25 S.Ct. 429

Supreme Court of the United States.

SAMUEL M. CLYATT

v.

UNITED STATES.

No. 235.

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Argued December 13, 14, 1904.

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Decided March 13, 1905.

Synopsis

ON WRIT of Certiorari to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, bringing up for review a judgment of the Circuit Court for the Northern District of Florida, convicting defendant of returning certain specified persons to a condition of peonage, which judgment had been taken to the Circuit Court of Appeals by a writ of error to the Circuit Court. Reversed and the cause remanded for a new trial.

**429 Statement by Mr. Justice Brewer:

Considers the constitutionality of Sections 1990 and 5526, Rev. Stat. (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, pp. 1266, 3715),  [Anti-Peonage Act]

*215 Mr. Justice Brewer delivered the opinion of the court:

…What is peonage? It may be defined as a status or condition of compulsory service, based upon the indebtedness of the peon to the master. The basal fact is indebtedness. As said by Judge Benedict, delivering the opinion in Jaremillo v. Romero, 1 N. M. 190, 194: ‘One fact existed universally: all were indebted to their masters. This was the cord by which they seemed bound to their master’s service.’ Upon this is based a condition of compulsory service. Peonage is sometimes classified as voluntary or involuntary; but this implies simply a difference in the mode of origin, but none in the character of the servitude. The one exists where the debtor voluntarily contracts to enter the service of his creditor. The other is forced upon the debtor by some provision of law. But peonage, however created, is compulsory service,—involuntary servitude. The peon can release himself therefrom, it is true, by the payment of the debt, but otherwise the service is enforced. A clear distinction exists between peonage and the voluntary performance of labor or rendering of services in payment of a debt. In the latter case the debtor, though contracting to pay his indebtedness by labor or service, and subject, like any other contractor, to an action for damages for breach of that contract, can elect at any time to break it, and no law or force compels *216 performance or a continuance of the service. We need not stop to consider any possible limits or exceptional cases, such as the service of a sailor…or the obligations of a child to its parents, or of an apprentice to his master, or the power of the legislature to make unlawful, and punish criminally, an abandonment by an employee of his post of labor in any extreme cases. That which is contemplated by the statute is compulsory service to secure the payment of a debt. Is this legislation within the power of Congress? It may be conceded, as a general proposition, that the ordinary relations of individual to individual are subject to the control of the states, and are not intrusted to the general government; but the 13th Amendment, adopted as an outcome of the Civil War, reads:

‘Sec. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

‘Sec. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.’

This amendment denounces a status or condition, irrespective of the manner or authority by which it is created. The prohibitions of the 14th and 15th Amendments are largely upon the acts of the states; but the 13th Amendment names no party or authority, but simply forbids slavery and involuntary servitude, grants to Congress power to enforce this prohibition by appropriate legislation. The differences between the 13th and subsequent amendments [can be described as follows:]

This amendment, as well as the 14th, is undoubtedly self-executing without any ancillary legislation, so far as its terms are applicable to any existing state of circumstances. By its own unaided force and effect it abolished slavery, and *217 established universal freedom. Still, legislation may be necessary and proper to meet all the various cases and circumstances to be affected by it, and to prescribe proper modes of redress for its violation in letter or spirit. And such legislation may be primary and direct in its character; for the amendment is not a mere prohibition of state laws establishing or upholding slavery, but an absolute declaration that slavery or involuntary servitude shall not exist in any part of the United States. . . .

**431 ‘We must not forget that the province and scope of the 13th and 14th Amendments are different; the former simply abolished slavery: the latter prohibited the states from abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; from depriving them of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, and from denying to any the equal protection of the laws. The amendments are different, and the powers of Congress under them are different. What Congress has power to do under one, it may not have power to do under the other. Under the 13th Amendment, it has only to do with slavery and its incidents. Under the 14th Amendment, it has power to counteract and render nugatory all state laws and proceedings which have the effect to abridge any of the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, or to deprive them of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or to deny to any of them the equal protection of the laws. Under the 13th Amendment, the legislation, so far as necessary or proper to eradicate all forms and incidents of slavery and involuntary servitude, may be direct and primary, operating upon the acts of individuals, whether sanctioned by state legislation or not; under the 14th, as we have already shown, it must necessarily be, and can only be, corrective in its character, addressed to counteract and afford relief against state regulations or proceedings.’

***

It is not open to doubt that Congress may enforce the 13th Amendment by direct legislation, punishing the holding of a person in slavery or in involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime. In the exercise of that power Congress has enacted these sections denouncing peonage, and punishing one who holds another in that condition of involuntary servitude. This legislation is not limited to the territories or other parts of the strictly national domain, but is operative in the states and wherever the soverignty of the United States extends. We entertain no doubt of the validity of this legislation, or its applicability to the case of any person holding and wherever the sovereignty of the United whether there be a municipal ordinance or state law sanctioning such holding. It operates directly on every citizen of the Republic, wherever his residence may be.

