CONGRESS, UNITED 8TA : 



100 



lin 

 o 

 * 



was nm'mt inn d that the act was the exorcise 

 of thy ordinary and unquestionable p.. \\ ,-r of 

 t.'i.- State to make regulation for the health 

 and comfort of society the exercise of tlm 

 power of the State, defined by Chancel- 

 lor Kent to be ' the right to interdict unwhole- 



>iiie trades, slaughter-houses, operations ott'en- 



ve to the senses, the deposit of powder, the 

 application of steam-power to propel cars, the 

 building with combustible materials, and the 

 burial of the dead in the midst of dense masses 

 of population, on the general and rational prin- 

 ciple that every person ought so to use his own 

 property as not to injure his neighbors, and that 

 private interests must be made subservient to 

 the general interests of the community.' 



41 The decision of the Supreme Court is to 

 be found in the 16th volume of Wallace's Re- 

 ports, and was delivered by Associate-Justice 

 Miller. The court hold, first, the act in qnes- 

 tion is a legitimate and warrantable exercise 

 of the police power of the State in regulating 

 the business of stock-landing and slaughtering 

 in the city of New Orleans and the territory 

 immediately contiguous. Having held this, 

 the court proceed to discuss the question 

 whether the conferring of exclusive privileges, 

 such as those conferred by the act in question, 

 is the imposing of an involuntary servitude, the 

 abridging of the rights and immunities of citi- 

 zens of the United States, or the denial to any 

 person within the jurisdiction of the State of 

 the equal protection of the laws. 



u That the act is not the imposition of an in- 

 voluntary servitude the court hold to be clear, 

 and they next proceed to examine the remain- 

 ing questions arising under the fourteenth 

 amendment. Upon this question the court hold 

 that the leading and comprehensive purpose 

 of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth 

 amendments was to secure the complete free- 

 dom of the race which, by the events of the 

 war, had been wrested from the unwilling grasp 

 of their owners. I know no finer or more just 

 picture, albeit painted in the neutral tints of 

 true judicial impartiality, of the motives and 

 events which led to these amendments. Has 

 the gentleman from Kentucky read these pas- 

 sages which I now quote? Or has the gentle- 

 man from Georgia considered well the force 

 of the language therein used ? Say the court, 

 on page 70 : 



The process of restoring to their proper relations 

 with the Federal Government and with the other 

 States those which had Bided with the rebellion, 

 undertaken under the proclamation of President 

 Johnson in 1865. and before the assembling of Con- 

 fess, developed the fact that, notwithstanding the 

 formal recognition by those States of the abolition 

 of slavery, the condition of the slave race would, 

 without further protection of the Federal Govern- 

 ment, be almost aa bad as it was before. Among 

 the first acts of legislation adopted by several of the 

 States in the legislative bodies which claimed to be 

 in their normal relations with the Federal Govern- 

 ment, were laws which imposed upon the colored 

 race onerous disabilities and burdens, and curtailed 

 their rights in the pursuit of life, liberty, and prop- 

 erty to such an extent that their freedom was of little 

 VOL. xiv. T4 A 



value, while they bad lost the protection which tbej 



lui'l re.-, ivi <l I'r.ini tln-ir former owucm Jrom i 

 both of inti-n-ht utid Immunity. 



They were in some Htates forbidden to appear in 

 the towns in any other character than menial ser- 

 vants. They were required to reside on and culti- 

 vate the aoil, without the right to purchase or own 

 it. They were excluded from any occupations of 

 gain, and were not permitted to give tentinionj' in 

 urts in any cane where a white man waa a par- 

 ty. It waa said that their livea were at the m< 

 bud men, either because the lawa for their protection 

 wore insufficient or were not enforce!. 



These circumstances, whatever of falsehood or 

 misconception may have been mingled with their 

 presentation, forced upon the statesmen who hod 

 conducted the Federal Government in safety through 

 the crisis of the rebellion, and who supposed that Ly 

 the thirteenth article oi amendment they had se- 

 cured the result of their labors, the conviction that 

 something more was necessary in the way of consti- 

 tutional protection to the unfortunate race who had 

 suffered so much. They accordingly pasted through 

 Congress the proposition for the fourteenth amend- 

 ment, and they declined to treat as restored to their 

 full participation in the government of the Union 

 the States which had been in insurrection until they 

 ratified that article by a formal vote of their legisla- 

 tive bodies. 



Before we proceed to examine more critically the 

 provisions ol this amendment, on which the plain- 

 tiffs in error rely, let us complete and dismiss the 

 history of the recent amendments, as that history re- 

 lates to the general purpose which pervades them all. 

 A few years' experience satisfied the thoughtful men 

 who had been the authors of the other two amend- 

 ments that, notwithstanding the restraints of those 

 articles on the States and the laws passed under the 

 additional powers granted to Congress, these were 

 inadequate for the protection of life, liberty, and 

 property, without which freedom to the slave was no 

 boon. They were in all those States denied the 

 right of suffrage. The laws were administered by 

 the white man alone. It was urged that a race of 

 men distinctively marked as was the negro, living in 

 the midst of another and dominant race, could never 

 be fully secured in their person and their property 

 without the right of suffrage. 



Hence the fifteenth amendment, which declares 

 that 4 ' the right of a citizen of the United States to 

 vote shall not be denied or abridged by any State on 

 account of race, color, or previous condition of servi- 

 tude." The negro having, by the fourteenth amend- 

 ment, been declared to be a citizen of the United 

 States, is thus made a voter in every State of the 

 Union. 



We repeat, then, in the light of this recapitulation 

 of events, almost too recent to be called history, but 

 which are familiar to us all, and on the most casual 

 examination of the language of these amendments, 

 no one can fail to be impressed with the one pervad- 

 ing purpose fonnd in tnem all, lying at the founda- 

 tion of each, and without which none of them would 

 have been even suggested : we mean the freedom of 

 the slave race, the security and firm establishment 

 of that freedom, and the protection of the newly- 

 made freeman and citizen from the oppressions 

 of those who had formerly exercised unlimited do- 

 minion over him. It is true that only the fifteenth 

 amendment in terms mentions the negro by speak- 

 ing of his color and his slavery. But it ia just aa 

 true that each of the other articles wa* addressed to 

 the grievances of that race, and designed to remedy 

 them, as the fifteenth. 



44 These amendments, one and all, are thus 

 declared to have as their all-pervading design 

 and end the security to the recently-enslaved 

 race, not only their nominal freedom, bnt their 

 complete protection from those who had for- 



