or attempt to influence voters on the part of judge, commissioners, or others conducting an election; XXXIV. receiving illegal votes; XXXV. tax collector or deputy giving receipts for taxes to one not on tax list, nor liable to taxation; XXXVI. placing names illegally on tax list by parish assessor; XXXVII. ordering out militia on election days, or day preceding, unless in case of insurrection or invasion; XXXVIII. failure of commissioners, &c. to make election returns as required by law.

ART. VI. Treason against the state, shall consist only in levying war against it, or in adhering to its enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or his own confession in open court.

ART. VII. If any white person shall be duly convicted of being the author, printer or publisher of any written or printed paper or papers within the state, or shall use any language, with the intent to disturb the peace or security of the same, in relation to the slaves of the people of this state, or to diminish that respect which is commanded to free people of color for the whites, by the 40th section of the act entitled "An act, prescribing the rules and conduct to be observed with respect to negroes or other slaves of this territory," approved June 7th, 1806, or to destroy that line of distinction which the law has established between the several classes of this community; such person shall be adjudged guilty of high misdemeanor, and shall be fined in a sum not less than three hundred dollars, nor exceeding one thousand dollars, and moreover imprisoned for a term not less than six months, nor exceeding three years; and if any free person of color shall be convicted of such offence, he, she, or they shall be sentenced to pay a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and

1 Const. of Louisiana, art. 6, sec. 2.

2 § 9, act 16 March, 1830, p. 92.

imprisoned at hard labor for a time not less than three years and not exceeding five years, and at the expiration of said imprisonment, be banished from this state for life.3

4

ART. VIII. Whosoever shall write, print, publish or distribute, any thing having a tendency to produce discontent among the free colored population of the state, or insubordination among the slaves therein, shall, on conviction thereof, before any court of competent jurisdiction, be sentenced to imprisonment at hard labor for life, or suffer death, at the discretion of the court.

ART. IX. Whosoever shall make use of language, in any public discourse, from the bar, the bench, the stage, the pulpit, or in any place whatsoever or whosoever shall make use of language in private discourses or conversations, or shall make use of signs or actions, having a tendency to produce discontent among the free colored population of this state, or to excite insubordination among the slaves therein, or whosoever shall knowingly be instrumental in bringing into this state, any paper, pamphlet, or book having such tendency as aforesaid, shall, on conviction thereof, before any court of competent jurisdiction, suffer imprisonment at hard labor, not less than three years nor more than twenty-one years, or death,

at the discretion of the court."

3 See § 17 of this act, book I, ch. 7, note 86. This and the two succeeding articles were approved on the same day (!) the 16th March, 1830. They virtutually repeal the 3d sec. of the act of 7 June, 1806, 1 D. 377. the text, Art. VII, it will be observed, applies only to white persons. The act which forms the two next articles, is not so limited,

4 § 1, act 16 March, 1830, p. 96.

5 § 2, ibid.

6 This act further provides

The act in

Sec. 4. That it shall be the duty of the attorney-general and the several district attorneys of this state, to prosecute to the best of their abilities, each and every violation of this act, whenever it shall come within their own knowledge, or be derived from the information of others, that this act has been violated; and in case the said attorney-general and district attorneys, or either

ART. X. If any person shall forge or counterfeit, or shall procure to be forged or counterfeited, or shall willingly aid or assist in forging or counterfeiting any gold or silver coin, current within this state by the laws and usages thereof, or if any person, knowing of such forging or counterfeiting, shall willingly aid or assist in passing and rendering current as true, any such forged or counterfeit coin; and for that purpose shall, at any one time, possess any number, not less than five, of similar pieces of false money or coin, forged or counterfeited to the similitude of the gold or silver money, or coin current as aforesaid, with intent to utter the same as true, knowing the same to be false, forged and counterfeit, every person so offending in either of the particulars aforesaid, who shall be duly convicted thereof, shall be confined at hard labor for a term not exceeding fourteen years.9

ART. XI.10 If any person shall bring into this state, or shall possess within the same, any number of similar pieces of false money, or coin forged or counterfeited as aforesaid, knowing the same to be false, forged and counterfeited, with intent to utter and pass the same as true, or if any person shall utter, tender in payment or pass as true any false money or coin, knowing the same to be false, being counterfeit in the simili

of them shall refuse or neglect, under any pretence whatever, to prosecute the person or persons so offending against this act, they shall, on due proof thereof, be liable to be removed from office. [The rest of this section, not inserted here, is virtually repealed by the act of 24 March, 1831, p. 78; or has no relation to the sections of the act of 16 March, 1830, Arts. VIII. and IX. in the text. See ch. 7 of this book, note 101, for the part not inserted here, which is still in force.]