***

31 S.Ct. 145

Supreme Court of the United States.

ALONZO BAILEY, Plff. in Err.,

v.

STATE OF ALABAMA.

No. 300.

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Argued October 20, 21, 1910.

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Decided January 3, 1911.

Synopsis

IN ERROR to the Supreme Court of the State of Alabama to review a judgment which affirmed a judgment of the Montgomery City Court, in that state, convicting an employee of a breach of a contract of employment, with intent to injure or defraud the employer. Reversed and remanded for further proceedings.

See same case below, 161 Ala. 75, 49 So. 886.

The facts are stated in the opinion.

Attorneys and Law Firms

**146 *220 Messrs. Edward S. Watts, Fred S. Ball, and Daniel W. Troy for plaintiff in error.

*224 Messrs. Alexander M. Garber and Thomas W. Martin for defendant in error.

Assistant Attorney General Harr, with Attorney General Wickersham, as amici curiae.

Opinion

*227 Mr. Justice Hughes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a writ of error to review a judgment of the supreme court of the state of Alabama, affirming a judgment of conviction in the Montgomery city court. The statute upon which the conviction was based is assailed as in violation of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States upon the ground that it deprived the plaintiff in error of his liberty without due process of law and denied him the equal protection of the laws, and also of the 13th Amendment, and of the act of Congress providing for the enforcement of that Amendment, in that the effect of the statute is to enforce involuntary servitude by compelling personal service in liquidation of a debt.

The statute in question is § 4730 of the Code of Alabama of 1896, as amended in 1903 and 1907. [The 1907 amendments provided the following:]

‘Any person who, with intent to injure or defraud his *228 employer, enters into a contract in writing for the performance of any act of service, and thereby obtains money or other personal property from such employer, and with like intent, and without just cause, and without refunding such money, or paying for such property, refuses or fails to perform such act or service, must on conviction be punished by a fine in double the damage suffered by the injured party, but not more than $300, one half of said fine to go to the county and one half to the party injured; and any person who, with intent to injure or defraud his landlord, enters into any contract in writing for the rent of land, and thereby obtains any money or other personal property from such landlord, and with like intent, without just cause, and without refunding such money, or paying for such property, refuses or fails to cultivate such land, or to comply with his contract relative thereto, must on conviction be punished by fine in double the damage suffered by the injured party, but not more than $300, one half of said fine to go to the county and one half to the party injured. And the refusal or failure of any person, who enters into such contract, to perform such act or service, or to cultivate such land, or refund such money, or pay for such property, without just cause, shall be prima facie evidence of the intent to injure his employer or landlord or defraud him. That all laws and parts of laws in conflict with the provisions hereof be and the same are hereby repealed.’

There is also a rule of evidence enforced by the courts of Alabama which must be regarded as having the same effect as if read into the statute itself, that the accused, for the purpose of rebutting the statutory presumption, shall not be allowed to testify ‘as to his uncommunicated motives, purpose, or intention.’ 161 Ala. 77, 78, 49 So. 886.

**147 Bailey, the plaintiff in error, was committed for detention on the charge of obtaining $15 under a *229 contract in writing with intent to injure or defraud his employer. He sued out a writ of habeas corpus, challenging the validity of the statute. His discharge was refused, and the supreme court of the state affirmed the order, holding the statute to be constitutional. 158 Ala. 18, 48 So. 498. On writ of error from this court it was held that the case was brought here prematurely, and the questions now presented were expressly reserved. Bailey v. Alabama, 211 U. S. 452, 53 L. ed. 278, 29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 141.

Having failed to obtain his release on habeas corpus, Bailey was indicted…

Upon the trial the following facts appeared: On December 26, 1907, Bailey entered into a written contract with the Riverside Company, which provided:

‘That I, Lonzo Bailey, for and in consideration of the sum of $15 in money, this day in hand paid to me by said the Riverside Company, the receipt whereof I do hereby acknowledge, I, the said Lonzo Bailey, do hereby consent, contract, and agree to work and labor for the said Riverside Company as a farm hand on their Scott’s Bend place in Montgomery county, Alabama, from the 30 day of December, 1907, to the 30 day of December, 1908, at and for the sum of $12 per month.

*230 ‘And the said Lonzo Bailey agrees to render respectful and faithful service to the said the Riverside Company, and to perform diligently and actively all work pertaining to such employment, in accordance with the instructions of the said the Riverside Company or agent.

‘And the said the Riverside Company, in consideration of the agreement above mentioned of the said Lonzo Bailey, hereby employs the said Lonzo Bailey as such farm hand for the time above set out, and agrees to pay the said Lonzo Bailey the sum of $10.75 per month.’

