Court Opinion

ID: 9426508
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:18:09.130792+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:01.376458
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice White,
with whom Mr. Justice Rehnquist joins, dissenting.
We are urged here to extend the meaning and reach of 42 U. S. C. § 1981 so as to establish a general prohibition against a private individual’s or institution’s refusing to enter into a contract with another person because of that person’s race. Section 1981 has been on the books since 1870 and to so hold for the first time1 would be contrary to the language of the section, to its legislative history, and to the clear dictum of this Court in the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3, 16-17 (1883), almost contemporaneously with the passage of the statute, that the section reaches only discriminations imposed by state law. The majority’s belated discovery of a congressional purpose which escaped this Court only a decade after the statute was passed and which escaped all other federal courts for almost 100 years is singularly unpersuasive.2 I therefore respectfully dissent.
*193I
Title 42 U. S. C. § 1981, captioned “Equal rights under the law,” 3 provides in pertinent part:
“All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens . . .
On its face the statute gives “[a] 11 persons” (plainly including Negroes) the “same right ... to make . . . contracts ... as is enjoyed by white citizens.” (Emphasis added.) The words “right . . . enjoyed by white citizens” clearly refer to rights existing apart from this *194statute. Whites had at the time when § 1981 was first enacted, and have (with a few exceptions mentioned below), no right to make a contract with an unwilling private person, no matter what that person’s motivation for refusing to contract. Indeed it is and always has been central to the very concept of a “contract” that there be “assent by the parties who form the contract to the terms thereof,” Restatement of Contracts § 19 (b) (1932); see also 1 S. Williston, Law of Contracts § 18 (3) (3d ed., 1957). The right to make contracts, enjoyed by white citizens, was therefore always a right to enter into binding agreements only with willing second parties. Since the statute only gives Negroes the “same rights” to contract as is enjoyed by whites, the language of the statute confers no right on Negroes to enter into a contract with an unwilling person no matter what that person’s motivation for refusing to contract. What is conferred by 42 U. S. C. § 1981 is the right — which was enjoyed by whites — “to make contracts” with other willing parties and to “enforce” those contracts in court. Section 1981 would thus invalidate any state statute or court-made rule of law which would have the effect of disabling Negroes or any other class of persons from making contracts or enforcing contractual obligations or otherwise giving less weight to their obligations than is given to contractual obligations running to whites.4 The statute by its terms does not require any private individual or institution to enter into a contract or perform any other act under any circumstances; and it consequently fails to-supply a cause of action by respondent students against *195petitioner schools based on the latter’s racially motivated decision not to contract with them.5
II
The legislative history of 42 U. S. C. § 1981 confirms that the statute means what it says and no more, i. e., that it outlaws any legal rule disabling any person from making or enforcing a contract, but does not prohibit private racially motivated refusals to contract. Title 42 U. S. C. § 1981 is § 1977 of the Revised Statutes of 1874, which itself was taken verbatim from § 16 of the Voting Rights Act of May 31, 1870, 16 Stat. 144.6 The legisla*196tive process culminating in the enactment of § 16 of the Voting Eights Act of 1870 was initiated by the following resolution proposed by Senator Stewart of Nevada, a *197member of the Judiciary Committee, and eventual floor manager of the Voting Rights Act, and unanimously agreed to by the Senate on December 6, 1869.
“Resolved, That the Committee on the Judiciary be requested to inquire if any States are denying to any class of persons within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the law, in violation of treaty obligations with foreign nations and of section one of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution; and if so, what legislation is necessary to enforce such treaty obligations and such amendment, and to report by bill or otherwise.” Cong. Globe, 41st Cong., 2d Sess. 3 (1869). (Emphasis added.)
This resolution bore fruit in a bill (S. 365),7 which *198was first referred to in the Congressional Globe on January 10, 1870. On that day Senator Stewart “asked and by unanimous consent obtained, leave to introduce a bill (S. 365) to secure to all persons the equal protection of the laws.” (Emphasis added.) Cong. Globe, 41st Cong., 2d Sess., 323. The bill was then referred to the Judiciary Committee. The next reference to the bill in the Congressional Globe is on February 2, 1870. It states: “Mr. TRUMBULL, from the Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the bill (S. No. 365) to secure to all persons the equal protection of the laws reported it with an amendment.” Id.., at 964. (Emphasis added.) The next reference to the bill is on February 24, 1870. It states:
“MR. STEWART. I move that the Senate proceed to the consideration of bill (S. No. 365) to secure to all persons equal protection of the laws. I do not think it will take more than a moment to pass that bill.
“MR. HAMILTON. I desire that that bill be read.” Id., at 1536. (Emphasis added.)
The bill is next mentioned in the following colloquy later on the same day:
“MR. POMEROY. I have not examined this bill, and I desire to ask the Senator from Nevada a question. I understood him to say that this bill gave the same civil rights to all persons in the United States which are enjoyed by citizens of the United States. Is that it?
