- travene the Dred Scott decision and to establish the Negro's
citizenship. While the Bill was before Congress, the great subject of debate was as to just what rights would be given thereby to the Negro. Some opposed it because they thought it would give him the right of suffrage, the right to intermarry with whites, to attend the same schools and churches, to sit on juries, and to testify in courts. It must be remembered that the "Black Laws" of the free States were still in force, and the Congressmen from those States were as jealous of Federal interference on the subject as those from the Southern States.
It is not the purpose here to discuss the Civil Rights Bill as it was regarded by the people, but rather as it was interpreted by the courts. Although it stood scarcely more than two years before it was eclipsed and practically superseded by the Fourteenth Amendment, nevertheless it stood long enough to be tested by the courts.
The Negroes, prompted in some instances probably by white persons, undertook immediately to see what rights were really secured to them by the Bill. In Tennessee and Mississippi, in 1866, convictions were had under the existing State laws against intermarriage, as there had previously been. Appeal to the Federal Supreme Court was talked of, but nothing came of it. With a view to testing their rights, Negroes in New York demanded sleeper accommodations on railroads, and went to fashionable restaurants and demanded the right to sit with the white patrons, but in both instances were refused. In Baltimore they sought accommodations on street cars, in theatres, saloons, etc. with whites, but were met with the same refusal.[3]