The manager of the employing company testified that at the time of entering into this contract…[Bailey] then obtained from the company the sum of $15; that Bailey worked under the contract throughout the month of January and for three or four days in February, 1908, and then, ‘without just cause, and without refunding the money, ceased to work for said Riverside Company, and has not since that time performed any service for said company in accordance with or under said contract, and has refused and failed to perform any further service thereunder, and has, without just cause, refused and failed to refund said $15.’ He also testified, in response to a question from the attorney for the defendant, and against the objection of the state, that Bailey was a negro. No other evidence was introduced.

The court, after defining the crime in the language of the statute, charged the jury, in accordance with its terms, as follows:

‘And the refusal of any person who enters into such contract to perform such act or service, or refund such money, or pay for such property, without just cause, shall be prima facie evidence of the intent to injure his employer, or to defraud him.’

Bailey excepted to these instructions, and requested the court to instruct the jury that the statute and the *231 provision creating the presumption were invalid, and further that ‘the refusal or failure of the defendant to perform the service alleged in the indictment, or to refund the money obtained from the Riverside Company under the contract between it and the defendant, without cause, does not of itself make out a prima facie case of the defendant’s intent to injure or defraud said Riverside Company.’

The court refused these instructions and Bailey took exception.

The jury found the accused guilty, fixed the damages sustained by the injured party at $15, and assessed a fine of $30. Thereupon Bailey was sentenced by the court to pay the fine of $30 and the costs, and in deafult thereof to hard labor ‘for twenty days in lieu of said fine, and one hundred and sixteen days on account of said costs.’

On appeal to the supreme court of the state, the constitutionality of the statute was again upheld and the judgment affirmed. 161 Ala. 75, 49 So. 886.

We at once dismiss from consideration the fact that the plaintiff in error is a black man. While the action of a state, through its officers charged with the administration of a law fair in appearance, may be of such a character as to constitute a denial of the equal protection of the laws **148 (Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356, 373, 30 L. ed. 220, 227, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1064), such a conclusion is here neither required nor justified. The statute, on its face, makes no racial discrimination, and the record fails to show its existence in fact. No question of a sectional character is presented, and we may view the legislation in the same manner as if it had been enacted in New York or in Idaho. Opportunities for coercion and oppression, in varying circumstances, exist in all parts of the Union, and the citizens of all the states are interested in the maintenance of the constitutional guaranties, the consideration of which is here involved.

***

*232 In the absence…of evidence from which [an inference to defraud] may be drawn, the jury are not justified in indulging in mere unsupported conjectures, speculations, or suspicions as to intentions which were not disclosed by any visible or tangible act, expression, or circumstance..

We pass, then, to the consideration of the [statute], through the operation of which under the charge of the trial court this conviction was obtained…By this amendment it was provided, in substance, that the refusal or failure to perfom the service contracted for, or to refund the money obtained, without just cause, should be prima facie evidence of the intent to injure or defraud.

But the refusal or failure to perform the service, without just cause, constitutes the breach of the contract. The justice of the grounds of refusal or failure must, of course, be determined by the contractual obligation assumed. *234 Whatever the reason for leaving the service, if, judged by the terms of the contract, it is insufficient in law, it is not ‘just cause.’ The money received and repayable, nothing more being shown, constitutes a mere debt. The asserted difficulty of proving the intent to injure or defraud is thus made the occasion for dispensing with such proof, so far as the prima facie case is concerned. And the mere breach of a contract for personal service, coupled with the mere failure to pay a debt which was to be liquidated in the course of such service, is made sufficient to warrant a conviction.

***

In the present case it is urged that the statute as amended, through the operation of the presumption for which it provides, violates the 13th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and the act of Congress passed for its enforcement.

*240 The 13th Amendment provides:

‘Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

‘Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.’

Pursuant to the authority thus conferred, Congress passed the [Anti-Peonage Act] of March 2, 1867…

The language of the 13th Amendment was not new. It reproduced the historic words of the ordinance of 1787 for the government of the Northwest territory, and gave them unrestricted application within the United States and all places subject to their jurisdiction. While the immediate concern was with African slavery, the *241 Amendment was not limited to that. It was a charter of universal civil freedom for all persons, of whatever race, color, or estate, under the flag.

The words involuntary servitude have a ‘larger meaning than slavery.’

‘It was very well understood that, in the form of apprenticeship for long terms, as it had been practised in the West India Islands, on the abolition of slavery by the English government, or by reducing the slaves to the condition of serfs attached to the plantation, the purpose of the article might have been evaded, if only the word ‘slavery’ had been used.’ Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. p. 69, 21 L. ed. 406. The plain intention was to abolish slavery of whatever name and form and all its badges and incidents; to render impossible any state of bondage; to make labor free, by prohibiting that control by which the personal service of one man is disposed of or coerced for another’s benefit, which is the essence of involuntary servitude.

