with another, or to persuade or entice a farm laborer to leave his
employer.

The Georgia laws are a little stronger in this respect than the laws of
the other States. By section 121, of the Code of Georgia, 1895, it is
provided, "that if any person shall, by offering higher wages, or in any
other way entice, persuade or decoy, or attempt to entice, persuade or
decoy any farm laborer from his employer, he shall be guilty of a
misdemeanor." Again, by act of December 17th, 1901, the Georgia
Legislature passed a law making it an offense to rent land, or furnish
land to a farm laborer, after he has contracted with another landlord,
without first obtaining the consent of the first landlord.

The presence of large numbers of negroes in the towns and cities of the
South and North can be accounted for by such laws as the above,
administered by ignorant country magistrates, in nearly all cases the
pliant tools of the landlords.

The boldest and most open violation of the negro's rights under the
Federal Constitution, was the enactment of the grand-father clauses, and
understanding clauses in the new Constitutions of Louisiana, Alabama, the
Carolinas, and Virginia, which have had the effect to deprive the great
body of them of the right to vote in those States, for no other reason
than their race and color. Although thus depriving him of his vote, and
all voice in the State governments at the South, in all of them his
property is taxed to pay pensions to Confederate soldiers, who fought to
continue him in slavery. The fact is, the franchise had been practically
taken from the negroes in the South since 1876, by admitted fraudulent
methods and intimidation in elections, but it was not until late years
that this nullification of the amendments was enacted into State