Hugo Black

“ If you pass an act by which you make it an indictable offense for an officer to execute any law of a State by which he treaspasses upon any of these rights of the citizen it operates upon him as a citizen, and not as an officer. Why can you not just as well extend it to any other citizen of the country? ”

“ I believe the language of the Senate bill is sufficiently large and comprehensive to embrace any other class of officers that might be charged with any act that was necessary to enable a citizen to perform any prerequisite to voting. But, sir, individuals may prevent the exercise of the right of suffrage; individuals may prevent the enjoyment of other rights which are conferred upon the citizen by the fourteenth amendment, as well as trespass upon the right conferred by the fifteenth. ”

“ It is only when a State omits to carry into effect the provisions of the civil rights act, and to secure the citizens in their rights, that the provisions of the fifth section of the fourteenth amendment would be called into operation, which is, 'that Congress shall enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article.'
There is no legislation that could reach a State to prevent its passing a law. It can only reach the individual citizens of the State in the enforcement of law. You have, therefore, in any appropriate legislation, to act on the citizen, not on the State. ”

“ I cannot see that it would be possible for appropriate legislation to be resorted to except as applicable to individuals who violate or attempt to violate these provisions. Certainly we cannot legislate here against States. As I said a few moments ago, it is upon individuals that we must press our legislation. It matters not whether those individuals be officers or whether they are acting upon their own responsibility; whether they are acting singly or in organizations. If there is to be appropriate legislation at all, it must be that which applies to individuals. ”

“ Those among the white citizens there who have sought to maintain the rights which you have thrown upon that class of people, have to endure every species of proscription, of opposition, and of vituperation in order to carry out the policy of Congress, in order to lift up and to uphold the rights which you have conferred upon that class. ”

“ They were turned loose and put upon their own resources in communities which were imbued with prejudices against them as a race, communities which for the most part had for years past-indeed from the very time when those who are now in existence were born-been taught and had instilled into them a prejudice against the equality which has been attempted to be established for the colored citizens of the United States. ”

“ As was said before, in the discussion of the Georgia question in the Senate, the juries in the communities where these outrages are committed are often composed of men who are engaged in them, or of their friends, or of those who connive at them, or of persons who are intimidated by them, and in many instances they dare not bring in a true bill when there is an attempt to indict, or if a true bill be found, they dare not go for conviction on the final trial. ”

“ But, sir, there is a great, important omission in this bill as well as in that of the House. It seems not to have struck those who drew either of the two bills that the prevention of the exercise of the right of suffrage was not the only or the main trouble that we have upon our hands. Suppose there shall be an organization of individuals, or, if you please, a single individual, who shall take it upon himself to compel his fellow citizens to vote in a particular way. ”

“ I think the most effective mode of preventing this intimidation and these attempts at coercion, as well as the outrages which grow out of these attempts, would be found in making any offense committed in the effort to violate them indictable before the courts of the United States. ”

“ It is this: the oppression of citizens because of having voted in a particular way, or having voted at all. It may often happen, as it has happened up to this time already, that upon the close of an election colored persons will be discharged from employment by their employers. ”