While the Amendment was self-executing, so far as its terms were applicable to any existing condition, Congress was authorized to secure its complete enforcement by appropriate legislation. As was said in the Civil Rights Cases: ‘By its own unaided force and effect it abolished slavery, and established universal freedom. Still, legislation may be necessary and proper to meet all the various cases and circumstances to be affected by it, and to prescribe proper modes of redress for its violation in letter or spirit. And such legislation may be primary and direct in its character; for the Amendment is not a mere prohibition of state laws establishing or upholding slavery, but an absolute declaration that slavery or involuntary servitude shall not exist in any part of the United States.’ 109 U. S. 20, 27 L. ed. 842, 3 Sup. Ct. Rep. 18.

The act of March 2, 1867 (Rev. Stat. §§ 1990 and 5526, supra), a was a valid exercise of this express authority… It declared that all laws of any state, by virtue of which any attempt should be made ‘to establish, maintain, or enforce, directly or *242 indirectly, the voluntary or involuntary service or labor of any person as peons, in liquidation of any debt or obligation, or otherwise,’ should be null and void.

Peonage is a term descriptive of a condition **152 which has existed in Spanish America, and especially in Mexico. The essence of the thing is compulsory service in payment of a debt. A peon is one who is compelled to work for his creditor until his debt is paid. And in this explicit and comprehensive enactment, Congress was not concerned with mere names or manner of description, or with a particular place or section of the country. It was concerned with a fact, wherever it might exist; with a condition, however named and wherever it might be established, maintained, or enforced.

The fact that the debtor contracted to perform the labor which is sought to be compelled does not withdraw the attempted enforcement from the condemnation of the statute. The full intent of the constitutional provision could be defeated with obvious facility if, through the guise of contracts under which advances had been made, debtors could be held to compulsory service. It is the compulsion of the service that the statute inhibits, for when that occurs, the condition of servitude is created, which would be not less involuntary because of the original agreement to work out the indebtedness. The contract exposes the debtor to liability for the loss due to the breach, but not to enforced labor…

The act of Congress, nullifying all state laws by which it should be attempted to enforce the ‘service or labor of any persons as peons, in liquidation of any debt or obligation, or otherwise,’ necessarily embraces all legislation which seeks to compel the service or labor by making it a crime to refuse or fail to perform it. Such laws would furnish the readiest means of compulsion. The 13th *244 Amendment prohibits involuntary servitude except as punishment for crime. But the exception, allowing full latitude for the enforcement of penal laws, does not destroy the prohibition. It does not permit slavery or involuntary servitude to be established or maintained through the operation of the criminal law by making it a crime to refuse to submit to the one or to render the service which would constitute the other. The state may impose involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime, but it may not compel one man to labor for another in payment of a debt, by punishing him as a criminal if he does not perform the service or pay the debt.

If the statute in this case had authorized the employing company to seize the debtor, and hold him to the service until he paid the $15, or had furnished the equivalent in labor, its invalidity would not be questioned. It would be equally clear that the state could not authorize its constabulary to prevent the servant from escaping, and to force him to work out his debt. But the state could not avail itself of the sanction of the criminal law to supply the compulsion any more than it could use or authorize the use of physical force. ‘In contemplation of the law, the compulsion to such service by the fear of punishment under a criminal statute is more powerful than any guard which the employer could station.’ Ex parte Hollman, 79 S. C. 22, 21 L.R.A.(N.S.) 249, 60 S. E. p. 24, 14 A. & E. Ann. Cas. 1109.

**153 What the state may not do directly it may not do indirectly. If it cannot punish the servant as a criminal for the mere failure or refusal to serve without paying his debt, it is not permitted to accomplish the same result by creating a statutory presumption which, upon proof of no other fact, exposes him to conviction and punishment. Without imputing any actual motive to oppress, we must consider the natural operation of the statute here in question (Henderson v. New York [Henderson v. Wickham] 92 U. S. p. 268, 23 L. ed. 547), and it is apparent that it furnishes a convenient instrument for the coercion *245 which the Constitution and the act of Congress forbid; an instrument of compulsion peculiarly effective as against the poor and the ignorant, its most likely victims. There is no more important concern than to safeguard the freedom of labor upon which alone can enduring prosperity be based. The provision designed to secure it would soon become a barren form if it were possible to establish a statutory presumption of this sort, and to hold over the heads of laborers the threat of punishment for crime, under the name of fraud, but merely upon evidence of failure to work out their debts. The act of Congress deprives of effect all legislative measures of any state through which, directly or indirectly, the prohibited thing, to wit, compulsory service to secure the payment of a debt, may be established or maintained; and we conclude that § 4730, as amended, of the Code of Alabama, in so far as it makes the refusal or failure to perform the act or service, without refunding the money or paying for the property prima facie evidence of the commission received of the crime which the section defines, is in conflict with the 13th Amendment, and the legislation authorized by that Amendment, and is therefore invalid.

