In arraigning this attempt at separation as a Caste, I say nothing new. For years I have denounced it as such; and here I followed good authorities, as well as reason. Alexander von Humboldt, speaking of the negroes of New Mexico when Slavery prevailed, called them a Caste.[181] A recent political and juridical writer of France uses the same term to denote not only the discrimination in India, but that in our own country,—especially referring to the exclusion of colored children from the common schools as among “the humiliating and brutal distinctions” by which their Caste is characterized.[182] The principle of separation on the ground of hereditary inferiority is the distinctive essence of Caste; but this is the outrage which flaunts in our country, crying out, “I am better than thou, because I am white. Get away!”
THE REMEDY.
Thus do I reject the two excuses. But I do not leave the cause here. I go further, and show how consistent is the pending measure with acknowledged principles, illustrated by undoubted law.
The bill for Equal Rights is simply supplementary to the existing Civil Rights Law, which is one of our great statutes of peace, and it stands on the same requirements of the National Constitution. If the Civil Rights Law is above question, as cannot be doubted, then also is this supplementary amendment; for it is only the complement of the other, and necessary to its completion. Without this amendment the original law is imperfect. It cannot be said, according to its title, that all persons are protected in their civil rights, so long as the outrages I expose continue to exist; nor is Slavery entirely dead.
Following reason and authority, the conclusion is easy. A Law Dictionary, of constant use as a repertory of established rules and principles, defines a “freeman” as “one in the possession of the civil rights enjoyed by the people generally.”[183] Happily, all are freemen now; but the colored people are still excluded from civil rights enjoyed by the people generally,—and this, too, in the face of our new Bill of Rights intended for their especial protection.
By the Constitutional Amendment abolishing Slavery Congress is empowered “to enforce this article by appropriate legislation”; and in pursuance thereof the Civil Rights Law was enacted. That measure was justly accepted as “appropriate legislation.” Without it Slavery would still exist in at least one of its most odious pretensions. By the Civil Rights Law colored persons were assured in the right to testify, which in most of the States was denied or abridged. So closely was this outrage connected with Slavery, that it was, indeed, part of this great wrong. Therefore its prohibition was “appropriate legislation” in the enforcement of the Constitutional Amendment. But the denial or abridgment of Equality on account of color is also part of Slavery. So long as it exists, Slavery is still present among us. Its prohibition is not only “appropriate,” but necessary, to enforce the Constitutional Amendment. Therefore is it strictly Constitutional, as if in the very text of the National Constitution.
The next Constitutional Amendment, known as the Fourteenth, contains two different provisions, which augment the power of Congress. The first furnishes the definition of “citizen,” which down to this time had been left to construction only:—
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the States wherever they reside.”
Here, you will remark, are no words of race or color. “All persons,” and not “all white persons,” born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are “citizens.” Such is the definition supplied by this Amendment. This is followed by another provision in aid of the definition:—