"Constitutional provisions, adopted in the interest of liberty, and for the purpose of securing through national legislation, if need be, rights inhering in a state of freedom, and belonging to American citizenship, have been so construed as to defeat the ends the people desired to accomplish, which they attempted to accomplish, and which they supposed they had accomplished, by changes in their fundamental law. By this I do not mean that the determination of these cases should have been materially controlled by considerations of mere expediency or policy. I mean only, in this form, to express an earnest conviction that the court has departed from the familiar rule requiring, in the interpretation of constitutional provisions, that full effect be given to that intent with which they were adopted."
In this dissenting opinion Mr. Justice Harlan sends forth the lion-roar. He does not seem anywhere to conceal or suppress his earnest conviction that Civil Liberty was being strangled at its birth, by the decision of a majority of the court; that the canons of constitutional construction established during the pro-slavery contests, which led to the adoption and enforcement of the civil rights of the slave-power under the fugitive-slave bill, had been revolutionized and overturned when invoked to maintain civil rights of African citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment. If the object of the majority of the court had been an attempt to annihilate the justice of God by judicial subtilties, the mission of this dissentient would seem to be to re-establish it upon a solid constitutional foundation, through the fearless exercise of the pure and Heaven-sent gift of right reason. The court having adjudicated that Congress had no authority to establish such regulations as the first and second sections of the Civil-Rights Bill of 1875 provided for the primary enforcement of the civil rights therein enumerated, Justice Harlan cites Section 2, Article iv. of the Constitution. He says:
"Before considering the language and scope of this Amendment, it will be proper to recall the relations subsisting, prior to their adoption, between the national government and the institution of slavery , as indicated by the provisions of the Constitution, the legislation of Congress, and the decisions of this court.
