"If this legislation is appropriate for enforcing the prohibitions of the Amendment, it is difficult to see where it is to stop. Why may not Congress, with equal show of authority, enact a code of laws for the enforcement and vindication of all rights of life, liberty and property?"
My answer is: The legislation will stop when and where the discriminations on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude, stop. Whenever an immunity or privilege of a citizen of the United States is trodden down by the State, or by an individual, under the circumstances mentioned in the Civil Rights Act—that is to say, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude—then the Federal Government must interfere. The Government must defend the immunities and privileges of its citizens, not only from State invasion, but from individual invaders, when that invasion is based upon the distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The Government has taken upon itself that duty. This duty can be discharged by a law making a uniform rule, obligatory not only upon States, but upon individuals. All this will stop when the discriminations stop.
After such examination of the authorities as I have been able to make, I lay down the following propositions, namely:
1. The sovereignty of a State extends only to that which exists by its own authority.
2. The powers of the General Government were not conferred by the people of a single State; they were given by the people of the United States; and the laws of the United States, in pursuance of the Constitution, are supreme over the entire Republic.
3. The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of each State.
4. The United States is a Government whose authority extends over the whole territory of the Union, acting upon all the States and upon all the people of all the States.
5. No State can exclude the Federal Government from the exercise of any authority conferred upon it by the Constitution, or withhold from it, for a moment, the cognizance of any subject which that instrument has committed to it.
6. It is the duty of Congress to enforce the Constitution, and it has been clothed with power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution all the powers vested by the Constitution in the General Government.
7. It is the duty of the Government to protect every citizen of the United States in all his rights, everywhere, without regard to race, color, or previous condition of servitude; and this the Government has the right to do by direct legislation.