The law and how it is dodged by enactments infringing upon the rights
guaranteed to the freedmen by constitutional amendment. A powerful plea
for justice for the Negro.
[Illustration: WILFORD H. SMITH.]
The colored people in the United States are indebted to the beneficent
provisions of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution of
the United States, for the establishment of their freedom and citizenship,
and it is to these mainly they must look for the maintenance of their
liberty and the protection of their civil rights. These amendments
followed close upon the Emancipation Proclamation issued January 1st,
1863, by President Lincoln, and his call for volunteers, which was
answered by more than three hundred thousand negro soldiers, who, during
three years of military service, helped the Union arms to victory at
Appomattox. Standing in the shadow of the awful calamity and deep distress
of the civil war, and grateful to God for peace and victory over the
rebellion, the American people, who upheld the Union, rose to the sublime
heights of doing justice to the former slaves, who had grown and
multiplied with the country from the early settlement at Jamestown. It
looked like an effort to pay them back for their years of faithfulness and
unrequited toil, by not only making them free but placing them on equal
footing with themselves in the fundamental law. Certainly, they intended
at least, that they should have as many rights under the Constitution as
are given to white naturalized citizens who come to this country from all
the nations of Europe.
The 13th amendment provides that neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have
been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States or any place subject
to their jurisdiction.
The 14th amendment provides in section one, that all persons born or
naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,
are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside.
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges
or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any State
deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of
law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
of the law.
The 15th amendment provides that the right of citizens of the United
States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by
any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Chief Justice Waite, in the case of the United States vs. Cruikshank, 92nd
U.S. 542, said:--
"The 14th amendment prohibits a State from denying to any person within
its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. The equality of the
rights of citizens is a principle of republicanism. Every Republican
government is in duty bound to protect all its citizens in the enjoyment
of this principle if within its power."
The same Chief Justice, in the case of the United States vs. Reese, 92nd
U.S. 214, said:
"The 15th amendment does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone. It
prevents the States or the United States from giving preference in this
particular to one citizen of the United States over another, on account of
race, color or previous condition of servitude. Before its adoption this
could be done. It was as much within the power of a State to exclude
citizens of the United States from voting on account of race and color, as
it was on account of age, property or education. Now it is not."
Notwithstanding the manifest meaning of equality of citizenship contained
in the constitutional amendments, it was found necessary to reinforce them
by a civil rights law, enacted by the Congress of the United States, March
1st, 1875, entitled, "An Act To Protect All Citizens In Their Civil and
Legal Rights." Its preamble and first section are as follows:--Preamble:
"Whereas, it is essential to just government we recognize the equality of
all men before the law, and hold that it is the duty of government in its
dealings with the people to mete out equal and exact justice to all, of
whatever nativity, race, color or persuasion, religious or political, and
it being the appropriate object of legislation to enact great fundamental
principles into law, therefore,
"Be it enacted that all persons within the jurisdiction of the United
States shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the
accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of inns, public
conveyances on land or water, theatres and other places of public
amusement, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by
law, and applicable alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless
to any previous condition of servitude."
The Supreme Court of the United States has held this salutary law
unconstitutional and void as applied to the States, but binding in the
District of Columbia, and the Territories over which the government of the
United States has control.--Civil Rights cases 109 U.S. 63. Since the
Supreme Court's ruling, many Northern and Western States have enacted
similar civil rights laws. Equality of citizenship in the United States
suffered a severe blow when the civil rights bill was struck down by the
Supreme Court. The colored people looked upon the decision as unsound, and
prompted by race prejudice. It was clear that the amendments to the
Constitution were adopted to secure not only their freedom, but their
equal civil rights, and by ratifying the amendments the several States
conceded to the Federal government the power and authority of maintaining
not alone their freedom, but their equal civil rights in the United States
as well.