“MR. STEWART. No; it gives all the protection of the laws. If the Senator will examine this bill in connection with the original civil rights bill,[8] he *199will see that it has no reference to inheriting or holding real estate.
“MR. POMEROY. That is what I was coming to.
“MR. STEWART. The civil rights bill had several other things applying to citizens of the United States. This simply extends to foreigners, not citizens, the protection of our laws where the State laws deny them the equal civil rights enumerated in the first section.” Ibid. (Emphasis added.)
Consideration of the bill was then postponed.
The next reference to the bill was on March 4, 1870. It states:
“MR. STEWART. I move that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Senate bill No. 365, to secure to all persons the equal protection of the laws.” Id., at 1678. (Emphasis added.)
Consideration of the bill was again postponed.
Then on May 18, 1870, Senator Stewart introduced S. 810 dealing with voting rights but including a section virtually identical to that in S. 365. Id., at 3562. On May 20, 1870, Senator Stewart explained the relevant provision of S. 810, as follows:
“Then the other provision which has been added is one of great importance. It is of more importance to the honor of this nation than all the rest of this bill. We are inviting to our shores, or allowing them to come, Asiatics. We have got a treaty allowing them to come. . . . While they are here I say it is our duty to protect them. I have incorporated that provision in this bill on the advice of the Judiciary Committee, to facilitate matters and so *200that we shall have the whole subject before us in one discussion. It is as solemn a duty as can be devolved upon this Congress to see that those people are protected, to see that they have the equal protection of the laws, notwithstanding that they are aliens. They, or any other aliens, who may come here are entitled to that protection. If the State courts do not give them the equal protection of the law, if public sentiment is so inhuman as to rob them of their ordinary civil rights, I say I would be less than man if I did not insist, and I do here insist that that provision shall go on this bill; and that the pledge of this nation shall be redeemed, that we will protect Chinese aliens or any other aliens whom we allow to come here, and give them a hearing in our courts; let them me and he med; let them he protected by all the laws and the same laws that other men are. That is all there is in that provision.
“Why is not this bill a good place in which to put that provision? Why should we not put in this bill a measure to enforce both the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments at once? . . . The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution says that no State shall deny to any person the equal protection of the laws. Your treaty says that they shall have the equal protection of the laws. Justice and humanity and common decency require it. I hope that provision will not be left off this bill, for there is no time to take it up as a separate measure, discuss it, and pass it at this session.” Id., at 3658. (Emphasis added.)
The only other reference which research uncovers to the relevant provision of S. 810 is on May 25, 1870, and consists of a speech by Senator Stewart emphasizing the need to protect Chinese aliens. Id., at 3807-3808. The *201voting rights bill was enacted into law on May 31, 1870, with the section providing for equal protection of the laws included as § 16.9
Three things emerge unmistakably from this legislative history. First, unlike § 1 of the Civil Rights Act *202of 1866, which was passed under Congress’ Thirteenth Amendment powers to remove from former slaves “ 'badges and incidents of slavery,’ ” Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U. S. 409, 439 (1968), § 16 of the Voting Rights Act of 1870 was passed under Congress’ Fourteenth Amendment powers to prevent the States from denying to "any person . . . equal protection of the laws.” U. S. Const., Arndt. 14, § 1. Second, consistent with the scope of that Amendment, see, e. g., Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U. S. 345, 349 (1974); Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3 (1883), § 16 was designed to require “all persons” to be treated “the same” or “equally” under the law and was not designed to require equal treatment at the hands of private individuals. Third, one of the classes of persons for whose benefit the statute was intended was aliens — plainly not a class with respect to which Congress sought to remove badges and incidents of slavery — and not a class protected in any fashion by § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, since that Act applied only to “citizens.”
This Court has so construed § 1977 of the Revised Statutes of 1874 on several occasions. The Court said in the Civil Rights Cases, supra, at 16-17:
“That law, as re-enacted, after declaring that all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses and exactions of every kind, and none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom to the contrary notwithstanding,[*20310] proceeds to enact, that any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation or custom, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State or Territory to the deprivation of any rights secured or protected by the preceding section (above quoted), or to different punishment, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and subject to fine and imprisonment as specified in the act. This law is dearly corrective in its character, intended to counteract and furnish redress against State laws and proceedings, and customs having the force of law, which sanction the wrongful acts specified. . . . The Civil Rights Bill here referred to is analogous in its character to what a law would have been under the original Constitution, declaring that the validity of contracts should not be impaired, and that if any person bound by a contract should refuse to comply with it, under color or pretense that it had been rendered void or invalid by a State law, he should be liable to an action upon it in the courts of the United States, with the addition of a penalty for setting up such an unjust and unconstitutional defence.” (Emphasis added.)
