The North Carolina legislature passed a series of laws defining the status of free people of color in the post-Civil War world. Legislation granted largely equal status under most state laws where blacks were the injured or accused party but not in others, required a white witness to all contracts, maintained the unequal penalty of death for black men in the rape of white women, and annulled and banned all mixed marriages. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Edward McPherson (ed.), A Handbook of Politics for 1868 (Washington, DC: Philp and Solomons, 1868), 29.