Can any discrimination on account of race or color be made among
children entitled to the benefit of our Common Schools under the
Constitution and Laws of Massachusetts? This is the question which the
Court is now to hear, to consider, and to decide.
Or, stating the question with more detail, and with more particular
application to the facts of the present case, are the Committee
having superintendence of the Common Schools of Boston intrusted with
_power_, under the Constitution and Laws of Massachusetts, to exclude
colored children from the schools, and compel them to find education
at separate schools, set apart for colored children only, at distances
from their homes less convenient than schools open to white children?
This important question arises in an action by a colored child only
five years old, who, _by her next friend_, sues the city of Boston for
damages on account of a refusal to receive her into one of the Common
Schools.
It would be difficult to imagine any case appealing more strongly to
your best judgment, whether you regard the parties or the subject.
On the one side is the City of Boston, strong in wealth, influence,
character; on the other side is a little child, of degraded color, of
humble parents, and still within the period of natural infancy, but
strong from her very weakness, and from the irrepressible sympathies
of good men, which, by a divine compensation, come to succor the weak.
This little child asks at your hands her _personal rights_. So doing,
she calls upon you to decide a question which concerns the personal
rights of other colored children,--which concerns the Constitution and
Laws of the Commonwealth,--which concerns that _peculiar institution_
of New England, the Common Schools,--which concerns the fundamental
principles of human rights,--which concerns the Christian character of
this community. Such parties and such interests justly challenge your
earnest attention.
Though this discussion is now for the first time brought before a
judicial tribunal, it is no stranger to the public. In the School
Committee of Boston for five years it has been the occasion of discord.
No less than four different reports, two majority and two minority,
forming pamphlets, of solid dimensions, devoted to this question, have
been made to this Committee, and afterwards published. The opinions
of learned counsel have been enlisted. The controversy, leaving these
regular channels, overflowed the newspaper press, and numerous articles
appeared, espousing opposite sides. At last it has reached this
tribunal. It is in your power to make it subside forever.
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