Joseph P. Bradley

“ Civil society has deprived us of the natural right of avenging ourselves, but it has preserved to us, all the more jealously, the right of bringing the offender to justice. By the common law of England the injured party was the actual prosecutor of criminal offences, although the proceeding was in the king's name; but in felonies, which involved a forfeiture to the crown of the criminal's property, it was also the duty of the crown officers to superintend the prosecution. ”

“ If, in such a raid as I have supposed, a colored person is merely wounded or maimed, but is still capable of making complaint, and on appearing to do so, has the doors of justice shut in his face on the ground that he is a colored person, and cannot testify against a white citizen, it seems to me almost a stultification of the law to say that the case is not within its scope. ”

“ Thus, if the State should refuse to allow a freedman to sue in its courts, thereby denying him judicial relief, or should fail to provide laws for the punishment of white persons guilty of criminal acts against his person or property, thereby denying him judicial redress, there can be no doubt that the case would come within the scope of the clause under consideration. ”

“ The power to enforce the amendment by appropriate legislation must be a power to do away with the incidents and consequences of slavery, and to instate the freedmen in the full enjoyment of that civil liberty and equality which the abolition of slavery meant. ”

“ It is evident that the provisions of the second section, making it a criminal offence to deprive a person of his rights, or to subject him to a discriminating punishment, would fail to reach a great number of cases which the broad and liberal provisions of the first section were intended to cover and protect. The clause in question is intended to reach these cases, or, at least, a large class of them. It provides a remedy where the State refuses to give one; where the mischief consists in inaction or refusal to act, or refusal to give requisite relief ”

“ The first section declares that all persons born in the United States, not subject to a foreign power, and not including untaxed Indians, are citizens of the United States, and that such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to previous condition of slavery, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts ”

“ To say that actions or prosecutions intended for the redress of such outrages are not 'causes affecting the persons' who are the victims of them, is to take, it seems to me, a view of the law too narrow, too technical, and too forgetful of the liberal objects it had in view. ”

“ At all events it cannot be denied that the entire class of persons under disability is affected by prosecutions for wrongs done to one of their number, in which they are not permitted to testify in the State courts. ”