The Federal Supreme Court put a narrow interpretation on the Constitution,
rather than a liberal one in favor of equal rights; in marked contrast to
a recent decision of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New
York in a civil rights case arising under the statute of New York, Burks
vs. Bosso, 81 N.Y. Supp, 384. The New York Supreme Court held this
language: "The liberation of the slaves, and the suppression of the
rebellion, was supplemented by the amendments to the national Constitution
according to the colored people their civil rights and investing them with
citizenship. The amendments indicated a clear purpose to secure equal
rights to the black people with the white race. The legislative intent
must control, and that may be gathered from circumstances inducing the
act. Where that intent has been unvaryingly manifested in one direction,
and that in the prohibition of any discrimination against a large class of
citizens, the courts should not hesitate to keep apace with legislative
purpose. We must remember that the slightest trace of African blood places
a man under the ban of belonging to that race. However respectable and
whatever he may be, he is ostracized socially, and when the policy of the
law is against extending the prohibition of his civil rights, a liberal,
rather than a narrow interpretation should be given to enactments
evidencing the intent to eliminate race discrimination, as far as that
can be accomplished by legislative intervention."
The statutory enactments and recent Constitutions of most of the former
slave-holding States, show that they have never looked with favor upon the
amendments to the national Constitution. They rather regard them as war
measures designed by the North to humiliate and punish the people of those
States lately in rebellion. While in the main they accept the 13th
amendment and concede that the negro should have personal freedom, they
have never been altogether in harmony with the spirit and purposes of the
14th and 15th amendments. There seems to be a distinct and positive fear
on the part of the South that if the negro is given a man's chance, and is
accorded equal civil rights with white men on the juries, on common
carriers, and in public places, that it will in some way lead to his
social equality. This fallacious argument is persisted in, notwithstanding
the well-known fact, that although the Jews are the leaders in the wealth
and commerce of the South, their civil equality has never, except in rare
instances, led to any social intermingling with the Southern whites.
Holding these views the Southern people in 1875, found means to overcome
the Republican majorities in all the re-constructed States, and
practically drove the negroes out of the law-making bodies of all those
States. So that, now in all the Southern States, so far as can be
ascertained, there is not one negro sitting as a representative in any of
the law-making bodies. The next step was to deny them representation on
the grand and petit juries in the State courts, through Jury
Commissioners, who excluded them from the panels.
To be taxed without representation is a serious injustice in a republic
whose foundations are laid upon the principle of "no taxation without
representation." But serious as this phase of the case must appear,
infinitely more serious is the case when we consider the fact that they
are likewise excluded from the grand and petit juries in all the State
courts, with the fewest and rarest exceptions. The courts sit in judgment
upon their lives and liberties, and dispose of their dearest earthly
possessions. They are not entitled to life, liberty or property if the
courts should decide they are not, and yet in this all-important tribunal
they are denied all voice, except as parties and witnesses, and here and
there a negro lawyer is permitted to appear. One vote on the grand jury
might prevent an indictment, and save disgrace and the risk of public
trial; while one vote on the petit jury might save a life or a term of
imprisonment, for an innocent person pursued and persecuted by powerful
enemies.
With no voice in the making of the laws, which they are bound to obey, nor
in their administration by the courts, thus tied and helpless, the negroes
were proscribed by a system of legal enactments intended to wholly nullify
the letter and spirit of the war amendments to the national organic law.
This crusade was begun by enacting a system of Jim-Crow car laws in all
the Southern States, so that now the Jim-Crow cars run from the Gulf of
Mexico into the national capital. They are called, "Separate Car Laws,"
providing for separate but equal accommodations for whites and negroes.
Though fair on their face, they are everywhere known to discriminate
against the colored people in their administration, and were intended to
humiliate and degrade them.
Setting apart separate places for negroes on public carriers, is just as
repugnant to the spirit and intent of the national Constitution, as would
be a law compelling all Jews or all Roman Catholics to occupy compartments
specially set apart for them on account of their religion. If these
statutes were not especially aimed at the negro, an arrangement of
different fares, such as first, second and third classes, would have been
far more just and preferable, and would have enabled the refined and
exclusive of both races to avoid the presence of the coarse and vicious,
by selecting the more expensive fare. Still these laws have been upheld by
the Federal Supreme Court, and pronounced not in conflict with the
amendments to the Constitution of the United States.
City ordinances providing for separate street cars for white and colored
passengers, are in force in Atlanta, New Orleans, and in nearly all the
cities of the South. In all the principal cities of Alabama, a certain
portion of the street cars is set apart and marked for negroes. The
conductors are clothed with the authority of determining to what race the
passenger belongs, and may arrest persons refusing to obey his orders. It
is often a very difficult task to determine to what race some passengers
belong, there being so many dark-white persons that might be mistaken for
negroes, and persons known as negroes who are as fair as any white person.
