Forty Orangeburg District residents decry that "one of the consequences of softening" the condition of slaves is "their forgetting that they were such and their attempting to exercise among some of the lower classes of white people freedoms and familiarities which are degrading to them and dangerous to society." The petitioners "allude to the attempts which are made and some of them with success at sexual intercourse with white females." Such behavior, they declare, now occurs not only among "the dregs of society .. but some reputable families are disgraced and covered with infamy by the presumptuous advances of a slave or free negroe." They claim that the inadequate "penalty for such an offence has in some instances induced an incensed and indignant neighbourhood ... to measure out justice to the offender with their own hand." The petitioners ask that a law be passed "annexing to such criminal conduct a penalty commensurate to the offence."
Result: Referred to judiciary committee.
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Repository: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina