This section also provides that any prisoner not consenting to work before his conviction for the contractor, and that too, without compensation, “If said prisoner shall afterward be convicted, he shall, nevertheless, work under said contractor a sufficient term to pay all cost of prosecution, including the regular jail fees for keeping and feeding him.” The charge for feeding him, upon the meagre bill of fare above stated, is twenty cents a day.
Now, it cannot be denied that the use made of this law is to deprive the negro of his natural right to choose his own employer; and in the following manner: Let us suppose a case, and such cases are constantly occurring. A is a cotton planter, owns three or four thousand acres of land, and has forty, fifty, or one hundred negro families on his plantation. At the expiration of the year, a negro proposes to leave the plantation of A, and try to better his condition by making a more advantageous bargain with B, or C, for another year. If A can prevent the negro from leaving him in no other way, this statute puts full power in his hands. A trumps up some petty charge against the negro, threatens to have him arrested and committed to jail. The negro knows how little it will take to commit him to jail, and that then he must half starve on a pound of bread and water and six ounces of bacon a day, or work for the contractor for nothing until he can be tried; and when tried he must run the risk of conviction, which is not slight, though he may be ever so innocent. Avarice—unscrupulous avarice—is pursuing him, and with little power to resist, there being no healthy public sentiment in favor of fair play to encourage him, he yields, and becomes the peon of his oppressor.
Now, it cannot be denied that the use made of this law is to deprive the negro of his natural right to choose his own employer; and in the following manner: Let us suppose a case, and such cases are constantly occurring. A is a cotton planter, owns three or four thousand acres of land, and has forty, fifty, or one hundred negro families on his plantation. At the expiration of the year, a negro proposes to leave the plantation of A, and try to better his condition by making a more advantageous bargain with B, or C, for another year. If A can prevent the negro from leaving him in no other way, this statute puts full power in his hands. A trumps up some petty charge against the negro, threatens to have him arrested and committed to jail. The negro knows how little it will take to commit him to jail, and that then he must half starve on a pound of bread and water and six ounces of bacon a day, or work for the contractor for nothing until he can be tried; and when tried he must run the risk of conviction, which is not slight, though he may be ever so innocent. Avarice—unscrupulous avarice—is pursuing him, and with little power to resist, there being no healthy public sentiment in favor of fair play to encourage him, he yields, and becomes the peon of his oppressor.
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