I never agree in the proposition if there be a hotel for the entertainment of travelers, and two classes stop at it, and there is one dining-room for one class and one for another, served alike in all respect, with the same accommodation, the same attention to the guest, there is anything offensive or anything that denies the civil rights of one more than the other. Nor do I hold that if you have public schools, and you give all the advantages of education to one class as you do to another, but keep them separate and apart, there is any denial of a civil right in that. I also contend that even upon the railways of the country, if cars of equal comfort, convenience, and security be provided for different classes of persons, no one has a right to complain if it be regulation of the companies to separate them. Mr. President, we have a vindication on this floor of inequality as a principle and as a political rule. . . . The Senator mistakes a substitute for equality.
Equality is where all are alike.
A substitute can never take the place of equality. The Senator does not. The Senator says he is equal in this Chamber. I am one of those who have believed that when it pleased the Creator of heaven and earth to make different races of men it was His purpose to keep them distinct and separate. I think so now.