Viewing page 22 of 89

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

and had he known as much about the case, of the first, as he did the last, he would have cleared them both. In the trial of the one he learned the true state of the case, which inabled him to successfully defend the latter.

The difficulty they have to collect by law what may be justly due them, in many cases amounts to an impossibility. You against me will state a case such as hundreds, have been brought to my notice in the past sixty days. 

A freedman engaged to work for the past year, for certain wages, by the year or month, or a portion of the crop, some difficulty arises between the employer and the freedmen, when the Freedmen is driven off, and the employer refuses to settle with him, and threatens [[strikethrough]] him [[/strikethrough]] to shoot him, or do him some other bodily harm, if he ever appears on or about his place again. Now the law of this state in this case is the same for both Black & White. But let us see how it works, the negro having nothing, is necessarily compelled to go to work, or he is liable to be taken up as a vagrant and punished by being placed to work in the chain gang, or upon the public works. If he conclude to sue, his claim after becoming fully satisfied his employer will not pay, he finds, he is compelled if the amount be under fifty dollars; [[strikethrough]] that to bring the case [[/strikethrough]] to bring his