Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1875-04-02
CIVIL RIGHI,SA DEAD LETTER.


The Republican leaders we'll knew that,
with the emancipation of the Slaves, the |
party must die Of inertiae, unless they
could trade on the passions and prejudices
Of the northern masses. This they pro-
ceeded deliberately to do. From that day
to the present they have manufacturediu Just
such capital as would appeal to their pas
sons and did not fling out a single princi-
pie to arrest their reason. Step by step
they went from emancipation to citizen
ship and from citizenship to suffrage.
Finding that the Southern whites, having
no hatred to the colored people, and not ex-
hibiting that frenzy over these acts which
they desired, but the rather endeavoring
to educate and make good citizens of the
enfranchised freedmen, hired emissaries
were sent throughout the South to manu-
facture assassinations by the column, and
ontrages by the thousand. Especially was
this the case before the late elections, but
the Northern people being informed
through reliable sources of its utter falsity,
reason. not passionate prejudice: was
aroused, and the effort fell still BORN
There remained then but one cartridge in
their caison, labeled Civil Rights. They had
threatened to shoot this time and again,
and as it was their most deadly one, as
they thought, they used it to intimidate
and to trade on. They took it out and put
it back every few months. Finally the col
ored men thought it a big charge and de-
manded it should be fired. The stick in
tended for other heads was thus suspended
over their own. The negro vote was not
to be trif1ed with and it must be shot off.
Time and again it hung fire, until even
the lanyard. Finally a blear-eyed chap
was induced to pull it and bursted the gun,
the missile going wide of its mark. In
stead of striking the South and blowing
her up, very small particles fell all over
the Union. Nobody seems to be hurt but
the IMAM and brother,'' and he only in
not getting what his Radical friends had
been so long tolling him along with the
promise of. He tried in Trenton, New
Jersey, to play billiards in a public saloon,
was refused, brought the proprietor into
court, only to find that he had no right
there; he tried it in Alabama in barber
shop, and an q. 8. District Judge inform
ed him that the barber had rights as well
as he. In a restaurant in Chicago he finds
the same results But worst Of all an able
and distinguished .. s. District Judge in
Memphis, Judge Emmons, d thorough
Republican, charges his Grand Jury on the
question of indictments under the Civil
Rights Bill. lie takes the broad ground
that the thirteenth amendment abolishes
slavery, and did nothing more +; and re-
iewing the fourteenth amendment, he
concludes that the clauses fOrbidding
States to deprive any person of life, liberty
or property without due process Of law, or
deny to any person equal protection OF the
laws, have no application to this subject,
but are merely intended to prevent arbi-
trary transfer Of property withouTlegal
process or adjudication, and to prohibit
the establishment of legal tribunals for
one class of persons varying from those
which adjudicate the rights of all. He con-
cludes that beyond all controversy, these
inhibitions are aimed solely at the action
of States, and have no reference to individ-
sals He then cites the decisions of the
Supreme and other U. Courts and as
serts the invalidity OF the law, as follows
.sThe character of the wrong done-such
as excluding citizen from a hotel and
Theatres not such as Congress has an.
rivTt to punish. They, say the Supreme
nI.,ti of RIGHTS
tach to citizens of State. and do not be-
long to those which he enjoys as citizen
of the United States. 1t is in this latter
limited class of rights only which the four
teenth amendment protects. WlInlA thlS
Judgment. therefore. there is no power of
Federal legislation to provide penalties for
the violation of any privilege save the few
which are enjoyed peculiarly under the
Federal Constitution. The right to- go'j
from State to State, to visit the capital,
md other national privileges, Congress
NAV protect. All others, among which
are the rights claimed to have been in
fringed i'm the present instance. are hey md
its control. For this additional reason
the Raw which attempts to protect them Is
t,oid for the aoaa,t Of potee'' IN the body Whacf
pissed It.
Its constitutionality was called in ques-
tion 10y all the men OF legal acumeh Ill
Congress. except few partisan extremists.
Even Senator Carpenter, thorough Radi-
cal that he was, pointed out the utter
want of all constitutional authority for
such legislation, and predicted its failure.
The colored man, however, while he gains |
nothing under this, loses none OF his rights
alnder the Constitution. All that the |
he hoe
He row finds that the Civil Rights Bill
was merely tub thrown to the whale.
1T is dead letter in the law.