The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-05-03
ALABAMA suEFRAee DECISION.

From the Philadelphia Public Ledger.
 The opinion delivered by the Supreme court of the United States in the Ala bama case is one of those unusual rul- ings in which the nations chief tribunal sometimes asserts it's character as fountain of equity as well as an inter preter of statutes. A negro, disfran- chised, as he alleged, by the consttu- tion of Alabama, was refused relief by inc Federal court on the ground that 1t had no Jurisdiction. The ground of this ru,Ine the Supreme court declined to re- affirm. and vet It upheld the Circuit court in dismissing the bill The majority or the justices appear to have held that, while the question of Jurisdiction was the only one submitted for review, the ex- traordinary nature of the case justified them in going into its facts and circum- stances. On these, then, the question or jurisdiction being laid aside. the Su- nreme court declined to give the peti- tioner relief. In this majority opinion five justices united. Justice Harlan dissented, on the ground that the court had no right to go into the merits of . inc case. and was bound to pass upon the question of jurisdiction, which alone was before 1t. Justices Brewer and Brown went further, holding that the iur,sdictlon of United States courts over\ constitutional questions Is unde- niabla and that the Circuit court should be reIersed and directed to consider and decide fhe case.
 Nothing could be clearer than the abstract legitimacy of this last opinion. And yet. perhaps. nothing could be greater than the practical wisdom of the -.,,,..xx frn,,. xrhioh if diaseuts The court q of the United States. of original and appellatet jurisdiction, agree in declining to pass ubon an acute socio-political ques- ton whidh the people of Alabama have decided fdr themselves It may be confess ed that 1t is difficult, indeed impossible, to see oh precisely what grounds the Federal courts can. fin strict legality, thus decline. It would seem that if the Fed eral courts have any duty whatever. It Is to decide constitutional questions, and the relation between state constitution and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments of the federal constitution is about as inn- portant a constitutional question as could well arise
 But there has awakened in the con- sciousness of the country a suspicion that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments may have been measures of uncertain wisdom, added to the constitu- tion without. due deuDeratlon upon tnelr consequences. and a pretty general con- viction that the question treated in them that of negro suffrage-is one of those which had better be left to the several states for determination. Within very few years just past a remarkable re- construction of northern opinion upon the negro question has taken place, the con- cuson being now held by our most thoughtful citizens that the south may be trusted and should be trusted to deal wisely and honorably with what is. after all, its own great problem. The general prevalence of this conviction may be said to constitute a sort of unwritten amend ment to the amendments of the constitu- tion. and it is undoubtedly In accordance with 1t that the Supreme court has dz- clined to allow federal tribunals to de- eide whether Alabama's suffrage laws are in conflict with the negro suffrage amend ments. The state of New York formally annulled its ratification of the Fifteenth amendment. and if the country generally has reached a mature judgment against its wisdom the fact constitutes an un- enacted but effective rescissory act which it is the peculiar function of the Supreme court to give the form of law.