Similarly in Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 369 (1886), the Court said:
“The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is not confined to the protection of citizens. It says: ‘Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor *204deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.' These provisions are universal in their application, to all persons within the territorial jurisdiction, without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality; and the equal protection of the laws is a pledge of the protection of equal laws. It is accordingly enacted by § 1977 of the Revised Statutes, that ‘all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other/ ” (Emphasis added.)
See also Gibson v. Mississippi, 162 U. S. 565, 580 (1896); McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U. S. 184, 192 (1964), each of which stands for the proposition that § 1981 was enacted pursuant to Congress’ power under the Fourteenth Amendment to provide for equal protection of the laws to all persons.
Indeed, it would be remarkable if Congress had intended § 1981 to require private individuals to contract with all persons the same as they contract with white citizens. To so construe § 1981 would require that private citizens treat aliens the same as they treat white citizens. However, the Federal Government has for some time discriminated against aliens in its employment policies. As we said in Espinoza v. Farah Mfg. Co., 414 U. S. 86, 91 (1973): “Suffice it to say that we cannot conclude Congress would at once continue the practice of requiring citizenship as a condition of Federal employ-*205merit, and, at the same time, prevent private employers from doing likewise.”
Thus the legislative history of § 1981 unequivocally confirms that Congress’ purpose in enacting that statute was solely to grant to all persons equal capacity to contract as is enjoyed by whites and included no purpose to prevent private refusals to contract, however motivated.
Ill
The majority seeks to avoid the construction of 42 U. S. C. § 1981 arrived at above by arguing that it (i. e., § 1977 of the Revised Statutes of 1874) is a re-enactment both of § 16 of the Voting Rights Act of 1870 — the Fourteenth Amendment statute — and of part of §1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 — the Thirteenth Amendment statute.11 The majority argues from this that § 1981 does limit private contractual choices because Congress may, under its Thirteenth Amendment powers, proscribe certain kinds of private conduct thought to perpetuate “ ‘badges and incidents of slavery,’ ” Jones v. Alfred II. Mayer Co., 392 U. S., at 439; and because this Court has already construed the language “[a] 11 citizens of the United States shall have the same right ... as is enjoyed by white citizens . . . to . . . purchase . . . real. . . property” (emphasis added), contained in the Thirteenth Amendment statute, to proscribe a refusal by a private individual to sell real estate to a Negro because of his race. Id., at 420-437. The majority’s position is untenable.
First of all, as noted above, § 1977 of the Revised Statutes was passed by Congress with the Revisers’ unambiguous note before it that the section derived solely *206from the Fourteenth Amendment statute, accompanied by the confirmatory sidenote “Equal rights under the law.” Second and more importantly, the majority’s argument is logically impossible, because it has the effect of construing the language “the same rights to make . . . contracts ... as is enjoyed by white citizens,” contained in § 1977 of the Revised Statutes, to mean one thing with respect to one class of “persons” and another thing with respect to another class of “persons.” If § 1981 is held to be a re-enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment statute aimed at private discrimination against “citizens” and the Fourteenth Amendment statute aimed at state-law-created legal disabilities for “all persons,” including aliens, then one class of “persons” — Negro citizens— would, under the majority’s theory, have a right not to be discriminated against by private individuals and another class — aliens—would be given by the same language no such right. The statute draws no such distinction among classes of persons. It logically must be construed either to give “all persons” a right not to be discriminated against by private parties in the making of contracts or to give no persons such a right. Aliens clearly never had such a right under the Fourteenth Amendment statute (or any other statute); § 1977 is concededly derived solely from the Fourteenth Amendment statute so far as coverage of aliens is concerned; and there is absolutely no indication that aliens’ rights were expanded by the re-enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment statute in § 1977 of the Revised Statutes of 1874. Accordingly, the statute gives no class of persons the right not to be discriminated against by private parties in the making of contracts.
That part of the Thirteenth Amendment statute which gives “[a] 11 citizens . . . the same rights to make . . . contracts ... as is enjoyed by white citizens” was accordingly, not re-enacted as part of § 1977, and, since another *207portion of the Thirteenth Amendment statute was reenacted as § 1978 of the Revised Statutes,12 the “right to contract” part of the Thirteenth Amendment statute was repealed in 1874, by § 5596 of the Revised Statutes which provides in part as follows:
“All acts of Congress passed prior to said first day of December one thousand eight hundred and seventy-three, any portion of which is embraced in any section of said revision, are hereby repealed, and the section applicable thereto shall be in force in lieu thereof.”
The majority’s final argument is that to construe the enactment of the Revised Statutes of 1874 to have repealed that part of the Thirteenth Amendment statute which gave “citizens . . . the same rights to make . . . contracts ... as is enjoyed by white citizens” is to conclude that a substantive change in the law was wrought by the revision; and that this is contrary to normal canons of construction and contrary to the instructions given to the Revisers in the statute creating their jobs and defining their duties.
First of all, the argument is beside the point. Congress, not the Revisers, repealed part of the Thirteenth Amendment statute by enacting § 5596 quoted above. The repeal is clear and unambiguous, and the reasons for the repeal, if any, are beyond our powers to question.
As we said of the 1874 revision in United States v. Bowen, 100 U. S. 508, 513 (1880):
“The Revised Statutes must be treated as the legis*208lative declaration of the statute law on the subjects which they embrace on the first day of December, 1873. When the meaning is plain, the courts cannot look to the statutes which have been revised to see if Congress erred in that revision . . .
In Bate Refrigerating Co. v. Sulzberger, 157 U. S. 1, 41 (1895), we said:
“Now, it is true that, according to the report in the Congressional Globe of the proceedings in the House of Representatives . . . the report of the revisers had been examined by the House Committee on Revision of the Laws of the United States, and 'found to embody all the provisions of existing law, in brief, clear and precise language. . . .’
“These considerations, it is supposed, should have controlling weight in our interpretation of the act as it finally passed. We cannot assent to this view. . . . [W] hate ver may have been the scope of the act of 1866 [providing for compilation of a revised code] the purpose, in the act [in question] to go beyond revision and to amend the existing statutes, is manifest from the title of that act, and from the bill that came from the House Committee on Patents. . .
Similarly, here, we are bound by what Congress actually did regardless of its reasons, if any.
Second, the majority’s argument may well rest on a false assumption that the repeal of part of the Thirteenth Amendment statute changed the law.13 The re*209pealed portion 14 of the Thirteenth Amendment statute may well never have had any effect other than that of removing certain legal disabilities. First, as noted above, some of the rights granted under the Thirteenth Amendment statute — the rights to sue, be parties, give evidence, enforce contracts — could not possibly accomplish anything other than the removal of legal disabilities. Thus, the question is whether the right to “make contracts” in the repealed part of the Thirteenth Amendment statute would have been construed in the same vein as these other rights (later included in the Fourteenth Amendment statute) or rather in the same vein as the right to “purchase, etc., real and personal property.” The fact that one of the leaders of the efforts to pass the Thirteenth Amendment statute — Senator Stewart — included the right to “make contracts” but not the right to “purchase, etc., real and personal prop*210erty” in the Fourteenth Amendment statute providing for equal rights under the laws which he sponsored four years later is strong evidence of the fact that Congress always viewed the right to “make contracts” as simply granting equal legal capacity to contract. Plainly that is the only effect of such language in the Fourteenth Amendment statute. It is reasonable to suppose Congress intended the identical language to accomplish the same result when included in a different statute four years earlier. Indeed Senator Stewart specifically drew a distinction between the rights enumerated in the Fourteenth Amendment statute, including the right to “make contracts” and the real and personal property rights not so included. In connection with the Fourteenth Amendment statute, he was asked:
“MR. POMEROY. I have not examined this bill, and I desire to ask the Senator from Nevada a question. I understood him to say that this bill gave the same civil rights to all persons in the United States which are enjoyed by citizens of the United States. Is that it?”
He replied:
“MR. STEWART. No; it gives all the protection of the laws. If the Senator will examine this bill in connection with the original civil rights bill, he will see that it has no reference to inheriting or holding real estate.”
Similarly, President Johnson in vetoing the Thirteenth Amendment statute differentiated between real property rights and contract rights granted by that statute. He said: “If Congress can declare by law who shall hold lands, who shall testify, who shall have capacity to make a contract in a State, then Congress can by law also declare who, without regard to color or race, shall have *211the right to sit as juror or as a judge, to hold any office, and, finally, to vote, fin every State and Territory of the United States.’ ” Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 1680 (1866). (Emphasis added.) Moreover, the legislative history of the Thirteenth Amendment statute is laced with statements that it does not require Negroes and whites to be sent to the same schools — statements which are inconsistent with a provision banning all racially motivated contractual decisions.15
^.Finally, as a matter of common sense, it would seem extremely unlikely that Congress would have intended— without a word in the legislative history addressed to the precise issue — to pass a statute prohibiting every racially motivated refusal to contract by a private individual. It is doubtful that all such refusals could be considered badges or incidents of slavery within Congress’ proscriptive power under the Thirteenth Amendment. A racially motivated refusal to hire a Negro or a white babysitter or to admit a Negro or a white to a private association cannot be called a badge of slavery— and yet the construction given by the majority to the Thirteenth Amendment statute attributes to Congress an intent to proscribe
