SOUTH CAROLINA. 



765 



is bound to give the character of one who has 

 been in his service to any person who may make 

 inquiry, and in case he shall wilfully and falsely 

 represent it to be otherwise than it really is, 

 either for moral qualities or for skill or expe- 

 rience in any employment, he shall be liable to 

 an action for damages, to the party aggrieved. 

 The master may discharge the servant on the 

 ensuing grounds the wilful disobedience of 

 lawful orders; habitual negligence or indolence 

 in business; drunkenness; gross moral or legal 

 misconduct, and habitual want of respect or 

 civility to himself, family, guests, or agents ; but 

 if the servant is wrongfully discharged from his 

 service, he shall recover wages for the whole 

 period of service according to the contract, 

 whether or not his wages have been paid to 

 the period of his discharge. 



The servant is justified in departing the ser- 

 vice and dissolving the contract for an insuffi- 

 cient supply of wholesome food, for an unauthor- 

 ized battery upon his own person, or one of his 

 family, for habitual drunkenness of the master, 

 for invasion of his conjugal rights, for violent 

 and menacing conduct, and for failure to pay 

 wages when due. He is entitled to a certificate 

 of his character at the termination of the con- 

 tract. 



So also provisions are made for those who 

 are employed as house servants. Regulations 

 are likewise created for the support and care 

 of paupers, for the suppression of vagrancy and 

 idleness, for the establishment of district courts, 

 and of enabling all within the limits of the 

 State to have some lawful and respectable em- 

 ployment, and to possess r- fair, honest, and 

 respectable livelihood. 



The criminal law is carefully revised and 

 placed in plain and intelligent language. On 

 the subject of testimony it is declared that " in 

 every case, civil or criminal, in which a person 

 of color is a party, or which affects his person 

 or property, persons of color shall be competent 

 witnesses ; and in every case either party may 

 offer testimony as to his own character or that 

 of his adversary, all parties to suits being al- 

 lowed to give evidence." 



In May the Chief Justice of the United States, 

 Mr. Chase, being in Charleston, addressed an 

 assemblage of freedmen. In allusion to the 

 elective franchise for them, he said : 



Major Delany has said that he heard me say in the 

 hall of the House of Representatives at Washington, 

 that I knew no reason why the hand that- laid down 

 the bayonet might not take up the ballot. If he had 

 listened to me twenty years ago, in the city of Cincin- 

 nati, he might have heard me say substantially the 

 same thing. But the colored man did not get the 

 elective franchise because I said it then. Quite pos- 

 sibly he may not now. Certainly, however, events 

 have progressed remarkably in that direction. If 

 everybody in this city saw things exactly as I see 

 them, if they felt as I feel, that it would be desirable, 

 on account of the general interests, that every man 

 should have the same rights before the law in the 

 elective franchise as in every thing else, it would 

 come to you very soon. But there is not that agree- 

 ment. Having nothing to do with politics, I am not 

 prepared to say what will be the action of the Govern- 



ment. I am no longer in its counsels, and therefore 

 do not know what it is prepared to do. I will only 

 say this : I believe there is not a member of the Gov- 

 ernment who would not be pleased to see universal 

 suffrage. 



But I am not ready to say that the Government 

 will now establish universal suffrage. This I do not 

 know. If you are patient, and constantly show by 

 your acts that you merit the right of suffrage, then 

 you can be safely trusted with it. That in your 

 hands it will be on the side of order and liberty and 

 education, reasoning upon general principles, I can 

 safely say you will get the elective franchise in a very 

 short period. I trust it will not find you unprepared". 



threats and misbehavior. You can get it by patience 

 and perseverance in well-doing. 



A State Convention of the delegates of the 

 colored people was held in November, at which 

 an address was issued to the white people of 

 the State. The object of the Convention is 

 stated to have been " to confer together and to 

 deliberate npon our intellectual, moral, indus- 

 trial, civil, and political condition, particularly 

 as affected by the great changes in the State 

 and country," etc. The following is an extract 

 from the address : 



We ask for no special privileges, or peculiar favors 

 We ask only for even-handed justice for the re- 

 moval of such positive obstructions and disabilities 

 as past and recent legislation has thrown in our way 

 and headed upon us. Without any just cause or 

 provocation on our part, we, by the action of your 

 Convention and Legislature, have, with few excep- 

 tions, been virtually excluded 



1. From the rights of citizenship, which you cheer- 

 fully accord to -strangers, notwithstanding we have 

 been born and reared in your midst, and were faith- 

 ful while your greatest trials were upon you, and have 

 done nothing since which could justly merit your dis- 

 approbation. 



2. We are denied the right of giving our testimony 

 in the courts of the State, in consequence of which 

 our persons and property are subject, the former to 

 every species of violence and insult, and the latter to 

 fraud and spoliation without redress. 



3. We are also, by the present laws, not only de- 

 nied the right of citizenship the inestimable right 

 of choosing who shall rule over us in the land of our 

 birth, but by the so-called "Black Code" we are de- 

 prived of the rights which are vouchsafed to the low- 

 est white profligate in the country* the right to en- 

 gage in any legitimate business save under such un- 

 just restraints as are imposed on no other class of peo- 

 ple in the State. 



4. You have, by legislative action, placed barriers 

 in the way of our improvement in the arts and sci- 

 ences. You have given us little or no encourage- 

 ment to engage in agricultural pursuits, by refusing 

 to sell us lands, while you are organizing societies to 

 bring foreigners into the country, the clear intent of 

 which is to thrust us out, or reduce us to a serfdom 

 intolerable to us, and, as you will find in the end, 

 ruinous to your own prosperity. 



5. Your public journals wickedly charge us with 

 destroying the products of the country since we have 

 been made free, when they know that the country, 

 and the products thereof, were destroyed by a deso- 

 lating war of four years, in which we had no hand. 

 How unjust tq*fharge upon the innocent and helples? 

 the very crimes which yourselves have committed, 

 and which brought down ruin upon your own heads I 



* This refers to a license or certificate that tho mechanic 

 has duly served an apprenticeship. 



