Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
RACE DISTINCTIONS IN AMERICAN LAW
PREFACE
America has to-day no problem more perplexing anddisquieting than that of the proper and permanent relationsbetween the white and the colored races. Althoughit concerns most vitally the twenty millions of Caucasiansand the eight millions of Negroes in eleven States of theSouth, still it is a national problem, because whateveraffects one part of our national organism concerns thewhole of it. Although this question has been consideredfrom almost every conceivable standpoint, few have turnedto the laws of the States and of the Nation to see howthey bear upon it. It was with the hope of gaining newlight on the subject from this source that I undertook thepresent investigation.
I have examined the Constitutions, statutes, and judicialdecisions of the United States and of the States andTerritories between 1865 and the present to find the lawsthat have made any distinctions between persons on thebasis of race. Reference has been made to some extentto laws in force before 1865, but only as the backgroundof later legislation and decision. In order to make thisstudy comparative as well as special, the writer has abandonedhis original plan of confining it to the SouthernStates and laws applicable only to Negroes, and has extendedviiiit to include the whole United States and allthe races.
Immediately after the Negro became a free man in1865, the Federal Government undertook, by a series ofconstitutional amendments and statutory enactments, tosecure to him all the rights and privileges of an Americancitizen. My effort has been to ascertain how far this attempthas been successful. The inquiry has been: Afterforty-five years of freedom from physical bondage, howmuch does the Negro lack of being, in truth, a full-fledgedAmerican citizen? What limitations upon him are allowedor imposed by law because he is a Negro?
This is not meant, however, to be a legal treatise.Although the sources are, in the main, constitutions, statutes,and court reports, an effort has been made to statethe principles in an untechnical manner. Knowing thatcopious citations are usually irksome to those who