The Court holds in McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transp. Co., post, p. 273, that § 1981 gives to whites the same cause of action it gives to blacks. Thus under the majority’s construction of § 1981 in this case a former slaveowner was given a cause of action against his former slave if the former slave refused to work for him on the ground that he was a white man. It is inconceivable that Congress ever intended such a result.
*212IY
The majority's holding that 42 U. S. C. § 1981 prohibits all racially motivated contractual decisions — particularly coupled with the Court’s decision in McDonald, supra, that whites have a cause of action against others including blacks for racially motivated refusals to contract — threatens to embark the Judiciary on a treacherous course. Whether such conduct should be condoned or not, whites and blacks will undoubtedly choose to form a variety of associational relationships pursuant to contracts which exclude members of the other race. Social clubs, black and white, and associations designed to further the interests of blacks or whites are but two examples. Lawsuits by members of the other race attempting to gain admittance to such an association are not pleasant to contemplate. As the associational or contractual relationships become more private, the pressures to hold § 1981 inapplicable to them will increase. Imaginative judicial construction of the word “contract” is foreseeable; Thirteenth Amendment limitations on Congress’ power to ban “badges and incidents of slavery” may be discovered; the doctrine of the right to association may be bent to cover a given situation. In any event, courts will be called upon to balance sensitive policy considerations against each other — considerations which have never been addressed by any Congress — all under the guise of “construing” a statute. This is a task appropriate for the Legislature, not for the Judiciary.
Such balancing of considerations as has been done by Congress in the area of racially motivated decisions not to contract with a member of the other race has led it to ban private racial discrimination in most of the job market and most of the housing market and to go no further. The Judiciary should not undertake the political task of trying to decide what other areas are appropriate ones for a similar rule.
*213y
There remains only the question whether any prior pronouncements of this Court preclude me from construing 42 U. S. C. § 1981 in the manner indicated above. What has already been said demonstrates that this Court’s construction of § 1982 in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U. S. 409 (1968), does not require me to construe § 1981 in a similar manner. The former is a Thirteenth Amendment statute under which the Congress may and did seek to reach private conduct, at least with respect to sales of real estate. The latter is a Fourteenth Amendment statute under which the Congress may and did reach only state action.
However, the majority points to language in Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, 421 U. S. 454 (1975), stating with no discussion whatever that § 1981 supplies a cause of action for a private racially motivated refusal to contract. In Johnson, the respondent had been sued for firing the petitioner on account of his race. The Court of Appeals held the petitioner’s action under § 1981 to have been barred by the applicable statute of limitations. We granted petitioner’s petition for a writ of certiorari limited to the question
“ ‘[wjhether the timely filing of a charge of employment discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission pursuant to Section 706 of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 TJ. S. C. § 2000e-5, tolls the running of the period of limitation applicable to an action based on the same facts brought under the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42 TJ. S. C. § 1981?’ ” 417 IT. S. 929 (1974).
Respondent could have argued in support of the judgment of the Court of Appeals that § 1981 supplied no cause of action quite apart from the statute of limitations, see United States v. American Railway Express *214Co., 265 U. S. 425, 435-436 (1924), but it did not do so. It argued only that the action was barred by the statute of limitations. The Court ruled for respondent, in any event, holding the action barred by the statute of limitations. Thus the statement in Johnson v. Railway Express Agency that § 1981 supplies a cause of action for a private racially motivated refusal to contract was dictum, made without benefit of briefs by the parties and without reference to the legislative history of § 1981 set forth above — as is demonstrated by the erroneous reference to the Thirteenth Amendment statute in the question on which certiorari was granted. The Court simply cited several Courts of Appeals' decisions each of which had erroneously assumed the legislative history of § 1981 to be identical to that of § 1982 and thus assumed the construction of § 1981 to be governed by this Court's decision in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., supra.16 Moreover, the dictum in Johnson v. Railway Express Agency is squarely contrary to the dictum in the Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3 (1883). The issue presented in this litigation is too important for this Court to let the more recent of two contradictory dicta stand in the way of an objective analysis of legislative history and a correct construction of a statute passed by Congress. Cf. Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., supra, at 420 n. 25.
Accordingly, I would reverse.

 The majority and two concurring Justices assert that this Court has already considered the issue in this litigation and resolved it in favor of a right of action for private raciaEy motivated refusals to contract. They are wrong. As is set forth more fuEy below, the only time the issue has been previously addressed by this Court it was addressed in a case in which the Court had issued a limited grant of certiorari, not including the issue involved here; in which the issue involved here was irrelevant to the decision; and in which the parties had not briefed the issue and the Court had not canvassed the relevant legislative history.

 I do not question at this point the power of Congress or a state legislature to ban racial discrimination in private school admissions decisions. But as I see it Congress has not yet chosen to exercise that power.

 Title 42 U. S. C. § 1981 provides in full:
“§ 1981. Equal- rights under the law.
“All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.”
The title to § 1981 was placed there originally by the Revisers who compiled the Revised Statutes of 1874. They did so under a statute defining their responsibilities in part, as follows: to “arrange the [statutes] under titles, chapters, and sections, or other suitable divisions and subdivisions with head-notes briefly expressive of the matter contained in such divisions.” 14 Stat. 76. (Emphasis added.) The headnote to what is now § 1981 was before Congress when it enacted the Revised Statutes into positive law. It may properly be considered as an aid to construction, if the statutory language is deemed unclear. E. g., Patterson v. Bark Eudora, 190 U. S. 169, 172 (1903); FTC v. Mandel Bros., 369 U. S. 385, 389 (1959); Knowlton v. Moore, 178 U. S. 41, 65 (1900); Maguire v. Commissioner, 313 U. S. 1, 9 (1941).

