dition, then and in all such cases it may and shall be lawful for said public servants and said industrial orders to pass such rules and regulations as tend to establish and maintain a color-line; and it is further provided, that, whenever said rules and regulations are established for the benefit and commercial advantage of trades, and the comfort and convenience of one class of citizens, though in reality they may operate to the pecuniary loss, pain, humiliation, discomfort, and disfranchisement of the civil rights of another class, then and in all such cases said rules and regulations shall be deemed by the courts to be, and are hereby declared to be, "reasonable rules and regulations," anything in the letter or spirit of these Amendments to the contrary notwithstanding'?"
"There has never been any contention so farcical," answered the Chief Justice, "nor would any court tolerate such a burlesque upon the methods of constitutional construction. To maintain so monstrous an absurdity it would be necessary to advance very far into the region of vagaries. If the State should, through her Legislature, pass an act clothing the mechanics and public servants with authority to make such rules, that State enactment would be void, as we have decided in the famous civil-rights cases, and the public servants or others who attempt to enforce it would be liable to the gravest civil and criminal penalties."
"Would it not then follow," replied the student, "that rules, which are reasonable when adopted by artisans or the public servants, entail criminal and civil responsibilities if exercised under the broad sovereignty of the State?”
"To maintain that such rules and regulations based upon discriminations of color are reasonable rules and regulations," said the Chief Justice, "it is necessary to assert, that the invasion of the South by the North, the loss of hundreds of thousands of precious lives and millions of treasure, the Emancipation Proclamation and the Amendments of the Constitution (all uniting to compass the result of making people of African descent citizens of the United States, notwithstanding their color or previous condition), were each and all of them unreasonable in the view of the profound enlightenment of mechanics and the public servants."
