The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-10-26

proper modes of redress for its violation in
letter or spirit, and such legislation may be
primary and direct in its character, for the
amendment is not mere prohibition OF
State laws attacking or upholdirs slavery,
but an absolute declaration that slavery or
involuntary servitude shall not exist in any
part of the United States Now conceding
for the sake of argument, that admission to
an inn, public conveyance, or a
place of public amusement, on
equal terms with all other citizens,
is the right of every man and all classes, is it
any more than one of those rights which the
States, by the fourteenth amendment, are
forbidden to deny to any person, and is the
constitution violated until the denial of the
right has some State sanction or authority?
Can the act of a mere individual, the owner
of an inn, public conveyance, or place of
amusement, in refusing accommodation, be
Justly regarded as imposing any badge of
slavery or servitude upon the applicant, or
only as infcting an ordinary civil injury,
properly cognizable by the laws of the State,
and presumably subject to redress by those
laws until the contrary appears?
CONCLUSIONS OF THE COURT.
AFTER giving TO these questions all the
the consideration which their import
ance demands we are forced to
the conclusion that such an act
with slavery or involuntary servitude, and
that if it is vioative of any right, the party
has redress, which is to be sought under the
laws of the State, or, if those laws are ad-
verse to his rights and do not protect him,
his remedy will be found in the corrective
legislation which Congress has adopted, or
may adopt for counteracting the effect of
State laws or State action prohibited by the
fourteenth amendment. 1t would be rum
ming the slavery argument into the ground
to make 1t apply to every act of discrimina-
tlon which person may commit in de-
termining who, as guest he will entertain,
or as to the people he will take into his
coach, or cab or car. or admit to his concert,
or theater, or deal with in other matters
of intercourse or business. Inn
keepers and public carriers by
the laws of all States, so far as we are aware
are bound to extend their facilities and to
furnish proper accommodations to all unob-
jectionable persons who, in good faith, apply
for them. If the laws themselves make
any unjust discrimination, amenable to the
prohibitions of the fourteenth amendment
Congress has full power TO afford remedy
under that amendment, and in accordance
with it, When man has emerged from
slavery, and, by the aid of benefcent legisla-
ton, has shaken the inseperable concomi-
tants of that state, there must be some stage
in the progress of his elyation when he takes
rank as a mere citizen and ceases to be the
special favorite of the laws, and when his
rights as citizen or man are
to be protected in the ordinary
way by which other mems rights
are protected. There were thousands of free
colored people in this country before the
abolition of slavery, enjoying all the essen
tial rights of life, liberty and property, the
same as white citizens, yet no one at that
time thought it was any invasion of their
personal status as free men because they
were not admitted to all the privileges en-
joyed by white citizens, or because they were
subjected to determinations in the enjoy
ment of the accommodations of inns, public
conveyances and places of amusement Mere
determinations on account of race or color
were not regarded as bad as slavery.
Since that time the enjoyment of
equal rights in all these respects
has become established by constitutional en-
actment-not by force of the thirteenth
amendment, which merely abolished slavery,
but by force of the fourteenth and fifteenth
amendments.
"On the whole, we are of the opinion that
no counterance of authority for the passage
of the law i'll question can be found in either
the thirteenth or the fourteenth amendment
to the constitution, and, no other ground of
authority for its passage being suggested, it
must necessarily be declared void, at least so
far as its operation in the several States is
concerned -