In the State of Georgia, a negro cannot purchase a berth in a sleeping
car, under any circumstances, no matter where his destination, owing to
the following statute enacted December 20th, 1899: "Sleeping car
companies, and all railroads operating sleeping cars in this State, shall
separate the white and colored races, and shall not permit them to occupy
the same compartment; provided, that nothing in this act shall be
construed to compel sleeping car companies or railroads operating sleeping
cars, to carry persons of color in sleeping or parlor cars; provided also,
that this act shall not apply to colored nurses or servants travelling
with their employers." The violation of this statute is a misdemeanor.
Article 45, section 639 of the statutes of Georgia, 1895, makes it a
misdemeanor to keep or confine white and colored convicts together, or to
chain them together going to and from work. There is also a statute in
Georgia requiring that a separate tax list be kept in every county, of the
property of white and colored persons. Both races generally approve the
laws prohibiting inter-marriages between white and colored persons, which
seem to be uniform throughout the Southern States.
Florida seems to have gone a step further than the rest, and by sections
2612 and 2613, Revised Statutes, 1892, it is made a misdemeanor for a
white man and a colored woman, and vice versa, to sleep under the same
roof at night, occupying the same room. Florida is entitled to credit,
however, for a statute making marriages between white and colored persons
prior to 1866, where they continue to live together, valid and binding to
all intents and purposes.
In addition to this forced separation of the races by law, "from the
cradle to the grave," there is yet a sadder and more deplorable
separation, in the almost universal disposition to leave the negroes
wholly and severely to themselves in their home life and religious life,
by the white Christian people of the South, distinctly manifesting no
concern in their moral and religious development.
In Georgia and the Carolinas, and all the Gulf States (except Texas, where
the farm labor is mostly white) the negroes on the farms are held by a
system of laws which prevents them from leaving the plantations, and
enables the landlord to punish them by fine and imprisonment for any
alleged breach of contract. In the administration of these laws they are
virtually made slaves to the landlord, as long as they are in debt, and it
is wholly in the power of the landlord to forever keep them in debt.
By section 355, of the Criminal Code of South Carolina, 1902, it is made a
misdemeanor to violate a contract to work and labor on a farm, subject to
a fine of not less than five dollars, and more than one hundred dollars,
or imprisonment for not less than ten days, or more than thirty. It is
also made a misdemeanor to employ any farm laborer while under contract
with another, or to persuade or entice a farm laborer to leave his
employer.
The Georgia laws are a little stronger in this respect than the laws of
the other States. By section 121, of the Code of Georgia, 1895, it is
provided, "that if any person shall, by offering higher wages, or in any
other way entice, persuade or decoy, or attempt to entice, persuade or
decoy any farm laborer from his employer, he shall be guilty of a
misdemeanor." Again, by act of December 17th, 1901, the Georgia
Legislature passed a law making it an offense to rent land, or furnish
land to a farm laborer, after he has contracted with another landlord,
without first obtaining the consent of the first landlord.
The presence of large numbers of negroes in the towns and cities of the
South and North can be accounted for by such laws as the above,
administered by ignorant country magistrates, in nearly all cases the
pliant tools of the landlords.
The boldest and most open violation of the negro's rights under the
Federal Constitution, was the enactment of the grand-father clauses, and
understanding clauses in the new Constitutions of Louisiana, Alabama, the
Carolinas, and Virginia, which have had the effect to deprive the great
body of them of the right to vote in those States, for no other reason
than their race and color. Although thus depriving him of his vote, and
all voice in the State governments at the South, in all of them his
property is taxed to pay pensions to Confederate soldiers, who fought to
continue him in slavery. The fact is, the franchise had been practically
taken from the negroes in the South since 1876, by admitted fraudulent
methods and intimidation in elections, but it was not until late years
that this nullification of the amendments was enacted into State
Constitutions.
This brings me to the proposition that it is mainly in the enforcement, or
the administration of the laws, however fair and equal they may appear on
their face, that the constitutional rights of negroes to equal protection
and treatment are denied, not only in the South but in many Northern
States. There are noble exceptions, however, of high-toned honorable
gentlemen on the bench as trial judges, and Supreme Court justices, in the
South, who without regard to consequences have stood for fairness and
justice to the negro in their courts.
