Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/360

326 their infliction into the hands of the “chief of patrol”—which, by the way, throws some light upon the objects for which the militia is to be reorganized—place the freedmen under a sort of permanent martial law, while the provision investing every white man with the power and authority of a police officer as against every black man subjects them to the control even of those individuals who in other communities are thought hardly fit to control themselves. On the whole, this piece of legislation is a striking embodiment of the idea that although the former owner has lost his individual right of property in the former slave, “the blacks at large belong to the whites at large.”

Such was the “organization of free labor” ordained by officials appointed by Governor Wells, and these ordinances were passed while both the emancipation proclamation and a provision in the new constitution of Louisiana abolishing slavery in that State forever were recognized as being in full force. It is needless to say that as soon as these proceedings came to the knowledge of the Freedmen's Bureau and the department commander they were promptly overruled. But Governor Wells did not remove the police boards that had thus attempted to revive slavery in a new form.

The opposition to the negro s controlling his own labor, carrying on business independently on his own account—in one word, working for his own benefit—showed itself in a variety of ways. Here and there municipal regulations were gotten up heavily taxing or otherwise impeding those trades and employments in which colored people are most likely to engage. An ordinance passed by the common council of Vicksburg is an illustration. A letter from Colonel Thomas says:

You will see by the city ordinance that a drayman, or hackman, must file a bond of five hundred dollars, in addition to