But this is not enough. Much as it may seem, compared with the past,
when all was denied, it is too little, because all is not yet
recognized. The denial of any right is a wrong darkening the enjoyment
of all the rest. Besides the right to testify and the right to vote,
there are other rights without which Equality does not exist. The
precise rule is Equality before the Law, nor more nor less; that is,
that condition before the law in which all are alike,--being entitled,
without discrimination, to the equal enjoyment of all institutions,
privileges, advantages, and conveniences created or regulated by law,
among which are the right to testify and the right to vote. But this
plain requirement is not satisfied, logically or reasonably, by these
two concessions, so that when they are recognized all others are
trifles. The court-house and the ballot-box are not the only places for
the rule. These two are not the only institutions for its operation.
The rule is general; how, then, restrict it to two cases? It is, _All
are equal before the law_,--not merely before the law in two cases, but
before the law in all cases, without limitation or exception. Important
as it is to testify and to vote, life is not all contained even in
these possessions.
The new-made citizen is called to travel for business, for health, or
for pleasure; but here his trials begin. His money, whether gold or
paper, is the same as the white man’s; but the doors of the public
hotel, which from the earliest days of jurisprudence have always
opened hospitably to the stranger, close against him, and the public
conveyances, which the Common Law declares equally free to all
alike, have no such freedom for him. He longs, perhaps, for respite
and relaxation at some place of public amusement, duly licensed by
law; and here also the same adverse discrimination is made. With the
anxieties of a parent, seeking the welfare of his child, he strives to
bestow upon him the inestimable blessings of education, and takes him
affectionately to the common school, created by law, and supported by
the taxation to which he has contributed; but these doors slam rudely
in the face of the child where is garnered up the parent’s heart.
“Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me”: such
were the words of the Divine Master. But among us little children are
turned away and forbidden at the door of the common school, because
of the skin. And the same insulting ostracism shows itself in other
institutions of science and learning, also in the church, and in the
last resting-place on earth.
Two instances occur, which have been mentioned already on this floor;
but their eminence in illustration of an unquestionable grievance
justifies the repetition.