work with
negroes in mills. Until and unless labor unions are chartered or
incorporated under legislation forbidding such action, it is probable
that their by-laws excluding negroes, though possibly unreasonable at
the common law, could not be reached by the Fourteenth Amendment; and
public sentiment in the States where such by-laws are common would
probably prevent any permanent vindication of the right of the negro
to join labor unions by State courts. That is to say, countervailing
legislation would promptly be adopted.

Coming to education, the same principle seems to be established, that
if the facilities are equal the education may be separate for the
different races, just as it may be for the different sexes; and it
would even appear that when the appropriation is not adequate for
giving higher or special education to both races, particularly when
there are few negroes applying for it, high-schools or special schools
may be established for whites alone.

Coming to the matter of sexual relation, a different principle
applies. Under their unquestioned power of defining crimes, their
police power in criminal and sanitary matters, the States may forbid
or make criminal miscegenation. Cohabitation without marriage may, of
course, be forbidden to all classes, and in the case of cohabitation
between white and black the penalty may be made more severe, for
it has been held that as both parties to the offence are punished
equally, there is, under such statutes, no denial of the equal
protection of the law. _A fortiori_, marriage may be forbidden or
declared null between persons of different race, and the tendency so
to do is increasing very decidedly in the South, and is certainly not
decreasing in the North. Indeed, constitutional amendments are being
adopted and proposed having this in view, "the purity of the race."
Recent plays and magazine articles, with which most of our readers
will be familiar, sufficiently bear out this point.

In property rights, however, I can find no legislation which
discriminates against the negro, and there is some in his favor. With
the exception of the labor or peonage laws, discussed separately,
I have found no legislation which limits his property or contract
rights. On the other hand, there is, in the several States,
legislation requiring that he shall be given life or health insurance
policies on the same terms and conditions as are applied to whites,
despite the alleged fact that