Читать книгу Race Distinctions in American Law - Gilbert Thomas Stephenson - Страница 22

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A fruitful subject of legislation was that relative to the sale of firearms to Negroes. On January 15, 1866, the legislature of Florida^[84] enacted a law declaring that it was unlawful for a Negro to own, use, or keep in his possession or control “any bowie-knife, dirk, sword, firearms or ammunition of any kind” unless he had obtained a license from the probate judge of the county. To get the license, he had to present the certificate of two respectable citizens of the county as to the peaceful and orderly character of the applicant. The violation of this statute was a misdemeanor punishable by the forfeiture to the use of the informer of such firearms and ammunition and by standing in a pillory one hour or by being whipped not over thirty-nine stripes.

In Mississippi^[85] the law was that any freedman, free Negro, or mulatto, not in the military service of the United States nor having a specified license, who should keep or carry firearms of any kind or any ammunition, dirk, or bowie-knife should be punished by a fine of not over ten dollars, and all such arms, etc., should be forfeited to the informer. The law further provided that, if any white person lent or gave a freedman, free Negro, or mulatto any firearms, ammunition, dirk, or bowie-knife, such white person should be fined not over fifty dollars, or imprisoned not over thirty days. South Carolina^[86] did allow a Negro who was the owner of a farm, to keep a “shot-gun or rifle, such as is ordinarily used in hunting, but not a pistol, musket, or other firearm or weapon appropriate for purposes of war.”

It has been seen that some States forbade Negroes to make or sell intoxicating liquor. Others went a step further and made it unlawful to sell liquor to Negroes. It is worth noting that one of the early acts of the legislature of Alabama^[87] was to repeal such a law. But Kentucky^[88] forbade a coffee-house keeper to sell liquor to free Negroes under penalty of a bond of five hundred dollars. Mississippi^[89] made it an offence, punishable by a fine of not over fifty dollars or imprisonment for not more than thirty days, for a white man to sell, give, or lend a Negro any intoxicating liquors, except that a master, mistress, or employer might give him spirituous liquors, but not in quantities sufficient to produce intoxication.

These laws against the sale of firearms and liquor to Negroes probably grew out of a fear by the white people of a Negro uprising, such as had occurred during slavery. The South was in such a turmoil immediately after the War that stringent precautionary measures were considered necessary. These statutes have analogies in the present laws of the Western States against the sale of firearms and liquor to Indians. The law of Arizona^[90] declares that anyone who sells or gives intoxicating liquor to an Indian is guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be punished by a fine of between one hundred and three hundred dollars or imprisoned between one and six months, or both. The sale or gift or repair of firearms was added in 1883.^[91] Idaho^[92] has a law very much the same, making the fine, however, not over five hundred dollars or the term of imprisonment not over six months, or both. Dakota Territory,^[93] in 1865, made it a misdemeanor to sell or give liquor to Indians. Nebraska,^[94] in 1881, made it an offence punishable by a fine of fifty dollars to sell liquor to them, and in 1891 made it a felony to sell or give liquor to any Indian not a citizen, attaching a fine of not over one thousand dollars or imprisonment in the penitentiary between two and five years. New Mexico^[95] makes the punishment a fine between twenty and one hundred dollars or imprisonment not over three months. Utah^[96] makes the punishment a fine between ten and one hundred dollars. The law of Oregon^[97] made it lawful for every white male citizen of the age of sixteen to keep and carry certain arms, impliedly denying that right to other races. Washington^[98] made the punishment for selling or giving liquor to Indians a fine of between twenty-five and one hundred dollars. As late as 1903 one finds in the revised statutes of Maine^[99] a provision that one who sells or gives to an Indian intoxicating liquors forfeits not less than five nor more than twenty dollars, one-half to complainant. It must be clear that the foregoing laws were not passed solely for the moral uplift of the Indian, but quite as much as a protection to white people from drunken Indians. A similar motive must have actuated the Southern States in enacting the laws of 1865–1868, and it has been, at least, one incentive for the present prohibition legislation in the South.