Year: 1875

The following letter emanates from the
Hon. Benjamin F. Butler, late Congressman
from the district of Essex, in Massachu
setts, and will determine some doubts hith-
erto existing in many intelligent minds as
to the exact scope Of the famous civil rights
act:


WASHINGTON, March IS, 1915.


SIR have the pleasure to acknowledge
receipt OF yours of the fourteenth, contain
ing expressions Of appreciation of my efforts
in behalf of the civil rights bill, tor which
accept my thanks. You further ask: evil
you be kind enough to inform me it colored
men are entitled to the privileges of saloons
and barber shops under its provisions!"


To this l answer: l understand by
SALOONS" you mean drinking saloons and
am happy to say that the civil rights bill
does not give any right to a colOred man to
go into a drinking saloon without the leave
of the proprietor, and am very glad that it
does not. l am willing to concede, as a
friend to the colored man, that tho white
race may have at least this one superior
privilege to the colored man, that they can
drink in barrooms and saloons, and never
shall do anything to interfere with the
exercise of that high and distinctive privi-
lege. / would not advocate bill which
should give that right to the colOred man.
If | were to vote for any bill on this sub.
iect at all, it would be one to keep the
colored man out of the drinking saloons;
and l hope no barl1eeper will ever let
colored man have a glass Of liquor at any
bar open for drinking. Indeed, should be
glad, whenever q colored man should 90
into drinking-saloon for the purpose of
drinking at the bar, if somebody would at
once take him and put him out, doing him
as little injury as possible. He could do
the colored man no greater kindness,


AS to the other branch of your question,
in reference to barber shops, let me say
that the trade of barber is like any other
trade, to be carried on by the man who is
engaged in it at his own will and pleasure,
and the civil rights bill has nothing to DO,
and was intended to have nothing to do,
with its exercise. A barber has right to
shave whom he pieases, as much as
jeweler has right to repair watch for
whom he pleases, or blacksmith to shoe
such colored horses as he pleases. In other
words. these are not public emplOyments,
but private business. in which the law does
not interfere.


From time immemorial all men have had
equal rights at the common law in places OF
public amusement, in public cOnyeyances
and in inns or licensed taverns, because all
such business was for the public under
special privileges granted by the govern
ment. The theatre and like public amuse-
meuts were licensed by the puolic authOri-
ties and protected by the police. The
public conveyances used the kings high
way. The public inn had the special privi.
lege Of a lien or claim upon the baggage or
other property of any traveller using 1t for
his keep: and if any man was refused,
while behaving himself well and paying his
fare, a seat in any place of public amuse-
ment, or carriage by public conveyance, or
shelter in public inn, he had at COMMON
law right of action against the party SO
Tlo ,,x-.1 III n{c hill tr-a
firms these rights OF all citizens to the
colored man in consideration of the
prejudice against him, and an attempt in
certain parts Of the country to interfere
with tine exercise of those common law
rights, and has enacted penalty as means
of enforcing the right in his behalf, in con-
sideration of his helpless and dependent
condition. The civil rights bill has not
altered the colored mans rights at all from
what they were before under the common
law, applicable to nearly every State in the
Union. 1t has only given him greater
power to enforce that right, to meet the
exigency of combined effort to deprive col
Ored citizens OF it; and all idea that the
civil rights bill allows the colored man to
force himself into any mans shop, or into
any mans private house; or into any eating
house, boarding house, or establishment
other than those have named, is simply
an exhibition Of ignorance as we'll as, in
some cases, of insutferable prejudice or
malignity. And while would sustain any
colored man in firmly and properly insisting
upon his rights under the civil rights bill,
which were his at common law, as they
were the right of every citizen, yet should
oppose to the utmost of my power any at
tempt on the part of the colored men to use
the civil rights bill as pretense to inter-
fere with the private business Of private
parties. 1t is beneath the dignity of any
colored man so to do, and all acts, such as
shutting him out from drinking saloons,
may be well left to the ignorant and gem
orally vicious men who keep them as a
badge of their superiority to the colored
race.


have the honor to be. etc.


BENJAMIN 4. BUTLER.