Here nobility cannot exist, because it is a privilege from birth. But the same anathema which smites and banishes nobility must also smite and banish every form of discrimination founded on birth,—
"Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses."[25]
EQUALITY BY LEGISLATION OF MASSACHUSETTS.
The Legislature of Massachusetts, in entire harmony with the Constitution, has made no discrimination of race or color in the establishment of Common Schools.
Any such discrimination by the Laws would be unconstitutional and void. But the Legislature has been too just and generous, too mindful of the Bill of Rights, to establish any such privilege of birth. The language of the statutes is general, and applies equally to all children, of whatever race or color.
The provisions of the Law are entitled, Of the Public Schools,[26] meaning our Common Schools. To these we must look to ascertain what constitutes a Public School. Only those established in conformity with the Law can be legally such. They may, in fact, be more or less public; yet, if they do not come within the terms of the Law, they do not form part of the beautiful system of our Public Schools,—they are not Public Schools, or, as I prefer to call them, Common Schools. The two terms are used as identical; but the latter is that by which they were earliest known, while it is most suggestive of their comprehensive character. A "common" in law is defined to be "open ground equally used by many persons"; and the same word, when used as an adjective, is defined by lexicographers as "belonging equally to many or to the public," thus asserting Equality.
If we examine the text of this statute, we shall find nothing to sustain the rule of exclusion which has been set up. The first section provides, that "in every town, containing fifty families or householders, there shall be kept in each year, at the charge of the town, by a teacher or teachers of competent ability and good morals, one school for the instruction of children in Orthography, Reading, Writing, English Grammar, Geography, Arithmetic, and Good Behavior, for the term of six months, or two or more such schools, for terms of time that shall together be equivalent to six months." The second, third, and fourth sections provide for the number of such schools in towns having respectively one hundred, one hundred and fifty, and five hundred families or householders. There is no language recognizing any discrimination of race or color. Thus, in every town, the schools, whether one or more, are "for the instruction of children" generally,—not children of any particular class or race or color, but children,—meaning the children of the town where the schools are.
The fifth and sixth sections provide a school, in certain cases, where additional studies are to be pursued, which "shall be kept for the benefit of all the inhabitants of the town." The language here recognizes no discrimination among the children, but seems directly to exclude it.