Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1883 — NULL AND VOID. [ARTICLE]

NULL AND VOID.

Civil Rights Law Declared Unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court Being Operative Only in the Territories and the District of Columbia. All the Members of the Court Except Harlan Concur in the Decision. The United States Supreme court (Mr. Justice Bradley writing the opinion, and Mr. Justioe Harlan only dissenting) has pronounced the sections of the Civil Rights act according colored persons equal privileges in railway cars, hotels and theaters unconstitutional so far as the States of the Union are concerned. CRses were brought under the law to the highest tribunal from the States of Kansas, California, Missouri, New York and Tennessee, and had been under consideration for a year. The complainants were colored men, and had been denied their rights as the law defined them in hotels, railroad-cars, restaurants, theaters, etc. The court holds that Congress had no constitutional authority to pass the above sections under either the Thirteenth or Fourteenth amendments. As to the Territories and the District of Columbia, the court holds tho legislative power of Congress In the premises Is unlimited. We print below a summary of this important decision, telegraphed from Washington by the Associated Press agent.