Iowa state bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1894-1916, 1896-07-17
AN OPINION.

| ooti ISt k/iSooiililbG IIoii
the Majority in the
"Jim Grow" Car
Decision.
SIN my opinion; the Judgment
this day rendered will, in time,
prove to be quite as penicious as
the decision made by this tribunal
in the Dred Scott case. II was
adjudged in that case that the de-
cendants of Africans who were
imported into this country and
sold as slaves were not included
nor intended to be included under
the word citizens in the constitu-
ton and could not claim any of
the. rights and privileges which
that instrument provided for and
secured TO citizens Of the United
States; that at the time of the
adoption OF the constitution they
were considered as a subordinate
and inferior class of beings, who
had been subjugated by the domi-
nant race, and whether emanci-
pated or not, yet remained sub
ject to their authority, and had no
rights or privileges bnt such as
those who held the power and the
government might choose to grant
them.
The recent amendments to the
constitution, it was supposed, had
eradicated these principles from
our institutions. But it seems
that We have yet in some of the
states, dominant race a super
ior class Of citizens, which assume
to regulate the enjoyment of civil
rights, common to all citizens,
upon the basis race. The present
decision, it may well be appre-
hended, will not only stimulate
aggressions, more or less brutal
and irritating, upon the admitted
rights OF colored citizens, but will
encourage the belief that is posi-
BILE by means of state enactments,
to defeat the heniticent purposes
which the people of the United
States had in view when they
adopted the recent amendments Of
the constitution, by one of which
the blacks OF this country were
made citizens of the United States
and Of the states in which they re-
spectively reside, and Whose priv
ileges and immunities as citizens
| the states are forbidden to abridge.
Sixty millions of whites are in no
danger from the presence here Of
eight millions Of blacks. The
destinies Of the two races in this
country are indissolubly linked to-
gether. and the interests Of both
require that the common govern
ment of all shall not permit the
seeds Of race hate to be planted
under the sanction OF law. What
can more certainly arouse race
hate, what more certainly create
and perpetuate feeling OF distrust
between these races, than state
enactments, which, in fact, pro-
ceed on the ground that colored
citizens are so inferior and degrad-
ed that they can not be allowed to
sit in public coaches occupied by
white citizens That, as all will
admit, is the real meaning Of such
legislation as was enacted in
Louisiana.
The sure guarantee of the
peace and security Of race is the
clear, distinct, unconditional rec.
ognition by our government,
national and state, of every right
that inhere in civil freedom, and
Of the equality before the law and
Of all citizens of the United States
without regard to race. State en-
actments, regulating the enjoy
ment of civil rights. upon the basis
Of raca, and cunningly devised to
defeat legitimate results of the
war, under the pretense OF recog-
nizing equalito Of rights, can have
no other result than to render per-
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