David Josiah Brewer

“ To deprive any person of a privilege inhering in the freedom ordained and established by the 13th Amendment is to deprive him of a privilege inhering in the liberty recognized by the 14th Amendment. It is true that the present case is not one of the deprivation, by the Constitution or laws of the state, of the privilege of disposing of one's labor as he deems proper. ”

“ As the nation has destroyed both slavery and involuntary servitude everywhere within the jurisdiction of the United States, and invested Congress with power, by appropriate legislation, to protect the freedom thus established against all the badges and incidents of slavery as it once existed ”

“ If in a community or neighborhood composed principally of whites, a citizen of African descent, or of the Indian race, not within the exception of the Amendment, should propose to lease and cultivate a farm, and a combination should be formed to expel him and prevent him from the accomplishment of his purpose on account of his race or color, it cannot be doubted that this would be a case within in power of Congress to remedy and redress. ”

“ All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every state and territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, and be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other. ”

“ But every wrong done to an individual by another, acting singly or in concert with others, operates pro tanto to abridge some of the freedom to which the individual is entitled. A freeman has a right to be protected in his person from an assault and battery. He is entitled to hold his property safe from trespass or appropriation; but no mere personal assault or trespass or appropriation operates to reduce the individual to a condition of slavery. ”

“ It is said, however, that one of the disabilities of slavery, one of the indicia of its existence, was a lack of power to make or perform contracts, and that when these defendants, by intimidation and force, compelled the colored men named in the indictment to desist from performing their contract, they, to that extent, reduced those parties to a condition of slavery,-that is, of subjection to the will of defendants, and deprived them of a freeman's power to perform his contract. ”

“ But if, as we have seen, that denounces a condition possible for all races and all individuals, then a like wrong perpetrated by white men upon a Chinese, or by black men upon a white man, or by any men upon any man on account of his race, would come within the jurisdiction of Congress, and that protection of individual rights which, prior to the 13th Amendment, was unquestionably within the jurisdiction solely of the states, would, by virtue of that Amendment, be transferred to the nation, and subject to the legislation of Congress. ”

“ Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. ”

“ All ordinary murders, robberies, assaults, thefts and offenses whatsoever are cognizable only in the state courts, unless, indeed, the state should deny to the class or persons referred to the equal protection of the laws. ”

“ A reference to the definitions in the dictionaries of words whose meaning is so thoroughly understood by all seems an affectation, yet in Webster slavery is defined as 'the state of entire subjection of one person to the will of another,' and a slave is said to be 'a person who is held in bondage to another.' Even the secondary meaning given recognizes the fact of subjection, as 'one who has lost the power of resistance; one who surrenders himself to any power whatever ”

“ In each case his will is enslaved, because illegally subjected, by a combination that he cannot resist, to the will of others in respect of matters which a freeman is entitled to control in such way as to him seems best. ”