 The statute also removes any state-law-created legal disabilities enacted by the Southern States — see E. McPherson, The Political History of the United States of America During the Period of Reconstruction 29, 33, 35 (1871) — preventing Negroes or any other class of persons from suing, being parties, and giving evidence; and provides that all persons shall have full and equal benefit of all laws.

 One of the major issues in this case plainly is whether the construction in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U. S. 409 (1968), placed on similar language contained in 42 U. S. C. § 1982 granting all citizens the “same rights to . . . purchase . . . real . . . property” as is enjoyed by white citizens prevents this Court from independently construing the language in 42 U. S. C. § 1981. As will be developed more fully below, Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. does not so constrict this Court. First, the legislative history of § 1981 is very different from the legislative history of § 1982 so heavily relied on by the Court in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. Second, notwithstanding the dictum in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., quoted by the majority, ante, at 170, even the majority does not contend that the grant of the other rights enumerated in § 1981, i. e., the rights “to sue, be parties, give evidence,” and “enforce contracts” accomplishes anything other than the removal of legal disabilities to sue, be a party, testify or enforce a contract. Indeed it is impossible to give such language any other meaning. Thus, even accepting the Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co. dictum as applicable to § 1981, the question still would remain whether the right to “make contracts” is to be construed in the same vein as the other “right [s]” included in § 1981 or rather in the same vein as the right to “purchase . . . real property” under § 1982 involved in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., supra.

 Section 16 of the Voting Rights Act of 1870 provided:
“And be it further enacted, That all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory in the United States to make and enforce con*196tracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and -proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding. No tax or charge shall be imposed or enforced by any State upon any person immigrating thereto from a foreign country which is not equally imposed and enforced upon every person immigrating to such State from any other foreign country; and any law of any State in conflict with this provision is hereby declared null and void.” (Emphasis added.)
As may be seen, the italicized portion is § 1981.
The majority mistakenly asserts that § 1977 of the Revised Statutes of 1874 — the present § 1981 — is taken from § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 14 Stat. 27, which was re-enacted as § 18 of the Voting Rights Act of 1870 and which provided:
"That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding.” (Emphasis added.)
While the italicized portion of § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 is similar to § 1981 it is not the same statute. First, the 1866 statute, passed under the Thirteenth Amendment and before adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, applies to “citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”; whereas § 1981, like § 16 of *197the Voting Rights Act of 1870, applies to “all persons” — including noncitizens. Second, the 1866 statute does not provide express protection against “taxes, licenses and exactions of every kind.” Section 1981, like § 16 of the Voting Rights Act of 1870, does. Third, the Revisers’ notes to the 1874 Revision — which notes were before Congress when it enacted the Revised Statutes into positive law— clearly designate § 16 of the Voting Rights Act of 1870 as the source for § 1977 — the current 42 U. S. C. § 1981.
I deal infra with the majority’s equally untenable position that § 1981 is in fact derived both from § 16 of the Voting Rights Act and § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

