Constitutional Rights of Policy-Holders. dents. • Compulsory service of the slave 'for the benefit of his master, restraint of his movements except by the master's will, disability to hold property, to make con tracts, to have a standing in court, to be a witness against a white person, and such like burdens and incapacities were the inseparable incidents of the institution. . . . Congress, as we have seen, by the Civil Rights bill of 1866, passed in view of the Thirteenth amendment, before the Four teenth was adopted, undertook to wipe out these burdens and disabilities, the neces sary incidents of slavery, constituting its substance and visible form; and to secure to all citizens of every race and color, and without regard to previous servitude, those fundamental rights which are the essence of civil freedom, namely, the same right to make and enforee eontraets, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to inherit, purchase, lease, sell and convey property, as is enjoyed by white citizens. Whether this legislation was fully authorized by the Thirteenth amendment alone, without the support which it afterward re ceived from the Fourteenth amendment, after the adoption of which it was reenacted with some additions, it is not necessary to inquire. It is referred to for the purpose of showing that at the time (in 1866) Congress did not assume, under the authority given by the Thirteenth amend ment, to adjust what may be called the social rights of men and races in the com munity; but only to declare and vindicate those fundamental rights which appertain to the essence of citizenship, and the enjoy ment and deprivation of which constitutes the essential distinction between freedom and slavery." Section 1977 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, which is the act referred to in the opinion quoted above, as reenacted after the adoption of the Four teenth amendment, provides that all persons in the United States shall have the power to " make and enforce contracts, to sue, be
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parties, give evidence," etc., and it is not necessary to inquire further as to the mean ing of these words for the purposes of this discussion. Citizenship in the United States carrying with it the right to make and en force contracts, to sue, etc., the legislature of the State of New York has no power to abridge that privilege by a statute compel ling a party in interest to employ the at torney-general, at the discretion of the lat ter, to bring an action for the enforcement of his contract. The right to bring the action belongs to the individual; he is a party to the contract, and the right to sub mit his controversy to the courts, under the rules and regulations common to other citi zens in the enforcement of contracts, cannot be denied or abridged. In Allgeyer v. Louisiana (165 U. S., 578), the court, in speaking of the Fourteenth Amendment, says that the " liberty men tioned in that amendment means not only the right of the citizen to be free from the mere physical restraint of his person, as by incarceration, but the term is deemed to embrace the right of the citizen to be free in the enjoyment of all his faculties; to be free to use them in all lawful ways; to live and work where he will; to earn his liveli hood by any lawful calling; to pursue any livelihood or avocation, and for that purpose to enter into all contracts which may be proper, necessary and essential to his carry ing out to a successful conclusion the pur poses above mentioned," and, as we have already pointed out upon the highest judi cial authorities, the right to enter into a contract carries with it, by necessary im plication, the right to its enforcement. If we were to admit, therefore, that the right of action was not one of the privileges secured by the Fourteenth amendment, the New York statute under consideration would be a substantial denial of the liberty of the plaintiff in the Swan case {supra) to enter into a contract in the enjoyment of his natural right to " life, liberty and the pur
