the civil rights of the race to which these addressers belong, as well as those of all other races in America. The addressers freely magnify and are duly grateful for what has already been accomplished towards the full establishment of the civil liberty of their race by the efforts of those whose mission upon earth it apparently was to execute the grand plans of the Divine Architect of the stateliest temple of freedom, who gave it a place in America and put it upon an eminence by itself. But they respectfully submit, that much still remains to be performed before the imposing fabric erected, under the superintendence of Providence, by the love and labors of these authors, asserters, and recoverers of constitutional liberty, can be pronounced perfect and complete.
It appears to your addressers that civil-rights doctrines are still in an imperfect, unsettled, mischievous state, and that the decisions of the courts are involved in an intricate tangle of verbal mysticism, the unravelling of which puts to confusion the legal acumen of even the most learned and skilful expositors of jurisprudence. At least, it cannot be denied that interpreters of the amendments in different sections of the country, equal in ability and legal knowledge, perpetually contradict one another. It must further be admitted that such an inconsistent administration of justice has, and must have, a tendency to create two distinct civic classes under the same government,—a most pernicious result, and one which the noble framers of the amendments especially sought to avoid. Instead of sowing the seeds of harmony, charity, humanity, and compassion; instead of creating bonds which by deep, strong, fervent ties would unite this race to the others which compose the nation; the present legal condition of civil rights fills the community with rancor, strife, and virulence. It is apparent that no system more partial or tyrannical is conceivable, than that which gives to one class of citizens the general power of meting out the civil rights of another class, whom the former have been long accustomed to regard as objects of social and civil contempt. This arbitrary subjection of a whole class of citizens to discriminative treatment is non-American and unconstitutional. These addressers submit that, if their people are expected to make moral, mate-
