1900. ] HASTINGS—POLICE POWER OF THE STATE. 443 
claimed to be in their normal relation with the federal government were 
laws which imposed upon the colored race onerous disabilities and bur- 
dens, and curtailed their rights in the pursuit of life, liberty and property 
to such an extent that their freedom was of little value, while they had 
lost the protection which they had received from their former owners 
from motives of self-interest and humanity.” 
“They were, in some states, forbidden to appear in the towns in any 
other character than as menial servants. They were required to reside 
on and cultivate the soil, without the right to purchase or ownit. They 
were excluded from many occupations of gain, and were not permitted 
to give testimony in the courts in any case where a white man was a 
party. It was said that their lives were at the mercy of bad men, either 
because the laws for their protection were insufficient or were not en- 
forced.” 
‘““These circumstances, whatever of falsehood or misconception may 
have been mingled with their presentation, forced upon the statesmen 
who had conducted the federal government safely through the crisis of 
the rebellion and who had supposed that by the thirteenth article of 
amendment they had secured the result of their labors, the conviction 
that something more was necessary in the way of constitutional protec- 
tion to the unfortunate race who had suffered so much. They accord- 
ingly passed through Congress the proposition for the fourteenth 
amendment, and they declined to treat as restored to their full participa- 
tion in the government of the Union the states which had been in insur- 
rection until they ratified that article by a formal vote of their 
legislative bodies.” 
Judge Miller then goes on to say that this did not prove suff- 
cient and a few years later the fifteenth amendment—that suffrage 
should be denied to no one on account of race, color or his pre- 
vious slavery—was added for the same reason. 
“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 pervading purpose found in them ~ 
all, lying at the foundation 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 their freedom and the pro- 
tection of the newly made freeman and citizen from the oppressions of 
those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion over him. Itistrue 
that only in the fifteenth amendment is the negro in terms mentioned ; 
but it is just as true that each of the other articles was addressed to the 
grievances of that race and designed to remedy them as the fifteenth.” 
‘‘We do not say that no one else can have this protection. Both the 
