Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/106

 court[44] held that the difference of punishment was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, but that the law against intermarriage was constitutional. Virginia provides that the parties shall be confined in the penitentiary not less than two nor more than five years. West Virginia would confine them in jail not over one year and fine them not exceeding one hundred dollars. Thus, it appears that in most of the States intermarriage is considered a very serious offence, ranking in Colorado, Delaware, Nevada, and South Carolina, as a misdemeanor; in Louisiana and North Carolina as an infamous crime; and in Tennessee and Oklahoma as a felony.

PUNISHMENT FOR ISSUING LICENSES

With no less severity do the States punish those who issue licenses to persons of one race to marry those of another. Alabama declares that anyone knowingly issuing a license for the marriage of a white and colored person shall be fined not less than one hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars and may also be imprisoned in the county jail or sentenced to hard labor for the county for not more than six months. Colorado makes it a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of one hundred dollars. Florida punishes it by imprisonment not exceeding two years or a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars. North Carolina simply declares it to be a misdemeanor without prescribing any punishment different from that for other misdemeanors. Oklahoma makes it a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not less than one hundred nor more than five hundred dollars, or imprisonment in the county