here have
been any objection to the bill then? That is the way most criminal
laws read. That is the way the law punishing conspiracies against the
Government reads. If two or more persons conspire together to
overthrow the Government, or by force to resist its authority, they
are liable to indictment, and, upon conviction, to imprisonment in the
penitentiary and to heavy fine. Would the fact that the persons
engaged in the conspiracy were judges or governors or ministerial
officers, acting under color of any statute or custom, screen them
from punishment? Surely not.

"The words 'under color of law' were inserted as words of limitation,
and not for the purpose of punishing persons who would not have been
subject to punishment under the act if they had been omitted. If an
offense is committed against a colored person simply because he is
colored, in a State where the law affords him the same protection as
if he were white, this act neither has nor was intended to have any
thing to do with his case, because he has adequate remedies in the
State courts; but if he is discriminated against, under color of State
laws, because he is colored, then it becomes necessary to interfere
for his protection.

"The assumption that State judges and other officials are not to be
held responsible for violations of United States laws when done under
color of State statutes or customs is akin to the maxim of the English
law that the king can do no wrong. It places officials above the law;
it is the very doctrine out of which the rebellion was hatched.

"Every thing that was done by that wicked effort to overturn our
Government was done under color of law. The rebels insisted that they
had a right to secede; they passed ordinances of secession, they set
up State governments, and all that they did was under color of law.
And if parties committing these high crimes are to go free because
they acted under color of law, why is not Jeff Davis and every other
rebel chief discharged at once? Why did this country put forth all its
resources of men and money to put down the rebellion against the
authority of the Government except it had a right to do so, even as
against those who were acting under color of law? Lee, with his rebel
hordes, thundering upon the outskirts of this very city, was acting
under color of law; every judge who has held a court in the Southern
States for the last four years, and has tried and convicted of treason
men guilty o