The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1892-11-29
THE RIGHTS OF NEGROES IN PUBLIC
PLACES.

/ tCan nlcTCDdDt itAt't W "a
| nuts a card UP and states price therso"
"on what conditions can he refuseF
| mcar a merchant OF any KIND refuse 10
| ali a negro any article which ne adVer-
| 80 fo,. sale? As I'm this case: mer-
| chant nuts up his sign adverusihs .ne
| largest schooner OF beer In the city TOT
| i've cents-can negro demand IL Vi "''''
| at the price advertised
II our correspondent had asked us TINS
question fifteen years ago, we should
have had no difficulty in saying that III
Virginia whatever he might do else
where, the merchant could lawfully re-
| fuse TO sell in any one of the supposed
cases. But the law on the subject Is al
| this time in n sad case Of confusion, 10
understand which rather full explana-
ton is necessary.
Under what the lawyers call the Com
mon Law OF England, which means the
| everyday law not created by VIII or the
legislature land that common law Is our
law). a man who kept a public Inn was
under an obligation to receive, feed ana
house all travellers who passed his way.
This was a duty imposed upon him by the
law chat is, by the courts) on account
of the nature OF the business which he
professed TO do, which amounted 10 an
invitation to all corners to pass that way.
The law said the innkeeper should not
turn the visitor away after decoying him
10 regions where he could find no other
bread and shelter. But it is obvious that
the reasons which forbade the innkeeper
TO shut his doors on the traveller are
ont of place when sought to be applied
to the merchant, for there are many mer-
chants in the same locality, and II the
seeker Of merchandise cannot procure II
at one place he may at another. we say
then, that in our opinion there is nothing
in the principles OF our common law
which forces a merchant to sell his goods
TO any one negro or white.
But Of late years a new-fangled doc
trne has been imported into some parts oil
our jurisprudence which, in our opinion,
is little better than a form Of rank dema-
eogy: but what influence that doctrine
may have in modifying the true answer
to our correspondents questions we are
not prepared to say. All we can do is
TO state the case and let him judge for
himself.
Eighteen or twenty years back the peo-
pie who have recently been disturbing
the public peace under the name Of Third
party were making great clamor under
the name of "Grangers." They took pos
session Of almost all the West and North
west, and acquired very great influence
in the general administration OF the
Government. When Lawyer Morrison r.
Waite was made Chief Justice of the
United States he was a conspicuous rep
resentative OF the isms comprehended
within the name Of Granger" Their
special object Of attack then, as 1t is
now, was the railroads. Under their die
tation the Western Legislatures passed
acts pretending to regulate rates, which
came pretty near to confiscating the prop
erty Of the railroads. The Fourteenth
Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States forbids a State to deprive
any one Of his property without due pro-
cess Of law. and the railroads attacked
this Granger" legislation in the Supreme
Court upon the ground that it was repug-
nant to this amendment by, in fact, con-
hscating their property. But the Supreme
Court under the lead of its Granger"
Chief Justice, who delivered its opinion,
held that:
wherever one devotes his property to
use in which the public has an interest,
he, in effect, grants to the public in
terest in that use, and must submit to
be controlled by the public, for the COM
mon good, to the extent Of the interest
he has thus created
1t held, therefore, that railroads and all
other branches Of business in which the
public has an interest had always held
their property subject TO such regulations
as the Legislature saw fit to impose, and
that their pretended rights were, there
fore, no real rights. 1t consequently held
that as the public had always had the
right to control such businesses as the
public was concerned in it was not de-
priving persons Of their property for the
A~C6iSiutulC " regulate lue DuSlltSS as
ii pleased, and, therefore, that the cases
were not within the protection OF the
amendment. This astounding doctrine
that the public may do as it pleases with
private business in which the public
claims that 1t has an interest, startled
the legal profession all over the land. 1t
amounted In substance TO a statement
that every merchant, every cab driver,
every lawyer, every carpenter, every
bricklayer had taken the public into
partnership with him, and that he might
by law be required to run his business
with due regard to the rights of the
public, instead of, as he had always
supposed he might, according to his own
wishes and views, which was q very great
surprise to us all. The doctrine very
soon came back to the court to plague 1t
most seriously.
In reconstruction times Congress passed
an act (what we then called the civil
rights acD. forbidding the owners OF
hoteds or theatres or other places of
public amusement to exclude negroes
from any part of them. About 1878 ne
groes brought cases before the Supreme
Court founded on this act Of Congress.
One complained he had been refused a
seat in the dress circle OF a theatre in
San Francisco. Another complained that