All this is so plain that it is difficult to argue it. What is the Republic, if it fails in this loyalty? What is the National Government, coextensive with the Republic, if fellow-citizens, counted by the million, can be shut out from equal rights in travel, in recreation, in education, and in other things, all contributing to human necessities? Where is that great promise by which “the pursuit of happiness” is placed, with life and liberty, under the safeguard of axiomatic, self-evident truth? Where is justice, if this ban of color is not promptly removed? Where is humanity? Where is reason?
The two excuses show how irrational and utterly groundless is this pretension. They are on a par with the pretension itself. One is, that the question is of society, and not of rights, which is clearly a misrepresentation; and the other is, that the separate arrangements provided for colored persons constitute a substitute for equality in the nature of an equivalent,--all of which is clearly a contrivance, if not a trick: as if there could be any equivalent for equality.
Of the first excuse it is difficult to speak with patience. It is a simple misrepresentation, and wherever it shows itself must be treated as such. There is no colored person who does not resent the imputation that he is seeking to intrude himself socially anywhere. This is no question of society, no question of social life, no question of social equality, if anybody knows what this means. The object is simply Equality before the Law, a term which explains itself. Now, as the law does not presume to create or regulate social relations, these are in no respect affected by the pending measure. Each person, whether Senator or citizen, is always free to choose who shall be his friend, his associate, his guest. And does not the ancient proverb declare that “a man is known by the company he keeps”? But this assumes that he may choose for himself. His house is his “castle”; and this very designation, borrowed from the Common Law, shows his absolute independence within its walls; nor is there any difference, whether it be palace or hovel. But when he leaves his “castle” and goes abroad, this independence is at an end. He walks the streets, but always subject to the prevailing law of Equality; nor can he appropriate the sidewalk to his own exclusive use, driving into the gutter all whose skin is less white than his own. But nobody pretends that Equality in the highway, whether on pavement or sidewalk, is a question of society. And permit me to say that Equality in all institutions created or regulated by law is as little a question of society.