The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-10-24
TIE TWO SIDES OF IT.

ter of the civil-rights decision. One may be
called the legal side, and the other the moral,
or, you may term it, the sentimental side, and
it is a one-sided and partial treatment that
does not consider the question from both
points of view. Senator Harrison, in his ad-
mirable speech at the Monday night meet
ing, very clearly analysed the matter from
the legal standpoint, while General Coburn,
in his no less admirable address, presented
the other view, and one equally demand
ing attention. So far as the legality of the
decision goes we may not rashly question
it. But it is yet to be remembered that
tionality was under severe and
critical review, and not a few of the most
eminent lawyers Congress and the country
contained pronounced it within the limits of
constitutional authority. Even now, when so
profound a lawyer and cool-headed a man as
Samuel She.labarger takes occasion to par
ticipate i n a public meeting called for the
purpose of protesting against the opinion of
the Supreme Court, it may not be utterly
heretical it some people be found not ready,
or, at least, not willing, to accept the decis-
ion without an expression of dissent,
But it is the other view of the question that
will be most forced upon the attention of the
country, and will provoke the most earnest
discussion, and from which will inevitably
100000 H. I.a4 -oo,1Az TIo n.oI Coot4
decision may have been unouestioned Law
and we are now taught that the enunciation
of that opinion by Judge fancy was really
a great hardship to that eminent jurist-but
it was repugnant to the moral sense of the
country, and it was a powerful factor in
bringing on a discussion before the people
which resulted in grinding the principles and
facts upon which it was based to powder.
None of the reconstruction legislation, from
first to last, was conceived or passed for
States north of a certain line. They were
special legislation-so intended, so passed, so
accepted, so opposed; and the very argument
now used by the Supreme Court in over
turning the two sections of the civil-rights
act was the one relied upon by the Democratic
party in its opposition to the constitutional
amendments, and particularly to the four
teenth amendment, the one now and here
involved. Neither the thirteenth nor
the fourteenth nor the fifteenth amend
ment was necessary for any State
or any community where the equal
rights of the colored man were
recognized by State law and by public
sentiment. But they were necessary for
States where he was held in bondage, in sur
veillance, and regarded as of no
more value than a chattel. So
as a necessity at the time it was
passed, not in Massachusetts, but in South
Carolina; and who shall say thatit has not
done its part as a bulwark for the protection
of rights presumed to be guaranteed by the
amendments to the federal constitution.
What the measure of that protection has
been we need not inquire. That it has been
very imperfect, and at times has been a
horrid hurlesque, is well known. Fred. Doug
lass, in his great speech before the Louisville
convention, sketched the history of
the colored people in the Southern States
since the war in colors none too deeply
tinged, and as a climax exclaimed:
Should tongues be mute while deeds are
wrought that we'll might shame EXTREMIST
l,aI10it G,oI, looIo kopa haa1 mro1ohf onA
they have been wrought against, not the civil
or social rights of the negro, but against his
political rights, and in the interest of and
by the party which is now hypocritically
and sneakingly trying to pat the colored
people upon the back. The deeds against
which Mr.. Douglass cried out were all COM
mitted in Democratic States, were all COM
mitted by Democrats, were all committed in
the interests of the Democratic party and of
it's candidates; and if those bloody and terri
BILE crimes against the suffrage in
the persons of colored men
had been successful, the "usufruct,r
to use Democratic language, would have
gone to and been enjoyed by the Democratic
party. Mr.. Douglass says the history OF the
colored voters of the South may be traced by
their blood. Every man knows this to be
true, and every man also knows that no
single crime against the colored mans bal
lot has ever been punished in a single
Southern State. No amusement in which the
Southern chivalry could engage has been
more harmless than "hunting niggers;"
and yet, ~forsooth, it is to the local courts,
c ,ntrolled by public sentiment
(which does not consider the MUIR
der Of a colored man a punishable %offense,
that colored men are blandly relegated, with