It is not the purpose here to discuss the Civil Rights Bill as it was regarded by the people, but rather as it was interpreted by the courts. Although it stood scarcely more than two years before it was eclipsed and practically superseded by the Fourteenth Amendment, nevertheless it stood long enough to be tested by the courts.
The Negroes, prompted in some instances probably by white persons, undertook immediately to see what rights were really secured to them by the Bill. In Tennessee and Mississippi, in 1866, convictions were had under the existing State laws against intermarriage, as there had previously been. Appeal to the Federal Supreme Court was talked of, but nothing came of it. With a view to testing their rights, Negroes in New York demanded sleeper accommodations on railroads, and went to fashionable restaurants and demanded the right to sit with the white patrons, but in both instances were refused. In Baltimore they sought accommodations on street cars, in theatres, saloons, etc. with whites, but were met with the same refusal.[216]
The constitutionality of the Bill was denied in 1867 by the Court of Appeals of Kentucky,[217] on the ground that it invaded the right of the State to regulate its own domestic concerns. But its constitutionality was upheld in two cases: United States v. Rhodes,[218] 1866, in the Circuit Court, a case involving the right of a Negro to testify, and _In re_ Turner,[219] in the Circuit Court also, a Maryland case involving the laws of apprenticeship.
It appears that none of the cases involving the rights of Negroes in public places, which are being considered particularly in this chapter, reached the higher courts. But Mr. Flack[220] says: “The instances we have cited, however, are apparently sufficient to justify the conclusion that the belief prevailed generally—north, east, west and south—especially among the Negroes, that the Civil Rights Bill gave the colored people the same rights and privileges as white men as regards travel, schools, theatres, churches, and the ordinary rights which may be legally demanded. There also seems to have been a less general belief that it also permitted the intermarriage of the races.”
As interesting as it would be to trace this Bill and the subsequent Federal enactments through Congress, it would take one too far afield. He must accept the products as they came from the crucible of debate, and interpret their effect upon the rights of Negroes.