1 p. 448: ". . . . [N]o one can fail to be impressed with the one pervading purpose found in . . .
all [these amendments:] the freedom of the slave race, the security and firm
establishment of that freedom, and the protection of the newly-made freeman and
citizen from the oppressions of those who had formerly exercised unlimited dominion
over him. It is true that only the fifteenth amendment, in terms, mentions the negro by
speaking of his color and his slavery. But it is just as true that each of the other articles
was addressed to the grievances of that race, and designed to remedy them as the
fifteenth."
2. A broad construction of the privileges or immunities clause "would
constitute this court a perpetual censor upon all legislation of the States, on the civil
rights of their own citizens, with authority to nullify such as it did not approve as
consistent with those rights, as they existed at the time of the adoption of this
amendment." p. 451
3. Equal Protection Clause:
"'Nor shall any State deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
of the laws.'
In the light of the history of these amendments, and the pervading purpose of them,
. . . it is not difficult to give a meaning to this clause. The existence of laws in the States
where the newly emancipated negroes resided, which discriminated with gross injustice
and hardship against them as a class, was the evil to be remedied by this clause, and by
it such laws are forbidden.
If, however, the States did not conform their laws to its requirements, then by the
fifth section of the article of amendment Congress was authorized to enforce it by
suitable legislation. We doubt very much whether any action of a State not directed by
way of discrimination against the negroes as a class, or on account of their race, will
ever be held to come within the purview of this provision. It is so clearly a provision for
that race and that emergency, that a strong case would be necessary for its application
to any other." p. 453
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