In this view it is unnecessary to consider the contentions which have been made under the 14th Amendment…

Reversed and cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

Mr. Justice Holmes, dissenting [omitted]

88 S.Ct. 2186

Supreme Court of the United States

Joseph Lee JONES et ux., Petitioners,

v.

ALFRED H. MAYER CO. et al.

No. 645.

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Argued April 1 and 2, 1968.

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Decided June 17, 1968.

Synopsis

Action to recover damages and for injunctive relief because of refusal of defendants to sell home in private subdivision to plaintiffs solely because of race. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, 255 F.Supp. 115, dismissed complaint, and plaintiffs appealed. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, 379 F.2d 33, affirmed, and certiorari was granted. The United States Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Stewart, held that statute providing that all citizens of United States shall have same right, in every state and territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property bars all racial discrimination, private as well as public, in sale or rental of property. The Court further held that statute, so construed, constitutes valid exercise of power of Congress to enforce Thirteenth Amendment.

Reversed.

Mr. Justice Harlan and Mr. Justice White dissented.

Attorneys and Law Firms

**2188 *410 Samuel H. Liberman, St. Louis, Mo., for petitioners.

*411 Israel Treiman, St. Louis, Mo., for respondents.

Atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark for the United States, as amicus curiae, by special leave of Court.

Opinion

*412 Mr. Justice STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court.

In this case we are called upon to determine the scope and constitutionality of an Act of Congress, 42 U.S.C. s 1982, which provides that:

“All citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.”

 On September 2, 1965, the petitioners filed a complaint in the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, alleging that the respondents had refused to sell them a home in the Paddock **2189 Woods community of St. Louis County for the sole reason that petitioner Joseph Lee Jones is a Negro. Relying in part upon s 1982, the petitioners sought injunctive and other relief.¹ The District Court sustained the respondents’ motion to dismiss the complaint,² and the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed, concluding that s 1982 applies only to state action and does not reach private refusals to sell.³ We granted certiorari to consider the *413 questions thus presented.⁴ For the reasons that follow, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. We hold that s 1982 bars all racial discrimination, private as well as public, in the sale or rental of property, and that the statute, thus construed, is a valid exercise of the power of Congress to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment.⁵

I.

 At the outset, it is important to make clear precisely what this case does not involve. Whatever else it may be, 42 U.S.C. s 1982 is not a comprehensive open housing law. In sharp contrast to the Fair Housing Title (Title VIII) of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Pub.L. 90-284, 82 Stat. 81, the statute in this case deals only with racial discrimination…[The enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1968} had noeffect upon s 1982²⁰ *417 and no effect upon this litigation,²¹ but it underscored the vast differences between, on the one hand, a general statute applicable only to racial discrimination in the rental and sale of property and enforceable only by private parties acting on their own initiative, and, on the other hand, a detailed housing law, applicable to a broad range of discriminatory practices and enforceable by a complete arsenal of federal authority. Having noted these differences, we turn to a consideration of s 1982 itself.

II.

This Court last had occasion to consider the scope of 42 U.S.C. s 1982 in **2192 1948, in Hurd v. Hodge, 334 U.S. 24, 68 S.Ct. 847, 92 L.Ed. 1187. That case arose when property owners in the District of Columbia sought to enforce racially restrictive covenants against the Negro purchasers of several homes on their block. A federal district court enforced the restrictive agreements by declaring void the deeds of the Negro purchasers. It enjoined further attempts to sell or lease them the properties in question and directed them to “remove themselves and all of their personal belongings” from the premises within 60 days. The *418 Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed.²² and this Court granted certiorari²³ to decide whether s 1982, then s 1978 of the Revised Statutes of 1874, barred enforcement of the racially restrictive agreements in that case.

The agreements in Hurd covered only two-thirds of the lots of a single city block, and preventing Negroes from buying or renting homes in that specific area would not have rendered them ineligible to do so elsewhere in the city. Thus, if s 1982 had been thought to do no more than grant Negro citizens the legal capacity to buy and rent property free of prohibitions that wholly disabled them because of their race, judicial enforcement of the restrictive covenants at issue would not have violated s 1982. But this Court took a broader view of the statute. Although the covenants could have been enforced without denying the general right of Negroes to purchase or lease real estate, the enforcement of those covenants would nonetheless have denied the Negro purchasers ‘the same right “as is enjoyed by white citizens * * * to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.”’ 334 U.S., at 34, 68 S.Ct., at 852. That result, this Court concluded, was prohibited by *419 s 1982. To suggest otherwise, the Court said, “is to reject the plain meaning of language.” Ibid.

