The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-05-12
The Giles Case Settles Several Things

Brooklyn Eagle.
 The effect of the Supreme Court decis- ion to expunge from the Federal statute books law providing for the punishment or every person who prevents, flinders controls or intimidates another from ex- ercising the right of suffrage to whom that right is guaranteed by the Fifteenth amendant to the Constitution of the United States" The law Is now null and void 1t is as non-existent as an oper- ative force as though it had never been passed by Congress and signed by Pres ident. It survives now as little a re- hinder of the sentiment which a few years after the surrender at Apomattox prompted and indorsed anything and everything calculated or believed to be calculated to raise the black to the level of the white. The decision squares with a previous finding of the court-it pursues a line already followed, finding different iation only in the fact that 1t goes fur ther, 1t is, so to speak, a little more so.
 None of the Southern eommonwealths have, in their successful efforts to keep negroes from the polls, made the mistake of exposing themselves to a fausillade from Washington. They have technically respected the command, that the rights count of color or race or of previous con- dition of servitude. And unless or until they fly in the face of the Constitution in terms upon which case in court can be esta blished, they can snap their fin- gers at the Federal authorities, all winch goes to show that a cat can be killed in many ways. As a matter of fact, the blacks have been legfslated from the ball. lot box about as effectively as though the laws of recent enactment drew the color line as the acknowledged provocation for abridgement, but Is is equally true that by juggling with terms the Federal auth critics have been kept at bay, have been furnished with no standing room in court The effort to enforce the Constitution by appropriate legislation" has miscarried.
 The nation meant well. It ment that the negro should be protected at every ing of what has since come to pass. The National Legislature went to the limit. It could not provide for Federal interfer- ence where individuals intimidated other individuals without such a centralization of power as would have converted the coun- try into a hornets nest. Preservation of law, of order. at the polls, is matter delegating of well defined powers, it has become a matter of home rule. of home concern. Permit the Federal authorities to take an uninvited hand in the elect ions. permit them to send troops to the ballot boxes, and there might easily be intimidation with a vengeance. So, the United States Supreme Court may be said shall keep at respectful distance even when Federal officials are to be elected. It declares that a statute which purports to punish purley individual action cannot be sustained by any appeal to the Eff teenth ammendment or to any other prov ison of the Constitution. It reserves to each commonwealth a clear field for the management of its own affairs in the mat ter of elections, declaring that the power of Congress can be exercised only when some mandate of the fundamental law has been disobeyed.