Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/11



America has to-day no problem more perplexing and disquieting than that of the proper and permanent relations between the white and the colored races. Although it concerns most vitally the twenty millions of Caucasians and the eight millions of Negroes in eleven States of the South, still it is a national problem, because whatever affects one part of our national organism concerns the whole of it. Although this question has been considered from almost every conceivable standpoint, few have turned to the laws of the States and of the Nation to see how they bear upon it. It was with the hope of gaining new light on the subject from this source that I undertook the present investigation.

I have examined the Constitutions, statutes, and judicial decisions of the United States and of the States and Territories between 1865 and the present to find the laws that have made any distinctions between persons on the basis of race. Reference has been made to some extent to laws in force before 1865, but only as the background of later legislation and decision. In order to make this study comparative as well as special, the writer has abandoned his original plan of confining it to the Southern States and laws applicable only to Negroes, and has ex