Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1883 — THE CASES. [ARTICLE]

THE CASES.

The Supreme court of the United States has rendered a decision In the five civil-rights cases submitted on printed arguments about a year ago. The titles of these cases and the States from which they came are as follows: No. 1, United States against Murray Stanley, from the United States Circuit court, District of Kansas; No. 2, United States against Michael Ryan, from the United States Circuit court, District of California; No. 3, United States against Samuel Nichols, from the United States Circuit court, Western District of Missouri; No. 23, United States against Samuel D. Singleton, from United States Circuit court for the Southern District of New York, and No. 28, Richard A. Robinson and wife agamst the Memphis and Charleston Railroad company, from the United States Circuit court for the District of Tennessee. These cases were all based on the first and second sections of the Civil Rights act of 1875, and were respectively prosecutions under that act for not admitting certain colored persons to equal aooommodations and privileges in Inns or hotels, in railroad cars and In theaters. The defense set up In every case was the alleged unoonstitutionality of the law. The first and second sections of the act, which were the parts directly In controversy, are as follows: Section L That all persons within the Jurisdiction of the United tmtes shall be entitled to the full enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages. facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land and water, theaters and other places of public amusement subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law, and applicable alike to every race and*color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude. The sooond seotion provides that any person who violates the first section shall be liable to forfoit S6OO for each offense, to be recovered In a civil action, and also to a penalty of from SSOO to SI,OOO fine, or imprisonment from thirty days to one year, to be enforced by criminal prosecution. Exclusive Jurisdiction is given to the District and Circuit courts of the United States in cases arising under tho law. The rights and privileges claimed by and denied to colored persons in these cases were full and equal aocommodatious in hotels, in ladies’ cars on railway trains, and in the dress oircle in theaters.