Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/186

 levy of a tax upon the property of colored persons for the support of colored schools, if the objection was made to the admission of colored children into white schools. It prohibited the application of any part of the tax paid by white persons to the support of colored schools unless the whites assented thereto. A law having so many options was objectionable and was repealed within a year. The next year, 1849, a statute[18] was enacted with regard to the education of colored children, but this appropriated to the colored schools only the funds arising from taxes paid by colored persons. The year before the white patron of a school had brought an action against the directors because they erroneously admitted colored children to the school, thus contriving, he said, "to deprive him of the benefit" of sending his children to the school. The court[19] ruled that the directors were not liable because they did not act with corrupt motives, but had simply misjudged the law.

The law of 1849 gave rise to a difficulty. The Constitution of Ohio, by restricting the electorate to white persons, had provided that those entrusted with any power connected with the government of the State should be white persons. Are school directors entrusted with any governmental power? The court[20] held that they are not, in the sense of the Constitution, and that colored persons might be directors of colored schools. A statute[21] of 1853 repealed that of 1849 and provided for a division of the public school funds in proportion to the number of children of school age, regardless of color. But separate schools were still maintained. Under this law, it was held[22] that the children of three-eighths African and five-eighths white blood, who were distinctly colored and generally treated