Another Dred-Scott Decision

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 10, 1908

Another Dred-Scott Decision

THE legislature of the State of Kentucky passed a law in 1904 forbidding the education of blacks and whites within twenty-five miles of one another by the same institution. The college against which this legislation was especially aimed, brought suit in the Kentucky courts to prevent its enforcement. The case was decided against the college, and the appeal was then taken to the United States Supreme Court, which has recently decided, with two dissenting voices, that the Kentucky statute is constitutional. The conclusion reached by the court has been regarded in some quarters “as a latter-day Dred-Scott decision.” Mr. Justice Harlan dissented from the decision, and pointed out the far-reaching consequences which might follow it. He said in part:—

Have we become so inoculated with prejudice of race that an American government, professedly based on the principles of freedom and charged with the protection of all citizens alike, can make distinctions between such citizens in the matter of their association for innocent purposes simply because of their respective races? Further, if the lower court be right, then a State may make it a crime for white and colored persons to frequent the same market-places at the same time, or appear in an assemblage of citizens convened to consider questions of a public or political nature in which all citizens, without regard to race, are equally interested. Many other illustrations might be given to show the mischievous, not to say cruel, character of the statute in question, and how inconsistent such legislation is with the great principle of the equality of citizens before the law.

Those who are observant of the increasing race prejudice throughout the South will see in this decision one more step toward depriving the colored man of his rights, and toward making a distinction between citizens merely on the ground of racial differences. In its comment upon this decision of the Supreme Court, the New York Post declared:—

If a citizen can be discriminated against because of color, why not because of faith? Some of our Northern universities are receiving so many Catholics, Jews, and foreign-born students as to become extremely uneasy over the situation. Will students of this type be excluded some day in the endeavor to protect the right of a State to control its corporate creatures? We fail to see why not. It would not be more contrary to the spirit of our institutions than the Berea decision, and would be no more serious a blow to our whole democratic experiment.

It may be only a coincidence that Mr. Justice Brewer, who wrote the so-called Christian nation decision, prepared the opinion of the court in this case. Both of these decisions will be appealed to in the effort to deprive certain classes of citizens of their rights.