Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1897-08-21
JUDGE TOURGEEs REMARKS.


TIE New Orleans, La, LEADER, pub
lished an able letter from Judge abb
ON W. ToUkeEE relative TO the PLEssY /
decision Of the U. s. Supreme Court
The colored citizens of New Orleans,
presented this distinguished jurist
and it was in reply to this token of es-
TEEN that he gave voice to the ringing
utterances to which reference is
made.
The indictment against the United
States Supreme Court is terrific. he
says:
Thank God the Supreme Court of
the United States is not omnipotent,
| though oddly enough, it proclailns it
self omniscient in refusing to admit
that il is impossible for it to err, and
accounting its decisions immutsble
From the very hour of it's institution,
this Court, which the American people
have been taught TO regard as the very
palladium of our national safety, has
been the most malignant foe of person
a, liberty and equality OF right that
has ever existed on American soil In
every instance in which personal hber
has ever come in conflict with the
principle Of ''Sate Sovereignty" it has
held the latter to be supreme and the
former of no significance whatever"
He declares the Fourteenth Amend
J ment to the Constitution to be wholly
. emasculated by the PLEssy or rather
3 the Jim Crow Car" decision. He re-
marks:
1T should be matter OF profouns
. qualification to every lover of liberty
r that God has found q way to overrul
!. the unholy decisions of this cour
e against liberty and in favor of opprss
= sion- 1t required the blood of a mil
lion men to blot out and reverse tn
n specious infamy of the bred Scott de
l. cision. What will it require to oblit
" crate this last judicial crime by whic
i. it is sought to bind the colored citi
b zen and cast him down again, helples
y and irremediAble under the oppressio
rs Of q white mans government" b
y, and by there will come a time whe
re men dare not deceive themselves wit
"a such fallacies; and we shall have
court that will follow the dictates
as truth and liberty rather than the Bit
ne Of race prejudice and the univers
ri
every colored man in the name of GC
&c and as an act Of Christian duty"
rs And again:
: at was an immutable princip
a., which Abraham Lincoln formulated
his second inaugural when he declar'
= that IL the war should continue "un
every drop OF blood drawn with I'll
. lash shall be paid with one drawn
the sword. as was said three thousal
90 years ago, so still it must be said
The judgments of the Lord are true
together. The caste republic ca
not escape these judgments any mo
than did the slave republic 1t
ly just as foolish TO try and bind GoC
justice with the green withes of pref
dice-inspired fallacy in 1897 as it W
in 1857. Forty years have net chan
Ter ed the Almighty nor made justice
Iui in some way the country will pay, a
bitterly, for this judicial effort to G
throne injustice in the Constitution
forced construction of the plain,
lys and simplest, the broadcast and stror
Let est words, ever used by a free peol
in defining the limits of power and
scribing the paramount duty of a e
eminent toward citizens who had tw
or earned her gratitude and protection
lde He concludes as follows:
ye. Oppression is not always console
That from which your people suffe,
largely unconscious. The Ameri,
'"s people are never conscious tyraf
the The justices Of the Supreme Court
our the victims of inherited myopia. II
cannot see that what ia a matter of
consequence to a dominant race u
be the most infamous wrong to a s.
cir iect people. To them the white C
de- zens of the United States are moth
har less than Anglo Saxon demigC
whose right to rule and subordin
any other race or people is little
than divine. The Negro is. unfor
I'D nately, to them still an inferior. I
think of him still as q "mere inhi
10 tant," as fancy phrased it in the D
n is Scott case, and see no crime aga
liberty in abandoning him TO the p
er of those whose theory of life
political relation was not shocked
use the horrors of the Slave Code.
les feeling must be overcome, and
= quickest and surest way to do it,
8 &c believe, is to make in each year q
day of supPlication for Divine al
secure human Justice"
May Con raise up many more to
Vocate our cause in the forum OF
world.
OF all OF our white friends we n
Judge ToURGEE as chief.