The constitutionality of the Bill was denied in 1867 by the Court of Appeals of Kentucky,[4] on the ground that it invaded the right of the State to regulate its own domestic concerns. But its constitutionality was upheld in two cases: United States v. Rhodes,[5] 1866, in the Circuit Court, a case involving the right of a Negro to testify, and In re Turner,[6] in the Circuit Court also, a Maryland case involving the laws of apprenticeship.
It appears that none of the cases involving the rights of Negroes in public places, which are being considered particularly in this chapter, reached the higher courts. But Mr. Flack[7] says: "The instances we have cited, however, are apparently sufficient to justify the conclusion that the belief prevailed generally—north, east, west and south—especially among the Negroes, that the Civil Rights Bill gave the colored people the same rights and privileges as white men as regards travel, schools, theatres, churches, and the ordinary rights which may be legally demanded. There also seems to have been a less general belief that it also permitted the intermarriage of the races."
As interesting as it would be to trace this Bill and the subsequent Federal enactments through Congress, it would take one too far afield. He must accept the products as they came from the crucible of debate, and interpret their effect upon the rights of Negroes.
The Civil Rights Bill of 1866 was practically super-*seded by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified by thirty-six States and declared operative July 28, 1868. This section reads as follows: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and