 S. 365 provided in pertinent part:
“Be it enacted, cfee., That all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States, Indians not taxed excepted, shall have the same right in every State and Territory in the United States to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishments, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind and none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding. No tax or charge shall be imposed or enforced by any State upon any person emigrating thereto from a foreign country which is not equally imposed and enforced upon every person emigrating to such State from any other *198foreign country, and any law of any State in conflict with this provision is hereby declared null and void.”

 This would appear to be a reference to § 1 of the Civil Rights *199Act of 1866 which was construed in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U. S. 409 (1968).

 Section 16, 16 Stat. 144, provided, as follows:
“And be it further enacted, That all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory in the United States to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding. No tax or charge shall be imposed or enforced by any State upon any person immigrating thereto from a foreign country which is not equally imposed and enforced upon every person immigrating to such State from any other foreign country; and any law of any State in conflict with this provision is hereby declared null and void.”
The Voting Rights Act also contained the following sections dealing with civil rights:
“SEC. 17. And be it further enacted, That any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State or Territory to the deprivation of any right secured or protected by the last preceding section of this act, or to different punishment, pains, or penalties on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, shall be punished by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, in the discretion of the court.
“SEC. 18. And be it further enacted, That the act to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and furnish the means of their vindication, passed April nine, eighteen hundred and sixty-six, is hereby re-enacted; and sections sixteen and seventeen hereof shall be enforced according to the provisions of said Act.” (This section re-enacted § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. See n. 4, supra.)

 As can be seen the Court is quoting what is now 42 U. S. C. § 1981.

 Hereinafter, I will refer to § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 as “the Thirteenth Amendment statute” and to § 16 of the Voting Rights Act of 1870 as “the Fourteenth Amendment statute.”

 Section 1978 of the Revised Statutes is 42 U. S. C. § 1982 and it provides as follows:
“All citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.”

 I dissented in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U. S. 409 (1968), on the ground that Congress did not ever intend any of the rights granted in the Thirteenth Amendment statute — including the right to buy real property — to accomplish more than the removal of legal disabilities. Under that view the conduct of the Revisers and of Congress in 1874 makes perfect sense — there *209were two statutes accomplishing the same thing, one with respect to "all persons/’ and the other with respect to the included category of “citizens.” Under this view which I still believe was shared by Congress and the Revisers, the statute applicable to the included category “citizens” was redundant and was quite sensibly repealed. I am bound by the holding in Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., supra, that — with respect to the right to “purchase . . . real . . . property” — the Thirteenth Amendment statute accomplishes more than the removal of legal disabilities. However, for the reasons set forth below, it does not follow that the right to “make . . . contracts” in the Thirteenth Amendment statute ever granted anything more than the right to be free from legal disabilities to contract. Accordingly, the Revisers and Congress may well, by repealing part of the Thirteenth Amendment statute, have simply eliminated redundant legislation.

 The repealed portion is set forth below:
“[C]itizens . . . shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence . . . and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens . . . .” (Emphasis added.)

 See remarks of Senator Cowan, Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 500 (1866); remarks of Representative Wilson, id., at 1117; remarks of Representative Rogers, id., at 1120-1123.

 Tillman v. Wheaton-Haven Recreation Assn., 410 U. S. 431, 439-440 (1973), cited by the majority, contains no language, either dictum or holding, relevant to the issue in this case. The Court carefully held in that case solely that the respondent swimming club was not a private club under Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. § 2000a (e), and was not exempt as a private club from any cause of action based either on § 1981 or § 1982. No attempt is made in the opinion to state whether any cause of action existed under § 1981.