The Jim Crow Car; Or, Denouncement of injustice meted out to the black race

by J. C. Coleman

Mr. Solicitor General Phillips for the United States.

After considering some objections in the forms of proceedings in the different cases, the counsel reviewed the following decisions of the court upon the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution and on points cognate thereto, viz.: The Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36; Bradwell v. The State, 16 Wall. 130; Bartmeyer v. Iowa, 18 Wall. 129; Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162; Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U. S. 90; United States v. Reese, 92 U. S. 214; Kennard v. Louisiana, 92 U. S. 480; United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542; Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113; Chicago B. & C. R. R. Co. v. Iowa, 94 U. S. 155; Blyew v. United States, 13 Wall. 581; Railroad Co. v. Brown, 17 Wall. 445; Hall v. DeCuir, 95 U. S. 485; Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303; Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339; Missouri v. Lewis, 101 U. S. 22; Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370.

Upon the whole, these cases decide that,

1. The Thirteenth Amendment forbids all sorts of involuntary personal servitude except penal, as to all sorts of men, the word servitude taking some color from the historical fact that the United States were then engaged in dealing with African slavery, as well as from the signification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which must be construed as advancing constitutional rights previously existing.

2. The Fourteenth Amendment expresses prohibitions (and consequently implies corresponding positive immunities), limiting State action only, including in such action, however, action by all State agencies executive, legislative and judicial, of whatever degree.

3. The Fourteenth Amendment warrants legislation by Congress punishing violations of the immunities thereby secured when committed by agents of States in discharge of ministerial functions.

The right violated by Nichols, which is of the same class as that violated by Stanley and by Hamilton, is the right of locomotion, which Blackstone makes an element of personal liberty. Blackstone’s Commentaries, Book I, ch. 1.

In violation of this right, Nichols did not act in an exclusively private capacity, but in one devoted to public use, and so affected with a public, i. e., a State interest. This phrase will be recognized as taken from the Elevator Cases in 94 U. S., already cited.