in the State was absolutely unbroken."

To the Re

publicans this action of the Democrats was a stigma of disgrace. To the Democrats it was a badge of honor. The grounds of Democratic opposition to the Amendment may be briefly summarized as follows:

1. As a measure of the Republican Party one of its chief effects would be to decrease the Democratic Party by disfranchising from public office its Southern constituency.

2. The times were too abnormal for the proper consideration of a constitutional amendment.

3. The radical change in the system of government which might be effected under section one could lead to the practical abolition of the State governments.

4. It was an undemocratic measure in that the people to be most affected by its operation would have no voice in proposing it, and, under the political methods employed, no voice in its adoption.

Several years after the adoption of the Amendment, when the various clauses thereof came up to the Supreme Court of the United States for interpretation, the majority of the Court followed, in effect, the reasoning of the Democratic opposition, and refused to give effect to the ideals of the Radical Republicans.

Having secured the adoption of the Amendment, the Republican Party then set out to give it force and effect. The Congressional ideal of the purpose and of the enforcement of the Amendment at this time was

1 Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, pp. 309, 310.

2

3

simply an expression of the aims of the Radicals who were in full control. We can gather from the laws they enacted what they intended the Fourteenth Amendment to be. The first enforcement act was passed May 31, 1870. This was supplemented by an amendatory act February 28, 1871.2 These two acts may be considered together. They had three aims in view, to wit: To protect negro voters under the Fifteenth Amendment; to reenact the Civil Rights Act of 1866 under the Fourteenth Amendment, thereby rendering it constitutional; and, lastly, to place all violations of these acts under Federal control by giving to the Federal Courts exclusive jurisdiction of such alleged violations, and by giving to the President of the United States the power to use the Army and Navy to enforce its provisions. The penalties for violating these acts were exceedingly heavy. The minimum cost to the party offending would be more than one thousand dollars for each offence, a cash sum which was hard for anybody in the South to get together in those days.

The next enforcement act, commonly known as the Ku Klux Act, was passed April 20, 1871.3 Its purpose was to enforce all of the provisions of section one of the Fourteenth Amendment. This law was a drastic measure. It was aimed primarily at the acts of private persons against private persons. Under its provi

1 Acts and Resolutions, 41 Cong. 2 Sess., p. 95.

2 Ibid., 3 Sess., p. 45.

'Ibid., 41 Cong. 1st Sess., p. 294.

sions the accused party could not avail himself of the defence that he was acting under State laws. The law did not mention the negro race, but was universal in its application. It was a nationalization of all civil rights. The Federal Courts had universal jurisdiction. The States were powerless to regulate their own internal affairs.

Section one made any person civilly liable in damages who interfered with the rights of another as secured to him by the Fourteenth Amendment. Section two provided that any persons who should conspire to deprive any citizen of the United States of the equal protection of the laws should be liable to fine and imprisonment through the Federal Courts. The minimum penalty was a fine of five hundred dollars, while the maximum penalty was a fine of five thousand dollars and six years imprisonment in addition to civil liability as provided in section one. Section three gave the President of the United States the authority to employ the Army and Navy to quell domestic disturbances within a State. Section four authorized the President to suspend by proclamation the writ of habeas corpus in any portion of the Union when, in his opinion, there was organized and powerful resistance to State or Federal authority. Section five disqualified for jury service in the Federal Courts all persons who were involved in such rebellions against the government.

Section six of this statute represents the climax of the Congressional ideal of the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment. It provided, in substance, that

if any person by reasonable diligence could have prevented or assisted in preventing any persons from depriving another person or persons of the equal protection of the laws and did not do so, that person should be liable in damages in a civil action in the Federal Courts in a sum not exceeding five thousand dollars. A more remarkable law was never written upon the statute books of an English-speaking people! How far had Congress strayed from the ideals of law and government set up by their forefathers in England and America! Here was a law compelling every person in the United States to see that his neighbor's rights were properly secured and enforced!

This law was aimed at the operations of the Ku Klux Klan in the South, but it rests on the same plane as the Fourteenth Amendment and applied equally to all persons in the Union. It was unlimited in its terms as to time, place, or persons, and had it not been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court it would have worked a revolution in the American Government.

The last enforcement measure of Congress was the Civil Rights Act of March 1, 1875.1 For nearly five years it had been, in one form or another, before Congress. It was the darling measure of Charles Sumner, and he used all of the force of his powerful personality to secure its passage. Time and again he would bring it up in the Senate and plead for it with tears in his

1 United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XVIII, p. 335.

eyes. These were his dying words to Hoar: "You must take care of the Civil Rights Bill - my billthe Civil Rights Bill-don't let it fail!" About two months after his death the Senate passed a civil rights bill, but it did not reach a vote in the House before adjournment.

In the elections of 1874 the Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives and had their majority in the Senate seriously reduced. The tide had turned. The short session ending with the spring of 1875 was the last lease of power to the Radicals in Congress. Under the leadership of Benjamin F. Butler they passed the Civil Rights Bill, which became a law March 1, 1875. This law had for its purpose the obliteration of the color line in the South, and to give to the negroes the full and equal privileges of all hotels, street cars, passenger trains, steamboats, or other public conveyances, by land or water; of theatres and all other places of public amusements. It was, however, a milder law than the one sought by Sumner in that it did not attempt to obliterate the color line in churches, schools, and cemeteries.

Any person who violated the provisions of this act was liable to a forfeiture of five hundred dollars to the party aggrieved and to a minimum fine in the Federal Courts of five hundred dollars in addition to the costs of each proceeding. While this law was intended for immediate application in the South, it applied equally 1 Haynes, Sumner, p. 433. Sumner died March 11, 1874.