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 have been the merest nullity, and the parties must have been regarded under our laws, as lewdly associating and cohabiting together"[42]

The other States which prohibit intermarriage simply declare that marriage between white persons and Negroes is illegal and prescribe a punishment for the violation of the statute against miscegenation, but do not further define the legal effect of such a marriage contract. But whether the marriage is declared "void" or "null and void" or "absolutely void" or only "illegal," the result is the same.

PUNISHMENT FOR INTERMARRIAGE

Persons of different races who attempt to intermarry in violation of the laws subject themselves everywhere to severe penalties. In Alabama, the law says they shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary for not less than two, nor more than seven years. In Colorado, they are guilty of a misdemeanor and punishable by a fine of from fifty dollars to five hundred dollars, or imprisonment for not less than three months nor more than two years, or both. In Delaware, they are guilty of a misdemeanor and may be fined one hundred dollars. Florida says they shall be imprisoned in the State penitentiary not exceeding ten years or fined not exceeding one thousand dollars. In Indiana, if they knowingly violate the law—that is, if the white person knows the other is a Negro or of mixed blood—they are fined not less than one hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars, or imprisoned in the State prison not less than one nor more than ten years. Maryland declares that they are guilty of an infamous crime, punish