Benjamin Grubb Humphreys
It was reported that the Mississippi legislature would give freedmen the right to testify in court if President Johnson withdrew federal (mostly colored?) troops
From The New-York Times November 23, 1865:
FROM MISSISSIPPI.; Negroes Allowed to Testify for their Own Race–Colored Troops Capture a Railway Train–Correspondence About the Withdrawal of Troops–Work of the Methodist Conference.
JACKSON, Tuesday, Nov. 21.
The bill conferring certain civil rights upon freedmen passed the House to-day, with a substitute for the fourth section. Freedmen are allowed to testify and be witnesses when a party to the record, but not in cases exclusively between white men, by a vote of 56 to 30.
Gov. HUMPHREYS telegraphed on the 18th inst. to the President that the colored troops attacked and took possession of a passenger train at Louderdale Springs [sic] and insulted the ladies, the officers being unable to control them. He further says the Legislature have memoralized for the removal of the troops, and are willing to extend the right to freedmen to testify in court if the troops are withdrawn. The President replied that the troops would be withdrawn when peace and order could be maintained without them. Measures should be adopted giving protection to all freedmen in their possessions, which will entitle them to assume their constitutional rights. There was no disposition on the part of the government arbitrarily to dictate, but simply to devise a policy that is beneficial.
The Methodist Conference of Mississippi has just adjourned. It adopted resolutions providing for the education of freedmen and their wives and children.
This report touches on the development of Mississippi’s “black codes”
