to provide modes of relief against State legislation or State action. . . . It does not authorize Congress to create a code of municipal laws for the regulation of private rights, but to provide modes of redress against the operation of State laws, and the action of State officers, executive or judicial, when these are subversive of the fundamental rights specified in the Amendment . . . until some State law has been passed, or some State action through its officers or agents has been taken, adverse to the rights of citizens sought to be protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, no legislation of the United States under said Amendment, nor any proceeding under such legislation, can be called into activity; for the prohibitions of the Amendment are against State laws and acts done under State authority."
The effect of this decision is that the Federal government cannot prevent the curtailment of the civil rights of Negroes by individuals unless such individuals are acting under sanction of State statutes, and in that case, the Federal court can only declare that the State statute is unconstitutional.
STATE LEGISLATION BETWEEN 1865 AND 1883
The Civil Rights Bill of 1875 was the last effort of Congress to guarantee to Negroes their civil rights. It is well now to turn back in point of time, and trace the action of the State legislatures on the subject. It has been deemed advisable to let the year 1883 be the dividing point in the history of the latter legislation. Before that time the States were moving in conjunction with the Nation;
