Blue law

“ To encourage, enhance, and integrate Blue Alert plans throughout the United States in order to disseminate information when a law enforcement officer is seriously injured or killed in the line of duty. ”

“ The presumption, however, is strong that the name had its origin in New York, and that it gained currency in Connecticut among Episcopalian and other dissenters from the established church, between 1720 and 1750” (p. 24) . He thinks that “blue” was a convenient epithet for whatever “in colonial laws and proceedings looked over-strict, or queer, or ‘puritanic’” (pp. 24, 27) .
Mr. Peters, of course, did not invent the name. He says of these laws: “They consist of a vast multitude, and were very properly termed Blue Laws, i.e., bloody laws.” ”

“ But since the War, or rather since the enfranchisement of the colored people, these laws have been mainly confined—in theory, be it always remembered—to the regulation of the intercourse of the races in schools and in the marriage relation. The extension of the color-line to places of public entertainment and resort, to inns and public highways, is in most states entirely a matter of custom. A colored man can sue in the courts of any Southern State for the violation of his common-law rights, and recover damages of say fifty cents without costs. ”

“ It ordains that no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. What is this but declaring that the law in the States shall be the same for the black as for the white; that all persons, whether colored or white, shall stand equal before the laws of the States, and, in regard to the colored race, for whose protection the amendment was primarily designed, that no discrimination shall be made against them bar law because of their color? ”

“ Further, if the lower court be right, then a state may make it a crime for white and colored persons to frequent the same market places at the same time, or appear in an assemblage of citizens convened to consider questions of a public or political nature, in which all citizens, without regard to race, are equally interested. Many other illustrations might be given to show the mischievous, not to say cruel, character of the statute in question, and how inconsistent such legislation is with the great principle of the equality of citizens before the law. ”

“ It is not entirely clear from Blue's brief and argument whether he seeks to sustain the dismissal below on other grounds that the District Court did not accept. See, supra, n. 1. Putting to one side jurisdictional difficulties this course might encounter under the direct-review statute, [4] we believe it is fairer to all to regard no other grounds as presented, thus reserving to Blue the opportunity to articulate them plainly and support them by the record. ”

“ We are not dealing with constitutional interpretations which throughout the history of the Court have wisely remained flexible and subject to frequent re-examination. The meaning which the Classic case gave to the phrase 'under color of any law' involved only a construction of the statute. Hence if it states a rule undesirable in its consequences, Congress can change it. ”

“ He showed how the proposed laws would act, and the legislature not only accepted the veto, but repealed all such laws then in the code and on the statute books. [1002] At the close of the session there were two laws on the statute books which made a distinction before the law between negroes and whites. The first made it a misdemeanor, with a [Pg 380] penalty of $100 fine and ten days’ imprisonment, to purchase or receive from a “free person of color” any stolen goods, knowing the same to have been stolen. ”

“ The Civil Rights Bill and the Freedmen's Bureau Bill and the proposed constitutional amendments, with the amendment already adopted and recognized as the law of the land, do not reach the difficulty, and cannot, unless the whole structure of the government is changed from a government by States to something like a despotic central government, with power to control even the municipal regulations of States, and to make them conform to its own despotic will. ”

“ In all our history, in all our experience as a people living under Federal and State law, no such system as that contemplated by the details of this bill has ever before been proposed or adopted. They establish, for the security of the colored race, safeguards which go infinitely beyond any that the General Government has ever provided for the white race. ”

“ So long as the Constitution retains its present form, any State Constitution, or statute, which seeks, by juggling the ballot, to deny the colored race fair representation, is a clear violation of the fundamental law of the land, and a corresponding injustice to those thus deprived of this right. ”

“ Yet we cannot — and, as we shall demonstrate, need not under our Constitution or Title VI, which merely extends the constraints of the Fourteenth Amendment to private parties who receive federal funds — let color blindness become myopia which masks the reality that many "created equal" have been treated within our lifetimes as inferior both by the law and by their fellow citizens. ”

“ There shall be no oligarchy, aristocracy, caste or monopoly invested with peculiar privileges and powers and there shall be no denial of rights, civil or political, on account of color or race anywhere within the limits of the United States or the jurisdiction thereof: but all persons therein shall be equal before the law, whether in the court room or at the ballot-box. And this statute made in pursuance of the Constitution shall be the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any State notwithstanding. ”

“ It will be seen that importance is given to the fact that the defective organization takes place under color of law. Nothing less can be said of the annexation in this case than that it was made under color of law. 'Color of law' does not mean actual law. 'Color,' as a modifier, in legal parlance, means 'appearance, as distinguished from reality.' Color of law means 'mere semblance of legal right.' Kin. ”

“ On Thursday, the day that I left Washington, we sent to him a bill which secures to all the colored population of the southern states equal rights before the law, the civil rights bill. It declares that no state shall exclude any man on account of his color from any of the natural rights which, by the Declaration of Independence, are declared to be inalienable; it provides that every man may sue and be sued, may plead and be impleaded, may acquire and hold property, may purchase, contract, sell and convey; all those rights are secured to the negro population. ”