With the population of the South distinctly divided into two classes, not
the rich and poor, not the educated and ignorant, not the moral and
immoral, but simply whites and blacks, all negroes being generally
regarded as inferior and not entitled to the same rights as any white
person, it is bound to be a difficult matter to obtain fair and just
results, when there is any sort of conflict between the races. The negro
realizes this, and knows that he is at an immense disadvantage when he is
forced to litigate with a white man in civil matters, and much more so
when he is charged with a crime by a white person.
The juries in the South almost always reject the testimony of any number
of negroes if given in opposition to that of a white witness, and this is
true in many instances, no matter how unreasonable or inconsistent the
testimony of the white witness may be. Jurors in the South have been heard
to admit that they would be socially ostracized if they brought in a
verdict upon colored testimony alone, in opposition to white testimony.
Perhaps it can be best explained how the negro fares in the courts of the
South by giving a few cases showing how justice is administered to him:
A negro boy was brought to the bar for trial before a police magistrate,
in a Southern capital city, charged with assault and battery on a white
boy about the same age, but a little larger. The testimony showed that the
white boy had beat the negro on several previous occasions as he passed on
his way to school, and each time the negro showed no disposition to fight.
On the morning of the charge he attacked the negro and attempted to cut
him with a knife, because the negro's mother had reported to the white
boy's mother the previous assaults, and asked her to chastise him. The
colored boy in trying to keep from being cut was compelled to fight, and
got the advantage and threw the white boy down and blacked his eyes. The
magistrate on this evidence fined the negro twenty-five dollars. The
mother of the negro having once been a servant for the magistrate, found
courage to rise, and said: "Jedge, yo Honer, can I speak?" The magistrate
replied, "Yes, go on." She said, "Well, Jedge, my boy is ben tellin' me
about dis white boy meddlin' him on his way to school, but I would not let
my boy fight, 'cause I 'tole him he couldn't git no jestice in law. But he
had no other way to go to school 'ceptin' gwine dat way; and den jedge,
dis white chile is bigger an my chile and jumped on him fust with a knife
for nothin', befo' my boy tetched him. Jedge I am a po' woman, and washes
fur a livin', and ain't got nobody to help me, and can't raise all dat
money. I think dat white boy's mammy ought to pay half of dis fine." By
this time her voice had become stifled by her tears. The judge turned to
the mother of the white boy and said, "Madam, are you willing to pay half
of this fine?" She answered, "Yes, Your Honor." And the judge changed the
order to a fine of $12.50 each, against both boys.
A celebrated case in point reported in the books is, George Maury vs. The
State of Miss., 68 Miss. 605. I reproduce the court's statement of the
case:--"This is an appeal from the Circuit Court of Kemper County.
Appellant was convicted of murder and sentenced to imprisonment for life.
He appears in this court without counsel. The facts are briefly these:
One, Nicholson, a white man, accompanied by his little son seven years
old, was driving an ox team along a public road; he had occasion to stop
and the oxen were driven by his son; defendant, a negro, also in an ox
wagon, was going along the road in an opposite direction, and met
Nicholson's wagon in charge of the little boy. It was after dark, and when
the wagons met, according to the testimony of Nicholson, the defendant
insultingly demanded of the boy to give the way, and cursed and abused
him. Nicholson, hearing the colloquy, hurried to the scene and a fight
ensued between him and Maury, in which the latter got the advantage,
inflicting severe blows upon Nicholson. This occurred on Thursday, and on
the following Sunday night, Nicholson, in company with eleven or twelve of
his friends, rode to the farm of Maury, and after sending several of their
number to ascertain if he was at home, rode rapidly into his yard and
called for him. Not finding him, they proceeded to search the premises,
and found several colored men shut up in the smoke house, the door of
which some of the searching party had broken open. Maury, the accused, was
not found there, and about that time some one called out, "Here is
George." Some of the party then started in the direction of the cotton
house from which the voice proceeded, when a volley was fired from it, and
two of the searching party were killed, one of whom was the son of the
former owner of the defendant, and the other a brother-in-law of
Nicholson. The members of the raiding party testified that their purpose
in going to the home of the defendant was merely to arrest him. It was,
however, shown that Nicholson, immediately after the fight on Thursday,
informed Cobb, and Cobb between Thursday and Sunday night collected the
men who joined in the raid. No affidavit for the arrest of Maury had been
made, and none of the party had any warrant, or made any announcement to
the defendant or his family, of the object of their visit. The accused who
testified in his own behalf, denied that he was at home at the time of the
shooting, and says he fled before the raiding party arrived. He also
contradicted Nicholson in his account of the difficulty with him, and
denies that he spoke harshly to the child." Chief Justice Campbell, in
delivering the opinion of the court said, "It is inconceivable that the
crime of murder is predicable of the facts disclosed by the evidence in
this case. The time and place and circumstances of the killing forbid any
such conclusion as a verdict of guilty of murder." The judgment of the
trial court was reversed.
