680 



SOULE, PIERRE. 



SOUTH CAROLINA. 



a little village of Navarre, where he remained 

 for more than a year, foil owing the occupation of 

 ashepherd. Finally, he was permitted to return, 

 and, in conjunction with Bartholemy and Me- 

 ry, he established a paper in Paris, entitled 

 Le Nain, advocating liberal republican senti- 

 ments. This soon brought him under the eye 

 of the authorities, and he was put on his trial. 

 His advocate appealed to the clemency of the 

 court in behalf of the prisoner on the score of 

 his youth, but this line of defence did not suit 

 the prisoner, who rose from his seat and ad- 

 dressed the court, defending his opinions and 

 conduct. His eloquence, however, did not 

 save him ; he was sentenced to pay a fine of 

 10,000 francs and be imprisoned in St. Pelagic, 

 whence he succeeded in making his escape 

 to England. Disappointed in his expectations, 

 he returned to France. At Havre he met a 

 friend, a captain in the French Navy, who ad- 

 vised him to seek an asylum in America, and 

 offered him a passage to Santo Domingo. He 

 accepted the proposition, and -arrived at Port- 

 au-Prince in September, 1825. From this place 

 he took passage to Baltimore, and finally reached 

 New Orleans in the fall of 1825. Having de- 

 termined to make the law his profession, he 

 first applied himself assiduously to the study of 

 English, and passed his examination for the 

 bar in that language, and was admitted. In 

 1847 he was elected a Senator in Congress, and 

 was reflected in 1849 for the term of six years. 

 He took a prominent part in the debate on the 

 Compromise measures of 1850, and offered an 

 important amendment to the report of the 

 Committee of Thirteen, which, however, was 

 not adopted. Upon the accession of Mr. 

 Pierce to the presidency in 1853, he was ap- 

 appojnted minister to Spain. Soon after his 

 arrival in that country, he became involved in 

 a quarrel with M. Turgot, the French ambas- 

 sador, and severely wounded him in a duel. 

 Mr. Soule, while minister to Spain, met Mr. 

 Buchanan, then minister to England, and Mr. 

 Mason, minister to France, at Ostend, in Octo- 

 ber, 1854, to deliberate on the subject of the 

 acquisition of Cuba by the United States. The 

 result of this meeting was the famous " Os- 

 tend Manifesto." In 1855 he returned to the 

 United States, and took but little part in pub- 

 lic affairs until the secession of Louisiana, 

 when he earnestly opposed the ordinance. Af- 

 ter its passage, however, he sympathized with 

 the people of Louisiana, but did not take np 

 arms. In the summer of 1861 he visited Eu- 

 rope, and acted as the diplomatic agent of the 

 Confederates, at the time of the capture of 

 Mason and Slidell. He returned soon after to 

 New Orleans, where he remained. When it 

 was captured by Farragut, and when General 

 Butler found it necessary, in 1862, to imprison 

 Mayor Monroe in order to place the city ful- 

 ly under the control of the Union authorities, 

 and at the same time Soul6, who had been 

 Monroe's adviser, was arrested for disloyalty 

 to the Government, but finally released on con- 



dition that he would leave the country and not 

 return until the suppression of the hostilities, 

 he went abroad, and remained in England and 

 France until a few months previous to his 

 death, when he returned to New Orleans. In 

 person Mr. Soul6 was of medium height, good 

 figure, and dark complexion. He was highly 

 accomplished, being one of the best educated 

 men in the South, and was a man of the most 

 polished manners. His French accent was plain- 

 ly apparent in his conversation, although he had 

 a perfect command of the English language. 



SOUTH CAROLINA. The Legislature, 

 which was in session at the beginning of the 

 year, continued its sittings until the 1st of 

 March, during which time much important 

 legislation was accomplished. General acts 

 were passed regulating the formation of corpo- 

 rations, and providing for the organization of 

 religious, charitable, and educational associa- 

 tions ; also acts to prevent bribery and cor- 

 ruption ; to carry into effect the provisions of 

 the constitution in relation to the rights of mar- 

 ried women ; to establish and maintain a sys- 

 tem of free common schools ; to provide for a 

 sinking fund, and the management of the same ; 

 and an act to incorporate the Wilmington and 

 South Carolina Railroad Company. The Le- 

 gislature, at a former session, had divided the 

 various counties (formerly districts) of the State 

 into townships, and provided for their organiza- 

 tion and government in imitation of the system 

 in New England. This measure in practice was 

 found to be inconvenient and expensive, owing 

 to the sparseness of the population, without any 

 countervailing advantages. The township sys- 

 tem was, accordingly, abolished at this session 

 of the Legislature. In accordance with the 

 recommendation of the commission appointed 

 to arrange and simplify the practice and pro- 

 cedure in the courts of the State, the Legisla- 

 ture adopted the New-York code of procedure 

 without any material change. A very strin- 

 gent law was passed against discrimination on 

 account of color, the scope of which is indi- 

 cated in the first section, as follows : 



It shall not be lawful for common carriers, or any 

 party engaged in any business, calling, or pursuit, for 

 the carrying on of which a license or charter is re- 

 quired by any law, municipal, State, or Federal, or by 

 any public rule or regulation, to discriminate between 

 persons on account of race, color, or previous con- 

 dition, who shall make lawful application for the 

 benefit of such business, calling, or pursuit. 



Any common carrier under any public li- 

 cense, or any conductor or manager of a theatre 

 or other licensed place of amusement, who 

 shall offend against this act, is liable, on con- 

 viction, to a fine of $1,000, and also to con- 

 finement at hard labor in the penitentiary. 

 Any one, not being a principal offender, who 

 may aid and abet another in committing an 

 offence against this act, shall be punished with 

 imprisonment at hard labor for five years in 

 the penitentiary. For the purpose of render- 

 ing more certain the conviction of any person 



