Page:Justice and Jurisprudence - 1889.pdf/62

Rh They fear, too, that some judges are unconsciously biassedbiased [sic] and misled by the prejudices of early education, or by a deference to the opinions of others; and that, instead of mounting over the débris of the fallen institution of slavery to a higher level of knowledge, instead of elevating their judgments by contemplating the lofty standard of constitutional truth which the Fourteenth Amendment proclaims, they often are only too ready to adopt happy phrases, specious and ingenious but shallow sophisms, "nice, sharp quillets of the law" to support more ancient but now unsuitable customs. These judges seem altogether forgetful of the fact that, until correct determined rules of action are adopted with reference to civil rights, there can be no permanent settlement of the public policy; which, to be stable, must be based upon the absolute moral, constitutional, civil, and political truths of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The complaint of these addressers is, that amidst the hosannas of the survivors of a drivelling generation of slavery-worshippers (who have not yet learned any wisdom greater than their own), race-prejudice, oftentimes, with only the conceptions and character of a peddler, exercises with impunity its tyrannous power, in all the departments of civic life. For the ordinary regulation of business pursuits, so far as our race is concerned, it adopts the motto of Danton, "l'audace, l'audace, et toujours l'audace." It may honor the form, but it tramples upon the real substance of this fundamental law, and has now grown to be a monster, with the hands of Briareus and the head of Polyphemus. It is quick to execute the behests of slavery customs, but slow to carry out the requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment. In deference to a certain popular clamor, it formulates its rules and regulations for the enjoyment of civil rights by the colored race upon a tyrannical system of sheer blindness, obstinacy, unsteadiness, sophistry, fraud, and injustice. Instead of helping to dispel old prejudices, its vigilant and over-sagacious wits are occupied in bringing to light the little latent wisdom which slumbered in the antiquated slavery customs, with which its understanding was perhaps originally indoctrinated. It can not altogether disassociate itself from the observance of the rites and ceremonies of the days of bondage, and seems to consider