“I am also thoroughly persuaded that this needed legislation should come from the National Congress.”
So he replies to my friend.
“Local or State legislation will necessarily be partial and vacillating. Besides, our experience is to the effect that the local State governments are unreliable for the enforcement or execution of laws for this purpose.
“In Arkansas, for example, a statute was enacted by the General Assembly of 1868 for the purpose of securing the equal rights of colored persons upon steamboats, railroads, and public thoroughfares generally. The provisions of the statute were deemed good, if not entirely sufficient; yet to the present time gross indignities continue to be perpetrated upon colored travellers, men and women, while those charged under oath to see the laws faithfully executed look on with seeming heartless indifference while the law remains a dead letter on the statute-book.
“With a care and anxiety which one vitally interested alone can feel I have examined and weighed this subject.”
Here, Sir, he replies again to my friend. I should like the Senator to notice the sentence:—
“With a care and anxiety which one vitally interested alone can feel”—
as, of course, my friend cannot feel, since he has not that vital interest—
“I have examined and weighed this subject.”