This same Chief Justice, in the case of Monroe vs. Mississippi, 71 Miss.
201, where a negro was convicted of rape, makes use of the following
brave and noble language, reversing the case on the ground of the
insufficiency of the evidence: "We might greatly lighten our labors by
deferring in all cases to the verdict approved by the presiding judge as
to the facts, but our duty is to administer justice without respect of
persons, and do equal right to the poor and the rich. Hence the
disposition, which we are not ashamed to confess we have, to guard
jealously the rights of the poor and friendless and despised, and to be
astute as far as we properly may, against injustice, whether proceeding
from wilfulness or indifference."
The country has produced no abler jurist, nor the South no greater man
than Ex-Chief Justice Campbell of Mississippi. If the counsel of such men
as he and Chief Justice Garret of the Court of Civil Appeals of Texas,
could obtain in the South, there would be no problem between the races.
All would be contented because justice would be administered to the whites
and blacks alike.
In the administration of the suffrage sections under the new
Constitutions of the South by the partisan boards of registrars, the same
discrimination against negroes was practiced. Their methods are of more or
less interest. The plan was to exclude all negroes from the electorate
without excluding a single white man. Under the Alabama Constitution, a
soldier in the Civil War, either on the Federal or Confederate side, is
entitled to qualification. When a negro goes up to register as a soldier
he is asked for his discharge. When he presents it he is asked, "How do we
know that you are the man whose name is written in this discharge? Bring
us two white men whom we know and who will swear that you have not found
this paper, and that they know that you were a soldier in the company and
regiment in which you claim to have been." This, of course, could not be
done, and the ex-soldier who risked his life for the Union is denied the
right to vote.
The same Constitution provides that if not a soldier or the legal
descendant of one, an elector must be of good character and understand the
duties and obligations of citizenship under a Republican form of
government. When a negro claims qualifications under the good character
and understanding clauses he is put through an examination similar to the
following:
"What is a republican form of government?
"What is a limited monarchy?
"What islands did the United States come into possession of by the
Spanish-American War?
"What is the difference between Jeffersonian Democracy and Calhoun
principles, as compared to the Monroe Doctrine?
"If the Nicaragua Canal is cut, what will be the effect if the Pacific
Ocean is two feet higher than the Atlantic?" Should these questions be
answered satisfactorily, the negro must still produce two white men known
to the registrars to testify to his good character. A remarkable
exception in the treatment of negroes by the registrars of Dallas county,
Alabama, is shown in the following account taken from the Montgomery
Advertizer:--
"An old negro barber by the name of Edward E. Harris, stepped in before
the registrars, hat in hand, humble and polite, with a kindly smile on his
face. He respectfully asked to be registered. He signed the application
and waited a few minutes until the registrars had disposed of some other
matters, and being impressed with his respectful bearing, some member of
the board commenced to ask a few questions. The old man told his story in
a straight forward manner. He said: "Gentlemen, I am getting to be a
pretty old man. I was born here in the South, and I followed my young
master through all of the campaigns in Virginia, when Mas' Bob Lee made it
so warm for the Yankees. But our luck left us at Gettysburg. The Yankees
got around in our rear there, and I got a bullet in the back of my head,
and one in my leg before I got out of that scrape. But I was not hurt
much, and my greatest anxiety was about my young master, Mr. John Holly,
who was a member of the Bur Rifles, 18th Mississippi. He was a private and
enlisted at Jackson, Miss.
