United States v. Eberhart
| Decision Date | 24 February 1899 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. EBERHART et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Georgia |
E. A Angier, U.S. Atty., and Geo. L. Bell, Asst. U.S. Atty.
Alex. S. Erwin, T. W. Rucker, Hamilton McWhorter, and E. T. Brown for defendants.
The indictment charges the defendants with certain acts in restraint of the personal liberty of named persons of African descent, and characterizes these acts as peonage, and charges the defendant with holding the persons names as peons and with returning them to a condition of peonage, in violation of the act of Congress of March 2, 1867, c. 187, 14 Stat 546, Rev. St. Sec. 5526 (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3715). The act of Congress named, entitled 'An act to abolish and forever prohibit the system of peonage in the territory of New Mexico, and other parts of the United States,' was aimed at a system. Its purpose was to abolish and forever prohibit the system known as 'peonage,' as it existed in New Mexico and elsewhere. A full discussion of this system, and how it came to exist in New Mexico, will be found in the case of Jaremillo v. Romero, 1 N.M. 190. It came with the territory ceded to the United States by the treaty with Mexico after the Mexican War. It was part of the system of the people inhabiting that territory. The clear purpose of the act was to deal with this system by abolishing it and prohibiting a return to it. An examination of the act will show that this is true, beyond question. No such system as this ever existed in Georgia. African slavery existed, but this was the ownership of Africans and persons of African descent as chattels. There could not be, therefore, in Georgia, any such thing as holding persons under this system of peonage, or returning them to it. It would be the merest perversion of this act to attempt to apply it to an ordinary case of restraint of personal liberty, and the case is not strengthened by the charge that the person so restrained is of African descent. However wrongful and illegal some of the acts charged in the indictment may be, they cannot be punished under the statute named. The purpose of this act, as stated, was to abolish this system of peonage, and to render null and void all acts, laws, resolutions, orders regulations, or usage in New Mexico or elsewhere which established or which sought to establish this system. The penal part of the act will not be enlarged beyond the scope and purpose of the act as above indicated. The penalty is for holding under, or for arresting or returning to, this condition of peonage. A person must have been held under this system, or arrested and returned to it; that is, to a pre-existing condition of peonage.
It may be added that, even if the act of Congress on which this indictment is based...
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...1942, 315 U.S. 25, 62 S.Ct. 415, 418, 86 L.Ed. 615. 13 320 U.S. 527, 64 S.Ct. 318. 14 See Peonage Cases, D.C., 123 F. 671; United States v. Eberhart, C.C., 127 F. 252; United States v. McClellan, D.C., 127 F. 971; In re Peonage Charge, C.C., 138 F. 686; Ex parte Drayton, D.C., 153 F. 986; T......
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