Hurd v. Hodge, supra, squarely held, therefore, that a Negro citizen who is denied the opportunity to purchase the home he wants “(s)olely because of (his) race and color,” 334 U.S., at 34, 68 S.Ct., at 852, has suffered the kind of injury that s 1982 was designed to prevent. …Hurd v. Hodge, [however], did not present the question whether purely private discrimination, unaided by any action on the part of government, would violate s 1982 if its effect were to deny a citizen the right to rent or buy property solely because of his race or color.

***

Today we face that issue for the first time.

III.

 We begin with the language of the statute itself. In plain and unambiguous terms, s 1982 grants to all citizens, without regard to race or color, “the same right” to purchase and lease property “as is enjoyed by white citizens.” As the Court of Appeals in this case evidently recognized, that right can be impaired as effectively *421 by “those who place property on the market”²⁶ as by the State itself. For, even if the State and its agents lend no support to those who wish to exclude persons from their communities on racial grounds, the fact remains that, whenever property “is placed on the market for whites only, whites have a right denied to Negroes.”²⁷ So long as a Negro citizen who wants to buy or rent a home can be turned away simply because he is not **2194 white, he cannot be said to enjoy “the same right * * * as is enjoyed by white citizens * * * to * * * purchase (and) lease * * * real and personal property.” 42 U.S.C. s 1982. (Emphasis added.)

On its face, therefore, s 1982 appears to prohibit all discrimination against Negroes in the sale or rental of property—discrimination by private owners as well as discrimination by public authorities. Indeed, even the respondents seem to concede that, if s 1982 “means what it says”…then it must encompass every racially motivated refusal *422 to sell or rent and cannot be confined to officially sanctioned segregation in housing…

IV.

 In its original form, 42 U.S.C. s 1982 was part of s 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.²⁸ That section was cast in sweeping terms:

“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, * * * are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, * * * shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding.”²⁹

*423 The crucial language for our purposes was that which guaranteed all citizens “the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, * * * to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property * * * as is enjoyed by white citizens * * *.” To the Congress that passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, it was clear that the right to do these things might be infringed not only by “State or local law” but also by “custom, or prejudice.”³⁰ **2195 Thus, when Congress provided in s 1 of the Civil Rights Act that the right to purchase and lease property was to be enjoyed equally throughout the United States by Negro and white citizens *424 alike, it plainly meant to secure that right against interference from any source whatever, whether governmental or private.³¹

***

[T]he structure of the 1866 Act, as well as its language, points to the conclusion…that s 1 was meant to prohibit all racially motivated deprivations of the rights enumerated in the statute, although only those deprivations perpetrated “under color of law” were to be criminally punishable under s 2.

***

Indeed, one of the most comprehensive studies then before Congress stressed the prevalence of private hostility toward Negroes and the need to protect them from the resulting persecution and discrimination.⁴¹ The report noted the existence of laws virtually prohibiting Negroes from owning or renting property in certain towns,⁴² but described such laws as “mere isolated cases,” representing “the local outcroppings of a spirit * * * found to prevail everywhere”⁴³—a spirit expressed, for example, *429 by lawless acts of brutality directed against Negroes who traveled to areas where they were not wanted.⁴⁴ The report concluded that, even if anti-Negro legislation were “repealed in all the States lately **2198 in rebellion,” equal treatment for the Negro would not yet be secured.⁴⁵

In this setting, it would have been strange indeed if Congress had viewed its task as encompassing merely the nullification of racist laws in the former rebel States. That the Congress which assembled in the Nation’s capital in December 1865 in fact had a broader vision of the task before it became clear early in the session, when three proposals to invalidate discriminatory state statutes were rejected as “to narrowly conceived.”⁴⁶ From the outset it seemed clear, at least to Senator Trumbull of Illinois, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, that stronger legislation might prove necessary. After Senator Wilson of Massachusetts had introduced his bill to strike down all racially discriminatory laws in the South,⁴⁷ Senator Trumbull said this:

“I reported from the Judiciary Committee the second section of the [[[[Thirteenth Amendment] for the very purpose of conferring upon Congress authority to see that the first section was carried out  *430 in good faith * * * and I hold that under that second section Congress will have the authority, when the constitutional amendment is adopted, not only to pass the bill of the Senator from Massachusetts, but a bill that will be much more efficient to protect the freedman in his rights. * * * And, sir, when the constitutional amendment shall have been adopted, if the information from the South be that the men whose liberties are secured by it are deprived of the privilege to go and come when they please, to buy and sell when they please, to make contracts and enforce contracts, I give notice that, if no one else does, I shall introduce a bill and urge its passage through Congress that will secure to those men every one of these rights: they would not be freemen without them. It is idle to say that a man is free who cannot go and come at pleasure, who cannot buy and sell, who cannot enforce his rights. * * * (So) when the constitutional amendment is adopted I trust we may pass a bill, if the action of the people in the southern States should make it necessary, that will be much more sweeping and efficient than the bill under consideration.”⁴⁸