"He could not be found the first day; I looked all among the dead on the
battle field for him and he was not there. Next day I got a permit to go
through the hospitals, and I looked into the face of every soldier
closely, in the hope of finding my young master. After many hours of
searching I found him, but he was dangerously wounded. I stayed by his
side, wounded as I was, for three long weeks, but he gradually grew worse
and then he died. I went out with the body and saw it buried as decently
as I could, and then I went back to Jackson and told the young mistress
how brave he was in battle, how good he was to me, and told her all the
words he had sent her, as he lay there on that rude cot in the hospital.
That is my record as a Confederate soldier, and if you gentlemen care to
give me a certificate of registration, I would be much obliged to you."
It is needless to say that old Ed. Harris got his certificate.
It is insisted upon by the leaders of public opinion at the South, that
negroes should not be given equal political and civil rights with white
men, defined by law and enforceable by the courts; but that they should be
content to strive to deserve the good wishes and friendly feeling of the
whites, and if the South is let alone, they will see to it that negroes
get becoming treatment.
While there is a large number of the high-toned, chivalrous element of the
old master class yet living, who would stand by the negro and not permit
him to be wronged if they could prevent it, yet they are powerless to
control the great mass of the poor whites who are most bitter in their
prejudices against the negro. They should also bear in mind that the old
master class is rapidly passing way, and that there is constantly an
influx of foreigners to the South, and in less than fifty years the
Italians, or some other foreign nationality, may be the ruling class in
all the Southern States; and the negro, deprived of all political and
civil rights by the Constitution and laws, would be wholly at the mercy of
a people without sympathy for him.
In order to show the fallacy and the wrong and injustice of this doctrine,
and how helplessly exposed it leaves the negro to the prejudices of the
poor whites, I relate a tragedy in the life of a friend of mine, who was
well known and respected in the town of Rayville, Louisiana.
Sewall Smith, for many years ran the leading barber shop for whites in the
town of Rayville, and was well-liked and respected by the leading white
men of the entire parish. At the suggestion of his customers he bought
Louisiana state lands while they were cheap, before the railroad was put
through between Vicksburg and Shreveport; and as the road passed near his
lands he was thereby made a rich man, as wealth goes in those parts. His
good fortune, however, did not swell his head and he remained the same to
his friends. He became so useful in his parish that there was never a
public gathering of the leading white business men that he was not invited
to it, and he was always on the delegations to all the levee or river
conventions sent from his parish. He was chosen to such places by white
men exclusively; and in his own town he was as safe from wrong or injury,
on account of his race or color, as any white man.
After the trains began to run through Rayville, on the Shreveport road, he
had occasion to visit the town of Ruston, in another parish some miles in
the interior, and as he got off at the depot, a barefoot, poor white boy
asked to carry his satchel. Smith was a fine looking mulatto, dressed
well, and could have easily been taken for a white man, and the boy might
not have known at the time he was a negro. When he arrived at his stopping
place he gave the boy such a large coin that he asked permission to take
his satchel back to the train on the following day when he was to return.
The next day the boy came for the satchel, and they had nearly reached the
depot about train time, when they passed a saloon where a crowd of poor
whites sat on boxes whittling sticks. The sight of a negro having a white
boy carrying his satchel quite enraged them, and after cursing and abusing
Smith and the boy, they undertook to kick and assault Smith. Smith
defended himself. The result was a shooting affair, in which Smith shot
two or three of them and was himself shot. The train rolled up while the
fight was in progress, and without inquiring the cause or asking any
questions whatever, fully a hundred white men jumped off the train and
riddled Smith with bullets. That was the end of it. Nobody was indicted or
even arrested for killing an insolent "nigger" that did not keep his
place. That is the way the affair was regarded in Ruston. Of course, the
people of Rayville very much regretted it, but they could not do anything,
and could not afford to defend the rights of a negro against white men
under such circumstances, and the matter dropped.
I have preferred not to mention the numerous ways and many instances in
which the rights of negroes are denied in public places, and on the common
carriers in the South, under circumstances very humiliating and degrading.
Nor have I cared to refer to the barbarous and inhuman prison systems of
the South, that are worse than anything the imagination can conceive in a
civilized and Christian land, as shown by reports of legislative
committees.
If the negro can secure a fair and impartial trial in the courts, and can
be secure in his life and liberty and property, so as not to be deprived
of them except by due process of law, and can have a voice in the making
and administration of the laws, he shall have gone a great way in the
South. It is to be hoped that public opinion can be awakened to this
extent, and that it may assist him to attain that end.
_The Characteristics of the Negro People_