True; but our peculiar form of government divides the responsibility of furnishing the protection. In the District of Columbia, in the Territories, on the high seas, and in foreign lands, the Federal Government undertakes the protection; while within the several States, it is assumed by each of them respectively. A white man has no other protection in a State than State law. If he and a railway conductor fall into a quarrel, and the conductor wrongfully puts him off the car (as is often done) his redress is to sue the company under the common law, or the statute law of the State. If he is a Jew, and the Grand Union Hotel at Saratoga refuses on that account to receive him, his remedy, if he seeks one, must be a simple action under State law. Congress does nothing to protect him. Nay, further, there is no law of Congress, and there could be none constitutionally, to prevent the murder of a citizen within a State. The protection even of life is left by the Constitution. to be furnished by each State to all who may be within its bounds. Now this decision of the Supreme Court does not deny or question a single right of a colored man; but it says that the special kind of Federal protection sought to be thrown around him by Congress, in Sections 1 and 2 of the Civil Rights Act, was, however well meant, in excess of the power of Congress; and that the colored man in a State must fall back, as does the white man, on the protection of that State; which, as a citizen, he has a plain right to demand.

7. Once more, the decision has valuable positive features in reference to the preservation of the equal rights of the colored race. Let us notice four. (1.) It declares that should any State venture to pass laws infringing the equal civil rights of the negro, then Congress would have a right to legislate on the subject. The language of the opinion of the Court is: "If the [State] laws themselves make any unjust discriminations amenable to the prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress has full power to afford a remedy under that amendment and in accordance with it." The effect of this is to prevent any person or corporation from taking shelter under a State law, when maltreating a colored man. No such law can be passed and stand. The wrongdoer will thus be left as an offender without the protection of State law, and subject to the

result of a civil suit. Furthermore, it is noticeable that the good will of the Court toward the colored race, and its anxiety to protect their rights has even led it at this point to strain to the utmost the meaning of the word "law" in the Fourteenth Amendment; so that the prohibition to the States, and the opportunity for Congressional legislation, shall extend not only to formal laws on the statute book against negro rights, but to executive and judicial acts and customs having the force of law. The formal decision specifies "making or enforcing certain laws, or doing certain acts," while Justice Bradley, in the accompanying official opinion of the Court, says that the Fourteenth Amendment "authorizes Congress" "to provide modes of redress against the operation of State laws, and the action of State officers, executive or judicial, where these are subversive of the fundamental rights specified in the amendments." Again he says: "Until some State law has been passed, or some State action through its officers or agents has been taken adverse to the rights of citizens sought to be protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, no legislation of the United States under said amendment, nor any proceeding under such legislation can be called into activity." And in referring to what had been cited as analogous badges of servitude under serfdom, and which necessarily fell with serfdom, the opinion says: "But these were servitudes imposed by the old law, or by long custom which had the force of law, exacted of one man from another without the latter's consent," and it declares that such servitudes so exacted would come under the amendment.

(2.) The decision re-affirms the validity of the Civil Rights Act in the fourth section, which secures in the States equality to colored men in the composition of juries, because the encroachment on their rights in this respect took the form of hostile State legislation, and therefore came under the Fourteenth Amendment. This maintains a great safeguard of the colored citizen in all cases which arise before the courts.

(3.) It also asserts that the judgment given has no reference to the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act in its application to the District of Columbia and the national territories, where the Constitution gives Congress full powers; this question not having been raised before the court. There have been

repeated outrages on colored persons in the District, and in the territories, by the refusal of hotels and restaurants to entertain them; and as the arguments used by the Court could not apply there, it is reasonably certain that in such cases they have a legal redress, under the Civil Rights Act. The moral effect of this fact, if it hold good, will be of great importance, as will also be its direct practical bearing, speaking as it does in the name of the nation. For many railroad routes begin in the District, or in the Territories, and run into the adjoining States; and others, which come from States, run into the District, or into a Territory. It will be very difficult in such cases for the railroads to have two systems of passenger arrangements, one based on caste and the other on equality, to apply in turn, as the cars change from one part of the route to the other. To avoid confusion and infringement of the law, they will naturally and necessarily apply to the whole route, especially in through-cars, the principle of equality required by law in the part of the route which lies in the District or in a Territory.