**2199 *431 Five days later, on December 18, 1865, the Secretary of State officially certified the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment. The next day Senator Trumbull again rose to speak. He had decided, he said, that the “more sweeping and efficient” bill of which he had spoken previously ought to be enacted

“at an early day for the purpose of quieting apprehensions in the minds of many friends of freedom lest by local legislation or a prevailing public sentiment in some of the States persons of the African race should continue to be oppressed and in fact deprived of their freedom * * *.”⁴⁹

On January 5, 1866, Senator Trumbull introduced the bill he had in mind—the bill which later became the Civil Rights Act of 1866.⁵⁰ He described its objectives in terms that belie any attempt to read it narrowly:

“Mr. President, I regard the bill to which the attention of the Senate is now called as the most important measure that has been under its consideration since the adoption of the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. That amendment declared that all persons in the United States should be free. This measure is intended to give effect to that declaration and secure to all persons within the United States practical freedom. There is very little importance in the general declaration of abstract truths and principles unless they can be carried into effect, unless the persons who are to be *432 affected by them have some means of availing themselves of their benefits.”⁵¹

Of course, Senator Trumbull’s bill would, as he pointed out, “destroy all (the) discriminations” embodied in the Black Codes,⁵² but it would do more: It would affirmatively secure for all men, whatever their race or color, what the Senator called the “great fundamental rights”:

“the right to acquire property, the right to go and come at pleasure, the right to enforce rights in the courts, to make contracts, and to inherit and dispose of property.”⁵³

As to those basic civil rights, the Senator said, the bill would “break down all discrimination between black men and white men.”⁵⁴

**2200 *433 That the bill would indeed have so sweeping an effect was seen as its great virtue by its friends⁵⁵ and as its great danger by its enemies⁵⁶ but was disputed by none. Opponents of the bill charged that it would not only regulate state laws but would directly “determine the persons who [would] enjoy * * * property within the States.”⁵⁷ threatening the ability of white citizens “to determine who [would] be members of [their] communit[ies] * * *.”⁵⁸ The bill’s advocates did not deny the accuracy of those characterizations. Instead, they defended the propriety of employing federal authority to deal with ‘the white man * * * [who] would invoke the power of local prejudice” against the Negro.⁵⁹ Thus, when the Senate passed the Civil Rights Act on February 2, 1866,⁶⁰ it did so fully aware of the breadth of the measure it had approved.

In the House, as in the Senate, much was said about eliminating the infamous Black Codes.⁶¹ But, like the Senate, the House was moved by a larger objective—that of giving real content to the freedom guaranteed by the Thirteenth Amendment. Representative Thayer of Pennsylvania put it this way:

“[W]hen I voted for the amendment to abolish slavery * * * I did not suppose that I was offering *434 * * * a mere paper guarantee. And when I voted for the second section of the amendment, I felt * * * certain that I had * * * given to Congress ability to protect * * * the rights which the first section gave * * *.”

“The bill which now engages the attention of the House has for its object to carry out and guaranty the reality of that great measure. It is to give to it practical effect and force. It is to prevent that great measure from remaining a dead letter upon the constitutional page of this country. * * * The events of the last four years * * * have changed [a] large class of people * * * from a condition of slavery to that of freedom. The practical question now to be decided is whether they shall be in fact freemen. It is whether they shall have the benefit of this great charter of liberty given to them by the American people.”⁶²

Representative Cook of Illinois thought that, without appropriate federal legislation, any “combination of men in [a] neighborhood [could] prevent [a Negro] from having any chance” to enjoy those benefits.⁶³ To Congressman Cook and others like him, it seemed evident that, with respect to basic civil rights—including the “right to * * * purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey * * * property,” Congress must provide that “there * * * be no discrimination” on grounds of race or color.⁶⁴

*435 It thus appears that, when the House passed the Civil Rights Act on March **2201 13, 1866,⁶⁵ it did so on the same assumption that had prevailed in the Senate: It too believed that it was approving a comprehensive statute forbidding all racial discrimination affecting the basic civil rights enumerated in the Act.

