CIVIL RIGHTS. 



OOLENSO, JOHN W. 



135 



ing the progress of our business. It would never 

 occur to any one that the presence of a colored citizen 

 in a court-house, or court-room, was an invasion of 

 the social rights of white persons who may frequent 

 such places. And yet, such a suggestion would be 

 quite as sound in law I say it with all respect as is 

 nie suggestion that the claim of a colored citizen to 

 use, upon the same terms as is permitted to white 

 oitizenSj the accommodations of public highways, or 

 public inns, or places of public amusement, estab- 

 lished under the license of the law, is an invasion of 

 the social rights of the white race. 



The opinion of Justice Harlan closes with 

 the expression of these views : 



My brethren say that, when a man has emerged 

 from slavery, and by; the aid of beneficent legislation 

 has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that 

 state, there must be some stage in the progress of his 

 elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen, 

 and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws, and 

 when his rights as a citizen, or a man, are to be pro- 

 tected in the ordinary modes by which other men's 

 rights are protected. It is, I submit, scarcely just to 

 say that the colored race has been the special favorite 

 of the laws. What the nation, through Congress, has 

 ought to accomplish in reference to that race, is 

 what had already been done in every State of the 

 Union for the white race to secure and protect rights 

 belonging to them as freemen and citizens, nothing 

 more. The one underlying purpose of congressional 

 legislation has been to enable the black race to take 

 the rank of mere citizens. The difficulty has been to 

 compel a recognition of their legal right to take that 

 rank, and to secure the enjoyment of privileges be- 

 longing, under the law, to them as a component part 

 of the people for whose welfare and happiness gov- 

 ernment is ordained. At every step in this direc- 

 tion the nation has been confronted with class-tyran- 

 ny, which a contemporary English historian says is, 

 of all tyrannies, the most intolerable, " for it is ubi- 

 quitous in its operation, and weighs, perhaps, most 

 heavily on those whose obscurity or distance would 

 withdraw them from the notice of a single despot." 

 To-day it is the colored race which is denied, by cor- 

 porations and individuals wielding public authority, 

 rights fundamental in their freedom and citizenship. 

 At some future time it may be some other race that 

 will fall under the ban. If the constitutional amend- 

 ments be enforced, according to the intent with which, 

 as I conceive, they were adopted, there can not be in 

 this republic any class of human beings in practical 

 subjection to another class, with, power in the latter 

 to dole out to the former just such privileges as they 

 may choose to grant. The supreme law of the land 

 has decreed that no authority shall be exercised in this 

 country upon the basis of discrimination, in respect 

 of civil rights, against freemen and citizens because 

 of their race, color, or previous condition of servitude. 

 To that decree for the due enforcement of which, by 

 appropriate legislation, Congress has been invested 

 with express power every one must bow, whatever 

 may have been, or whatever now are, his individual 

 views as to the wisdom or policy, either of the recent 

 changes in the fundamental law, or of the legislation 

 which has been enacted to give them effect. 



The decision of the Court, and the dissenting 

 opinion of Justice Harlan, gave rise to much 

 discussion throughout the country. By some 

 the opinion of the majority was freely criti- 

 cised, but it appears to have been generally ac- 

 cepted as a sound as well as a final interpreta- 

 tion of the Constitution. The fact was recog- 

 nized that the Court simply reaffirmed a prin- 

 ciple which it had more than once previously 

 affirmed, and had advanced as far back as the 

 session of 1875-"T6. On the meeting of Con- 



gress, Senator Wilson, of Iowa, proposed this 

 constitutional amendment: 



Congress shall have power, by appropriate legisla- 

 tion, to protect citizens of the United States in the ex- 

 ercise and enjoyment of their rights, privileges, and 

 immunities, and to assure to them the equal protection 

 of the laws. 



The New York Penal Code contains these 

 provisions concerning civil rights : 



SECTION 381. A person who either on his own ac- 

 count, or as agent or officer of a corporation ? carries on 

 business as innkeeper, or as common earner of pas- 

 sengers, and refuses, without just cause or excuse, to 

 receive and entertain any guest, or to receive and 

 carry any passenger, is guilty of a misdemeanor. 



SEC. 383. No citizen of this State can, by reason 

 of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, be 

 excluded from the equal enjoyment of any accommo- 

 dation, facility, or privilege furnished by innkeepers 

 or common carriers, or by owners, managers, or les- 

 sees of theatres or other places of amusement, by 

 teachers and officers of common schools and public in- 

 stitutions of learning, or by cemetery associations. The 

 violation of this section is a misdemeanor, punishable 

 by a fine of not less than fifty dollars nor more than 

 five hundred dollars. 



CIYIL-SERVICE REFORM BILL. See CON- 

 GRESS and KEFOEM IN THE CIVIL SERVICE. 



COLENSO, John William, an English clergyman 

 and colonial bishop, born in St. Austell, Corn- 

 wall, Jan. 24, 1814 ; died in D'Urban, or Port 

 Natal, South Africa, June 20, 1883. He en- 

 tered St. John's College, Cambridge, and in 

 1836 was graduated as second wrangler and 

 Smith's prizeman, and became a fellow of his 

 college.' Two years later he was appointed 

 assistant-master of Harrow School, which post 

 he held until 1842. During these years he 

 prepared books on arithmetic and algebra, 

 which, being adopted as text-books in schools 

 and universities, yielded him a handsome in- 

 come. From 1842 to 1846 he resided at his 

 college, and then became rector of Forncett 

 St. Mary, Norfolk. Besides giving due atten- 

 tion to his parish work and duties, Colenso pub- 

 lished other mathematical works, a volume of 

 "Village Sermons," and a treatise on the com- 

 munion service in the Prayer-Book, with selec- 

 tions from the writings of F. D. Maurice. 



On the 30th of November, 1853, Dr. Colenso 

 was appointed Bishop of Natal, South Africa, 

 being the first to occupy that see. His " Ten 

 Weeks in Natal " was published two years 

 after he left England, and his " Translation 

 of the Epistle to the Romans, commented on 

 from a Missionary Point of View," appeared 

 in 1861. It is not known clearly how long 

 Bishop Colenso had been engaged in studying 

 the Old Testament, with reference to critical 

 points at issue ; but it is quite likely that the 

 matter had been before him for -years. At any 

 rate, he considered it a duty, as appears from 

 his course, to put forth views which at once 

 excited severe animadversion and astonishment 

 at his lapse from Anglican orthodoxy, and his 

 adoption of German rationalism and neology. 



The first part of "The Pentateuch and Book 

 of Joshua critically examined" appeared in 



