The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1883-10-20
SUPREME COURT DECISION.
Views of Prominent Colored Man on
the Civil Rights Decision.

The Washington Republican publishes
interviews with Mr.. Frederick Douglass,
Mr.. John Nj. Langston and Prof. Richard
T. Greener on the civil rights decision.
In reply to what he thought Of the deci-
sion Mr.. Douglass said:
regard the decision as far as l under
stand it, as part of the general reaction
naturally following the increased friend
ship between the North and South, which
comes of the dying out of the old contro.
versy on the subject of slavery. Nearly
all the concessions that the colored peo-
pie have received have been the result of
the antagonism of the two sections, and
as that antagonism vanishes | have eX-
pected a partial return of the old ideas
and usages which preceded the war.
Ten years ago | told the cOlored people
that as they had gained everything from
the enmity growing out of the attempted
dissolution of the Union between the
peopleof the South and those of the North
it behooved them to inquire what they
were likely to lose by the friendship of
the two sections. The decision, l take
it, is in the direction and interest of the
old Calhoun doctrine of State rights as
against Federal authority. l do not,
however, despair of the ultimate return
of the liberal spirit toward the colored
people which prevailed Immediately after
the war. | think the decision in this case
has resulted largely from confounding
social with civil rights-things which are
entirely distinct. There is no such thing
as social equality resulting from living
in the same city with other people, walk
ing on the same street with other people,
riding on The same car, buying goods at
the same store, or being fed and shelter
ed at the same hotel. Men may be in all
these positions in civil relations, and yet
socially be as wide apart as the poles of
the moral universe.
Whether so intended or not, the de-
cision of the court seems to be conces
sion to prejudice which belongs to an
extinct institution, and places the Amer
lean people and government far in the
rear of the civilized nations of Europe
and America, for nowhere in Europe, and
nowhere outside Of the United States,
can any man be excluded from hotel or
steamboat cabin, or any place of amuse-
ment or instruction, simply on account
of his color or race. Even in Brazil the
ouly distinction between men arises from
the fact that one is a slave and the other
freeman. A colored freeman has every
where the same rights in that country as
a white freeman"
Another said that he thought the deci-
sien would not have a material effect,
either on the white or the colored race,
as the Civil Rights bill, since its passage
has operated to educate both as to their
moral position one towards the other,
nd hot 1,or 70
moral and Christian rights in public and
customed to the condition of things as
they existed previous to the decision of
the Supreme Court. AS the colored man
as political rights are concerned, he
thought no party would for moment
consider such suicidal act as to seek to
restrain the colored race in their pursuit
after peace, prosperity and happiness, as
the good of the one was so largely de-
pendent on the other. Capital might
indeed be made of the decision on the
stump, but the colored man would soon
grow to recognize between common sense
and buncombe.
General Bradley T. Johnson said: The
decision of Mr.. Justice Bradley, just de
livered, supports the Virginia position Of
1879, in the Rives ease, in all it's length
and breadth, and limits the power of the
Federal government to negative or
State action, and a cure for action actu-
ally taken. 1t denies Congress the rover
of prevention. and places the powers I'M
der the Fourteenth Amendment precisely
where the power to declare State action
impairing the obligation of contracts is
and always has been-that is, the courts
declare such State action null and void.