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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XV. No. 362 



SCIENCE: 



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Vol. XV. 



NEW YORK, January io, 1890. 



No. 362 



CONTENTS: 



An Improved Steam-Driven Fan.. 17 



Clark University 18 



Health Matters. 



The Influenza 22 



Notes and News 23 



Book-Reviews. 



Justice and Jurisprudence 26 



Thermodynamics, Heat-Motors, 



and Refrigerating Machines 27 



Fuel and its Applications. . . 

 Among the Publishers 



Letters to the Editor. 



Nicaragua Footprints 30 



Science Text-Books 32 



Industrial Notes. 

 New Electro-Medical Apparatus... 32 



BOOK-REVIEWS. 



Justice atid Jurisprudence : an Inquiry concerning the Consti- 

 tutional Limitations of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fif- 

 teenth Amendments. Philadelphia, Lippincott. 8°' $3. 



This book disarms criticism by its purpose. It is an appeal by 

 " The Brotherhood of Liberty" in behalf of the lost civil rights of 

 the colored people in the United States. Equal civil rights were 

 supposed to have been legally conferred upon our colored citizens 

 by the amendments to the Constitution after the war, especially the 

 fourteenth, and by Senator Sumner's famous " civil rights bill," 

 approved March i, 1875. Shortly after the war there followed a 

 general acquiescence, and many decisions by the minor courts, and 

 many statutes in the several States, practically enforcing, as far 

 as laws could do it, the equal civil rights of all citizens, without 

 regard " to color or previous condition of servitude." 



The way these rights were lost, as far as their legal guaranties 

 are concerned, is soon told after they reached that "grave of 

 liberty," the Supreme Court of the United States. The main 

 points are these : The Constitution of Louisiana after the war pro- 

 vided that " all persons shall enjoy equal rights and privileges upon 

 any conveyance of a public character." A law was passed by that 

 State accordingly, similar to Senator Sumner's civil rights bill, mak- 

 ing it a fineable offence to exclude a colored person, for that rea- 

 son, from public accommodations. Mrs. De Cuir (colored) was 

 thus excluded from the white ladies' cabin of a steamboat, and re- 



covered a judgment for $1,000, fine, therefor. The State courts 

 affirmed that judgment. But when the case came before the 

 Supreme Court of the United States it was reversed — and reversed 

 on a ground that has never ceased to be a surprise ; to wit, that 

 the law was " a regulation of interstate commerce, and, therefore, 

 to that extent, unconstitutional and void" {Hall v. De Cuir, 95 U. 

 S. Repts., 485, 1877). For the United States only have jurisdiction 

 over such commerce, and the States cann'ot regulate it. 



The colored people and their friends were astounded at this de- 

 cision. They insisted that the State Constitution and laws thus 

 stricken down as void had nothing to do with commerce or prop- 

 erty, but were confined to acts in regard to persons and their 

 rights and protection. The two matters are disparate, like trying 

 to rneasure legal rights by pounds or miles. Like, for instance, 

 the demands upon Gov. Seward to return fugitive slaves because 

 they had carried off the calico on their backs. 



But there is no appeal — but to the people — from a decision of 

 the Supreme Court, and so it was legally settled that a State could 

 practically do nothing to enforce the equal rights and privileges of 

 colored citizens, because commerce was king, and had to go on 

 just as it used to do when the Dred Scott decision was in force. 



Still it was hoped that the United States courts would sustain 

 the United States civil rights law, and thus enable the general 

 government to do what the States could not, — protect all citizens 

 in their equal rights and privileges in public assemblies and con- 

 veyances. Five cases arising under this United States civil rights 

 law came before the United States Supreme Court and were de- 

 cided together in 1883. The court held that the Fourteenth 

 Amendment " is prohibitory upon the States only," and does not 

 authorize any direct legislation, " but only a correction " of State 

 legislation ; " such as may be necessary and proper for counteract- 

 ing and redressing the effect of State laws or acts." Therefore 

 the United States civil rights laws were declared unconstitutional 

 and void. {The civil rights cases, U. S. R., 109, 3). The colored 

 people and their friends have never been able to adequately ex- 

 press their indignation over this decision. They held many meet- 

 ings for that purpose, and the book before us may be regarded as 

 their protest in good, solid, bound form. The points they make 

 were to a large extent presented most ably and indignantly in a 

 dissenting opinion by Mr. Associate Justice Harlan, in which he 

 lays aside ordinary judicial reserve, to tell the majority of the court 

 that, " The opinion in these cases proceeds, it seems to me, upon 

 grounds entirely too narrow and artificial. I cannot resist the 

 conclusion that the substance and spirit of the recent amendments 

 to the Constitution have been sacrificed by a subtle and ingenious 

 verbal criticism. . . . Constitutional provisions, adopted in the in- 

 terest of liberty, and for the purpose of securing, through national 

 legislation if need be, rights inhering in a state of freedom, and 

 belonging to American citizenship, have been so construed as to 

 defeat the ends the people desired to accomplish, which they at- 

 tempted to accomplish, and which they supposed they had ac- 

 complished, by changes in their fundamental law " {same case, p. 

 26). 



The narrow, ingenious, and subtle criticism by which the Four- 

 teenth Amendment was defeated by this decision, is in limiting the 

 "provisions " of the amendment, all of which Congress is author- 

 ized to enforce, to the single negative and corrective provision over 

 the States, whereas the plain purpose and intention of the whole of 

 the provisions were to directly secure all citizens in ecjual rights ; 

 and to that end, and as a necessary incident only, the States are 

 also restricted from violating them by their own laws. The very 

 first one of the provisions places the whole subject within the juris- 

 diction of the United States, and then next follows the restraint 

 upon States from conflicting action. But the court does not 

 even quote in its opinion the first and main sentence and provision 

 of the amendment, and so leaves the power of Congress to be 

 limited and applied only to the correction of the States. " Never 

 was a conclusion more lame, impotent, and absurd ! " was the 

 outcry of the friends of liberty everywhere. Had Senator Sum- 

 ner been alive, this complete overthrow of the great object of his 

 later life would have broken his heart. Under that decision, of 

 course, the States will not do any thing, and the United States can- 

 not. The colored people are thus left with the empty name of 



