leaders in the wealth
and commerce of the South, their civil equality has never, except in rare
instances, led to any social intermingling with the Southern whites.

Holding these views the Southern people in 1875, found means to overcome
the Republican majorities in all the re-constructed States, and
practically drove the negroes out of the law-making bodies of all those
States. So that, now in all the Southern States, so far as can be
ascertained, there is not one negro sitting as a representative in any of
the law-making bodies. The next step was to deny them representation on
the grand and petit juries in the State courts, through Jury
Commissioners, who excluded them from the panels.

To be taxed without representation is a serious injustice in a republic
whose foundations are laid upon the principle of "no taxation without
representation." But serious as this phase of the case must appear,
infinitely more serious is the case when we consider the fact that they
are likewise excluded from the grand and petit juries in all the State
courts, with the fewest and rarest exceptions. The courts sit in judgment
upon their lives and liberties, and dispose of their dearest earthly
possessions. They are not entitled to life, liberty or property if the
courts should decide they are not, and yet in this all-important tribunal
they are denied all voice, except as parties and witnesses, and here and
there a negro lawyer is permitted to appear. One vote on the grand jury
might prevent an indictment, and save disgrace and the risk of public
trial; while one vote on the petit jury might save a life or a term of
imprisonment, for an innocent person pursued and persecuted by powerful
enemies.

With no voice in the making of the laws, which they are bound to obey, nor
in their administration by the courts, thus tied and helpless, the negroes
were proscribed by a system of legal enactments intended to wholly nullify
the letter and spirit of the war amendments to the national organic law.
This crusade was begun by enacting a system of Jim-Crow car laws in all
the Southern States, so that now the Jim-Crow cars run from the Gulf of
Mexico into the national capital. They are called, "Separate Car Laws,"
providing for separate but equal accommodations for whites and negroes.
Though fair on their face, they are everywhere known to discriminate
against the colored people in their administration, and were intended to
humiliate and degrade th