Sec. 5. That it shall be the duty of the judges of the [courts of] criminal jurisdiction in this state, to give this act in charge to the grand jury, at each term of their respective courts.

713, act 20 March, 1818, 1 D. 394.

8 The punishment of solitary imprisonment, inflicted by this act, was done away with by § 4 of the act of 12 March, 1838, p. 109, Art. DLI. post.

9 The 14th section of the act of 4 May, 1805, 1 p. 364, is virtually repealed by this section.

or usage

tude of any gold or silver money, or coin current by law within this state, with intent to defraud any person or persons, every person so offending, who shall be duly con-. victed, shall be punished by confinement at hard labor not exceeding ten years."1

ART. XII.12 If any person shall cast, stamp, engrave, form, make or mend, or shall knowingly possess any mould, pattern, die, puncheon, engine, press or other tool or instrument devised, adapted or designed for the coining and making any false and counterfeit money or coin, in the similitude of the gold or silver coin or money current within this state by the laws or usages thereof, with the intent to use and employ the same or cause or permit the same to be used or employed in coining and making any such false and counterfeit money or coin as aforesaid, every person so offending shall be confined at hard labor for a term not exceeding fourteen years.

ART. XIII.13 If any person, having knowledge of the actual commission of the erime of wilful murder, rape, arson, robbery, burglary or larceny, shall conceal, and not as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to some one of the judges, or other persons in civil authority within this [state], on conviction thereof, such person or persons shall be adjudged guilty of misprision of felony, and shall pay a fine not exceeding three hundred dollars, and may also at the discretion of the court suffer imprisonment at hard labor, or otherwise, not exceeding twelve months.

ART. XIV. If any master or mistress shall wilfully and intentionally neglect to give information against, or refuse to

11 See note 8, ante.

12 § 15, act 20 March, 1818, 1 D. 395. 1311, act 4 May, 1805, 1 D. 363.

14 § 4, act 22 February, 1814, 1 D. 125.

give up15 his or her slave or slaves who shall have been guilty of ["revolting, or of a plot to revolt against his or her master or mistress in particular, or of wilfully and maliciously striking his or her master or mistress, or the child or children of his or her master or mistress, or any white overseer appointed by his or her owner to superintend said owner's slaves, so as to cause a contusion or shedding of blood] said master or mistress shall, upon conviction thereof, forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars, one half of which shall be given to the informer or informers, and the other half to and for the parish in which the offence shall have been committed, and imprisoned until the same is paid.

17

ART. XV. The commander-in-chief [of the militia] asgovernor of this state, shall be liable to impeachment for any abuse of the powers or neglect of any of the duties confided to him under the provisions of the act, [of 12 Feb. 1813, for regulating and governing the militia of the state.]18

ART. XVI.19 No person employed in the publie service, nor any officer of the government of this state, who may by

15 This section appears to have been intended to punish the misprision of neglecting to give information against, or to give up an offending slave, and not the crime of an accessary after the fact refusing to give up such an offender; it is consequently placed under the head of misprisions. The correctness of this arrangement will be confirmed by reference to the French text, which reads " Si quelque maitre ou maitresse, sciemment et intentionnellement néglige de dénoncer ou de délivrer a la justice sou esclave coupable, &c;" showing that the intention of the legislature, so far as the French text is evidence of it, was, to inflict the punishment it denounces on those guilty of a simple misprision, and to leave the greater offence of an accessary to other laws. See Art. III, for punishment of accessaries after the fact, which being of a subsequent date to the section in the text, must be considered as having, so far as they conflict, repealed the latter. Thus, whether considered as originally extending to accessaries after the fact, or not, the article in the text now applies only to cases of misprision.

16 § 3, act 22 February, 1814, 1 D. 125.

17 Part of 10, act 12 February, 1813, 2 D. 19.

18 See this and the subsequent acts on the subject of the militia.

19 Part of 2, act 26 March, 1813, 2 D. 288.