(4.) The decision shows its good will toward the colored race by giving a significant hint of a possible general Civil Rights Act, which might have force under another and for this purpose hitherto unused provision of the Constitution, to wit: the 3d clause of Section viii. of Article I., which gives to Congress power "to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States." The sixth point of the formal decision reads: "Nor is it decided whether Congress under the commercial power may, or may not, pass a law securing to all persons equal accommodations on lines of public conveyance between two or more States." This in form is non-committal, as no case had been presented under that power; but that the idea should be mentioned by the Court is not without weighty significance. It looks much as if the Court wanted to suggest that Congress should try another road to reach the same destination.

But turning now from the Supreme Court, let us briefly consider, secondly, the situation in which the decision leaves the colored race, and the action which becomes thereupon appropriate. The loud and general wail of lamentation and the outery of indignation against the Court which went up

from the colored people, when the decision was first announced, were natural; but it would have been better if some of their superserviceable and impetuous friends, both white and colored, who are fond of assuming to be the peculiar advocates and guardians of their rights, had not encouraged the feeling and the expression. It is always well to keep cool, if one wants a safe judgment. To fly off the handle, in a passion, never mends matters. Sober, second thought has prevented many a grave mistake, and it is not always wise to rush after the politicians, white or colored, before whose imaginations possible nominations loom up in the future, and whose personal ambitions are served by loudly expressed sympathy with alleged wrongs, and by being brought forward as the representative men of their race. Lately a very intelligent colored man said: "The misfortune of the colored people is, that they have not now in the country a single leader whom they dare to trust." It is well to remember how the cunning Absalom spoke to the common people, when he wanted to become king: "Absalom said, moreover, 'Oh, that I were made judge in the land, that every man who hath any suit or cause might come unto me and I would do him justice.' And it was so, that when any man came nigh to him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand and took him and kissed him."

news.

Sometimes a panic takes place in an army from an exaggeration of danger. Let us allow the smoke of battle to clear away a little, and possibly there may not be so many dead and wounded men as we have supposed. There may be at first a few evil effects from this decision. The enemies of the negro race naturally received it with a shout of exultation, and the southern newspapers issued extras to communicate the welcome But that does not prove much. "The triumphing of the wicked will be short." The longer they study the decision the less comfort will they be able to extract from it. No State which now does justice to the negro will change for the worse, while others will steadily improve. The eight years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act have not left the colored people where that Act found them. There has been a marked advance in their intelligence, and in public opinion relative to their capacity and their rights, as also in the favor

with which both of the political parties begin to regard them. They are not to be any longer the helpless victims of outrage, at the North or at the South. They are to be recognized as equal citizens with all others. They have now reached a stage where special legislation for them in particular will daily become less necessary and less desirable. There is great force in the official words of Justice Bradley, as the organ of the Court, on this very point. He says: "When a man has emerged from slavery and by the aid of beneficent legislation has shaken off the irreparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation, when he takes the rank of a mere citizen, and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws, and when his rights as a citizen or a man are to be protected in the ordinary modes by which other men's rights are protected." This idea is really the key-note to which the public, of whatever race, is to adjust itself, and to which it will adjust itself. All alk about another amendment to the Constitution, or a new Supreme Court, is useless and unwise. It is based on too gloomy a view of the situation; it diverts attention from other and practical measures; and it has a savor of wild and unjust exasperation. Let us augur hopefully while we act earnestly and effectively. Several things may wisely be done.

1. Full use should be made of the Civil Rights Act, whenever a case of injustice because of race occurs in the District of Columbia or in the Territories. The practice of private persons and of corporations in such localities must be made to correspond with the demands of the law, and every infraction should be taken up promptly and prosecuted. And it would be well for the colored people to make common cause in this matter and have an organization to take charge of every case which may arise; so that the poverty and obscurity of the sufferer may not prevent the execution of the law. As the district contains the national capital, and as the territories are numerous, populous and extensive, the moral effect of such enforcement of the law will be widely felt in the States.

2. In the States there must be a steady agitation of the subject in the newspapers, in conventions, in political organizations, and where necessary, at the polls, together with a resort