ratified the
twenty day December in the year Of Lord one thou
sand eight hundred and sixty i've enacts that marriages
and void"
This is a most comprehensive and admirable act;
and it is cheering TO note how few words OF righteous
legislation will dispose Of whole volumes of the other
sort Here is whole law library of acts, decisions,
dgests opinions and rulings, blotted out by two Sec
tions Of justice.
The South Carolina Whites, being decided mi
nority of the whole people, still retain in ther hands
monopoly of Office and political power. No colored
person can vote sit jury, or be even pathmss-
ter as their constitution aud laws now stand. This
is as unwse as selfish. If tho Whites had seen fit to
enact that in all cases of legal controversy between
Blacks, the issue should DO tried before Black jury,
or at least that the parties might have Black jury If
| - fbort hat oghnv
wisdom ana forecast, and would have made begin
ming toward educating their colored people for the
duties that will inevitably devolve them. 1t is
pity that statesmen think they cannot afford to do 80
well as they know.
As to the punishment of intermarriages between
Whites and Blacks high crime, we could abide 1t
with greater patience If immoral lewd connections
between suoh persons were likewise punished. Let
any State forbid and punish these connections, and
she may mako kindred marriages as penal as she
| chooses But 30 long as South Carolina allows her
wealthy, educated White men to keep colored mis-
| tresses with mpunty, not even rebuked by the law
80 long, at least. will her law against intermarrages
be scandalous wrong, and she shall be exhorted to
repent and amend.
OF course we all understand that the good intent Of
| this new act will not be realized at once. Whites
will continue to Cypress Blacks in spite OF the new
act and their superior wealth, intelligence and mo
nopoly of power will enable thom to do 1t with COM
paratiye impunity. But public opinion follows law
and gradually molds practice into conformity to 1t.
At first, Black sueing a White may be defeated in
court through tho sympathy Of White officers, jury
men, &C.; but the tendency toward improvement Will
DO steady and nyincble and, ere many years have
passed. the laws of South Carolina will DO even juster
than now rs well better enforced. We rejoice that
she is on the right road and has just taken along stride
thereon.
Now let us turn TO Texas. the most remote and least
thoroughly whipped State in the late Coniederacy.
| Her Legislature met August 6-beiore the Maine
election, while that OF South Carolina met directly
thereafter The very first bills submitted to it pro-
posed an appropriation Of $50 900 to buy wooden legs
for Confederate soldiers who had lost their legs in the
late Civil War. Common decency would have required
that this bill be 30 wOrded as TO provide wooden legs
| for all Texans 80 unfortunate as 10 need them but
| common decency does not rule in that Legislature.
/ The hearty Unionists OF Texas are at least one
fourth of her people and their full proportion Of
property; and it is not right to tax them TO provide
wooden legs especially for the Rebels who hunted,
tortured MANNED and murdered Unonists because of
their soldiers with wooden legs-mahogany, if they
wthey ought to do it, if it takes half their proper
ty-but they have no right to make Unonists foot
the bill. Yet the resolve promptly adopted, and
we presume some Yankee is BY this time supplying
Through a Southron) the legs.
On the seventh day Of the session, in the House
Mr. Jackson offered resolution instrcine the Committee
on Public Lands inquire into the expccny Of donating O
received in the ne mcapactaed for labor aud 10 re-
| port by bill or otherwise Adopted
- Here, again, is the common property Of all
Texans taken to reward men for fighting TO dissolve
the Union. 1t would have been barely decorous to
make this appropriation to all soldiers, Union or
Rebel, who had been disabled in the late War; but
no-the reconstructed provide for Rebels alone. 1t is
audacious
A bill was next submitted to the House proposing
the establishment Of County and District Common
Schools flor Whites only, with provso that no
Yankee Puritan shall ever be employed therein. We
have not learned its fate that Texas has yet en-
acted that whenever the play of Hamlet is performed
in that State, the part Of Hamlet shall be omitted.
Tn the Senate of this loyal State the following pro
ceedings were had:
Senator Shelley introduced resolution recting that the
State Cemetery has been lately used for the nermcnt OF
dead Federal soldiers The Senator thinks this ought TO be
emeed cemetery has only been used heretofore for the
names Of the distinguished Of Texas Here rpoed Bure
son Temphi McCulloch BENZ and McCloud II not ut
thai "any one should I've laid there by their side without
satng State lie moved that tract Of Government land
for this purpose and that the said Federal soldiers be dsn
Senator Foscue thought vile dust OF these mcrccnacs
was unworthy be mingled with that Of the distinguished
ery should moi be polluted by the entrance into Its sacred pre-
cincs Of such trash 1t notorious truth That the soldiers Of
n