servitude. The penalty for the violation of this law was the forfeiture of five hundred dollars to the person aggrieved and a fine of not less than five hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars or imprisonment not less than three months nor more than one year. The District and Circuit Courts of the United States were given exclusive jurisdiction of offences against this statute. District attorneys, marshals, and deputy marshals of the United States, and commissioners appointed by the Federal courts were authorized to proceed against those violating the provisions of the act.
The years between 1865 and 1875 had witnessed changes in the attitude of Congress toward the civil rights of Negroes. The Bill of 1866 was general in its terms, yet Congress did not feel secure till the Fourteenth Amendment had been passed to give validity, in a sense, to what had already been done. Now in 1875 Congress passed a bill which far surpassed in scope anything that had theretofore been undertaken. It is surprising that the test case of its constitutionality did not reach the court of last resort before 1883. During the year of its passage, 1875, doubt was thrown upon its validity by Judge Dick in charging the grand jury of the Federal Circuit Court of North Carolina,[12] who said, in part: "Every man has a natural and inherent right of selecting his own associates, and this natural right cannot be properly regulated by legislative action, but must always be under the control of the individual taste or inclination." The same year, Judge Emmons, of the Circuit Court in Tennessee,[13] ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment applied to State and not individual action, and that the Federal government could
