Having thus ascertained what constitutes a white man, the good citizen may be curious to know what steps have been taken to preserve the purity of the white race.  Nature, by some unaccountable oversight having to some extent neglected a matter so important to the future prosperity and progress of mankind.  The marriage laws referred to here are in active operation, and cases under them are by no means infrequent.  Indeed, instead of being behind the age, the marriage laws in the Southern States are in advance of public opinion; for very rarely will a Southern community stop to figure on the pedigree of the contracting parties to a marriage where one is white and the other is known to have any strain of Negro blood.

In Virginia, under the title “Offenses against Morality,” the law provides that “any white person who shall intermarry with a Negro shall be confined in jail not more than one year and fined not exceeding one hundred dollars.”  In a marginal note on the statute-book, attention is called to the fact that “a similar penalty is not imposed on the Negro”—­a stretch of magnanimity to which the laws of other states are strangers.  A person who performs the ceremony of marriage in such a case is fined two hundred dollars, one-half of which goes to the informer.

In Maryland, a minister who performs the ceremony of marriage between a Negro and a white person is liable to a fine of one hundred dollars.

In Mississippi, code of 1880, it is provided that “the marriage of a white person to a Negro or mulatto or person who shall have one-fourth or more of Negro blood, shall be unlawful”; and as this prohibition does not seem sufficiently emphatic, it is further declared to be “incestuous and void,” and is punished by the same penalty prescribed for marriage within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity.

But it is Georgia, the alma genetrix of the chain-gang, which merits the questionable distinction of having the harshest set of color laws.  By the law of Georgia the term “person of color” is defined to mean “all such as have an admixture of Negro blood, and the term ‘Negro,’ includes mulattoes.”

This definition is perhaps restricted somewhat by another provision, by which “all Negroes, mestizoes, and their descendants, having one-eighth of Negro or mulatto blood in their veins, shall be known in this State as persons of color.”  A colored minister is permitted to perform the ceremony of marriage between colored persons only, tho white ministers are not forbidden to join persons of color in wedlock.  It is further provided that “the marriage relation between white persons and persons of African descent is forever prohibited, and such marriages shall be null and void.”  This is a very sweeping provision; it will be noticed that the term “persons of color,” previously defined, is not employed, the expression “persons of African descent” being used instead.  A court which was so inclined