Such being the relations these corporations hold to the public, it would seem that the right of a colored person to use an improved public highway, upon the terms accorded to freemen of other races, is as fundamental, in the state of freedom established in this country, as are any of the rights which my brethren conceive to be so far fundamental as to be deemed the essence of civil freedom. “Personal liberty consists,” says Blackstone, “in the power of locomotion, of changing situation, or removing one’s person to whatever places one’s own inclination may direct, without restraint, unless by due course of law.” But of what value is this right of locomotion, if it may be clogged by such burdens as Congress intended by the act of 1875 to remove? They are burdens which lay at the very foundation of the institution of slavery as it once existed. They are not to be sustained, except upon the assumption that there is, in this land of universal liberty, a class which may still be discriminated against, even in respect of rights of a character so necessary and supreme, that deprived of their employment in common with others, a freeman is not only branded as one inferior and infected, but, in the competitions of life, is robbed of some of the most essential means of existence; and all this solely because they belong to a particular race which the nation has liberated. The Thirteenth Amendment alone obliterated the race line, so far as all rights fundamental in a state of freedom are concerned.
Second, as to inns. The same general observations which have been made as to railroads are applicable to inns. The word ‘inn’ has a technical legal signification. It means, in the act of 1875, just what it meant at common law. A mere private boarding-house is not an inn, nor is its keeper subject to the responsibilities, or entitled to the privileges of a common innkeeper. “To constitute one an innkeeper, within the legal force of that term, he must keep a house of entertainment or lodging for all travelers or wayfarers who might choose to accept the same, being of good character or conduct.” Redfield on Carriers, etc., § 775.
The United States Government is divided into three co-ordinate departments:—(1) Legislative, (2) Executive, (3) Judiciary. These departments are an obscure deception to the negro. These departments are upheld and supported by 8,000,000 black people, and scarcely one escapes the dreadful discrimination which in all cases means respectable accommodation for the white man and disrespectable accommodation for the black man.
Salus-populi-supre Ma-est-lex.
When the welfare of a race is evinced in the supreme law of the nation, and that law disfranchises that race, then where shall the race appeal. Certainly the colored race has appealed to Almighty God, to whom may glory and praise be given for ever. As Abraham Lincoln was instrumental in bringing about freedom of the black race, so will the Almighty plant within the hearts of such heroes as John Brown and Fred. Douglas a seed of right, and it will grow and ultimately overshadow the wrong. It is noticeable that the evil forces rush on the negro with one accord: that is, all the leaders of the American Government apparently have secret consultation as to the treatment of a black man. Even merchants, hotel men, livery stable men, news men, and train men, all drift conjointly against the negro to uphold their own affairs, and especially do the colored man out of his rights and earnings. The following clipping from a Decatur daily newspaper will serve readily in support of the foregoing statement:—
Under the Civil Rights Bill.
“Nay Boggess was in Blue Mound yesterday to prosecute a case where J. C. Coleman sues to recover $200 damages from Landlord Blair. Coleman is a negro and declares that he was denied entertainment at Blair’s hostelry. The case was to have been heard yesterday before Justice Tidd, but Coleman telegraphed from McLean county that he was detained there by the illness of his wife, and on this plea the case was continued until Monday next. It is likely that the case will be dismissed at Blue Mound and be re-instituted in the circuit court.”
The above article appeared in one of the Decatur, Ill., daily leading newspapers in the summer of 1894. The editorial staff no doubt were aware of the procedure and termination of all such cases, otherwise the prediction that the “case would be dismissed in Blue Mound and re-instituted in the circuit court,” could not have been so frankly and authentically announced. The numerous disappointments attending my struggle to obtain justice in this case are so multitudinous space cannot just here be allotted for further explanation. Some incidents connected with the travel during the summer of 1894 in the “great” State of Illinois are of praiseworthy importance to the reader on other pages.