“ Justice Miller, who spoke for the majority, pointed out that the colored race, having been freed from slavery by the Thirteenth Amendment, was raised to the dignity of citizenship and equality of civil rights by the Fourteenth Amendment, and the states were prohibited from abridging the privileges and immunities of such citizens, or depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. ”

“ The words 'under color of law' were inserted as words of limitation, and not for the purpose of punishing persons who would not have been subject to punishment under the act if they had been omitted. If an offense is committed against a colored person simply because he is colored, in a State where the law affords him the same protection as if he were white, this act neither has nor was intended to have any thing to do with his case, because he has adequate remedies in the State courts ”

“ The Federal Government has not been harmfully burdened by the requirement that enforcement of federal laws affecting civil liberty conform literally to the Bill of Rights. Who would advocate its repeal? It must be conceded, of course, that the natural law-due process formula, which the Court today reaffirms, has been interpreted to limit substantially this Court's power to prevent state violations of the individual civil liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. ”

“ Promotion of uniformity of laws has engaged the attention of State commissioners, who have drafted a code concerning negotiable instruments which has been adopted in four States. Constitutional amendment has afforded an entire race opportunity to develop from the low estate of slavery into such condition as the future shall manifest. Questions of civil rights, due process of law, and of equal protection and privilege, are constantly bringing State laws before the federal courts, as do questions of interstate commerce. ”

“ Speaker, I think I may safely affirm that this bill, so far as it declares the equality of all citizens in the enjoyment of civil rights and immunities merely affirms existing law. We are following the Constitution. . . . It is not the object of this bill to establish new rights, but to protect and enforce those which already belong to every citizen." Id., at 1117.
As did Trumbull in the Senate, Wilson immediately alluded to § 2, the criminal provision, as the main enforcement mechanism of the bill. ”

“ Frank recognition of these common human characteristics, as well as others which need not be mentioned, undoubtedly led to the determination of those who formed our Constitution to fragment power, especially the power to define and enforce the criminal law, among different departments and institutions of government in the hope that each would tend to operate as a check on the activities of the others and a shield against their excesses thereby securing the people's liberty. ”

“ But the civil rights bill, if made a law, would have other effects which its originator did certainly not design it to have—effects injuriously touching the interests of the colored people themselves. ”

“ In answering that question, we bear in mind that, while the underlying social values encompassed by the Eighth Amendment are rooted in historical traditions, the manner in which our judicial system protects those values is purely a matter of contemporary law. Once a substantive right or restriction is recognized in the Constitution, therefore, its enforcement is in no way confined to the rudimentary process deemed adequate in ages past. ”

“ Since the Screws and Williams decisions, Congress has had several pieces of civil rights legislation before it. In 1956 one bill reached the floor of the House. This measure had at least one provision in it penalizing actions taken 'under color of law or otherwise.' [32] A vigorous minority report was filed attacking, inter alia, the words 'or otherwise.' [33] But not a word of criticism of the phrase 'under color of' state law as previously construed by the Court is to be found in that report.
Section 131 (c) of the Act of September 9, 1957, 71 Stat. ”

“ We must decline to take jurisdiction on the ground of deprivation of rights embraced by the 14th Amendment, without due process of law, or of the violation of the guaranty of a republican form of government by reason of similar deprivation. ”

“ For those who believe, contrary to my views, that Title VI was intended to create a stricter standard of colorblindness than the Constitution itself requires, the result of no private cause of action follows even more readily. In that case, Congress must be seen to have banned degrees of discrimination, as well as types of discriminators, not previously reached by law. A Congress careful enough to provide that existing private causes of action would be preserved (in Titles III and IV) would not leave for inference a vast new extension of private enforcement power. ”

“ Among the first acts of legislation adopted by several of the States in the legislative bodies which claimed to be in their normal relations with the Federal government, were laws which imposed upon the colored race onerous disabilities and burdens, and curtailed their rights in the pursuit of life, liberty, and property to such an extent that their freedom was of little value, while they had lost the protection which they had received from their former owners from motives both of interest and humanity. ”

“ Without pausing here to consider the policy or impolicy of Africanizing the Southern part of our territory, I would simply ask the attention of Congress to that manifest, well-known, and universally-acknowledged rule of constitutional law which declares that the Federal Government has no jurisdiction, authority, or power to regulate such subjects for any State. To force the right of suffrage out of the hands of the white people and into the hands of the negroes is an arbitrary violation of this principle. ”

“ It secures, not to all citizens, but to all races as races who are citizens, equality of protection in those enumerated civil rights which the States may deem proper to confer upon any races. Now, sir, can this Government do this? Can it prevent one race of free citizens from being by State laws deprived as a race of all the civil rights for the securement of which his Government was created, and which are the only considerations the Government renders to him for the Federal allegiance which he renders? ”

“ This is the vitality of the bill. What is the objection that is made to it, and which seems even to have staggered some friends of the measure? It is because it reads in the first section that any person who, 'under color of law,' shall commit these offenses, shall be subject to the penalties of the law. ”

“ We could not find it unreasonable for Congress to conclude that all should be governed by the same legal standard to the end that they receive equal treatment under law. The effect of a double standard might well create sufficient unrest and confusion to result in the destruction of effective law enforcement. ”