President Andrew Johnson vetoed the Act on March 27,⁶⁶ and in the brief congressional debate that followed, his supporters characterized its reach in allembracing terms. One stressed the fact that s 1 would confer “the right * * * to purchase * * * real estate * * * without any qualification and without any restriction whatever * * *.”⁶⁷ Another predicted, as a corollary, that the Act would preclude preferential treatment for white persons in the rental of hotel rooms and in the sale of church pews.⁶⁸ Those observations elicited no reply. On April 6 the Senate, and on April 9 the House, overrode the President’s veto by the requisite majorities,⁶⁹ and the Civil Rights Act of 1866 became law.⁷⁰

 *436 In light of the concerns that led Congress to adopt it and the contents of the debates that proceded its passage, it is clear that the Act was designed to do just what its terms suggest: to prohibit all racial discrimination, whether or not under color of law, with respect to the rights enumerated therein—including the right to purchase or lease property.

 Nor was the scope of the 1866 Act altered when it was re-enacted in 1870, some two years after the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment.⁷¹ It is quite true that some members of Congress supported the Fourteenth Amendment “in order to eliminate doubt as to the constitutional validity of the Civil Rights Act as applied to the States.” Hurd v. Hodge, 334 U.S. 24, 32—33, 68 S.Ct. 847, 852. But it certainly does not follow that the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment or the subsequent readoption of the Civil Rights Act were meant somehow to limit its application to state action. The legislative history furnishes not the slightest factual basis for any such speculation, and the conditions prevailing in 1870 make it highly implausible. For by that time most, if not all, of the former Confederate States, then under the control of “reconstructed” legislatures, had formally repudiated racial discrimination, and the focus of congressional concern had clearly shifted from hostile statutes to the activities of groups like the Ku Klux Klan, operating wholly outside the law.⁷²

 **2202 *437 Against this background, it would obviously make no sense to assume, without any historical support whatever, that Congress made a silent decision in 1870 to exempt private discrimination from the operation of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.⁷³ “The cardinal rule is that repeals by implication are not favored.” Posadas v. National City Bank, 296 U.S. 497, 503, 56 S.Ct. 349, 352, 80 L.Ed. 351. All Congress said in 1870 was that the 1866 law “is hereby re-enacted.” That is all Congress meant.

 As we said in a somewhat different setting two Terms ago, “We think that history leaves no doubt that, if we are to give (the law) the scope that its origins dictate, we must accord it a sweep as broad as its language.” United States v. Price, 383 U.S. 787, 801, 86 S.Ct. 1152, 1160. “We are not at liberty to seek ingenious analytical instruments,” ibid., to carve from s 1982 an exception for private conduct—even though its application to such conduct in the present context is without established precedent. And, as the Attorney General of the United States said at the oral argument of this case, “The fact that the statute lay partially dormant for many years cannot be held to diminish its force today.”

V.

The remaining question is whether Congress has power under the Constitution to do what s 1982 purports to do: to prohibit all racial discrimination, private and public, in the sale and rental of property. Our starting point is the Thirteenth Amendment, for it was pursuant *438 to that constitutional provision that Congress originally enacted what is now s 1982. The Amendment consists of two parts. Section 1 states:

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereby the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

Section 2 provides:

“Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

 As its text reveals, the Thirteenth Amendment “is not a mere prohibition of state laws establishing or upholding slavery, but an absolute declaration that slavery or involuntary servitude shall not exist in any part of the United States.” Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 20, 3 S.Ct. 18, 28, 27 L.Ed. 835. It has never been doubted, therefore, “that the power vested in Congress to enforce the article by appropriate legislation,” ibid., includes the power to enact laws “direct and primary, operating upon the acts of individuals, whether sanctioned by state legislation or not.” Id., at 23, 3 S.Ct., at 30.⁷⁴

 Thus, the fact that s 1982 operates upon the unofficial acts of private individuals, whether or not sanctioned by state law, presents no constitutional problem. If Congress has power **2203 under the Thirteenth Amendment to eradicate conditions that prevent Negroes from buying and renting property because of their race or color, then no federal statute calculated to achieve that objective *439 can be thought to exceed the constitutional power of Congress simply because it reaches beyond state action to regulate the conduct of private individuals. The constitutional question in this case, therefore, comes to this: Does the authority of Congress to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment “by appropriate legislation” include the power to eliminate all racial barriers to the acquisition of real and personal property? We think the answer to that question is plainly yes.

 “By its own unaided force and effect,” the Thirteenth Amendment “abolished slavery, and established universal freedom.” Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 20, 3 S.Ct. 18, 28. Whether or not the Amendment itself did any more than that—a question not involved in this case—it is at least clear that the Enabling Clause of that Amendment empowered Congress to do much more. For that clause clothed “Congress with power to pass all laws necessary and proper for abolishing all badges and incidents of slavery in the United States.” Ibid. (Emphasis added.)

Those who opposed passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 argued in effect that the Thirteenth Amendment merely authorized Congress to dissolve the legal bond by which the Negro slave was held to his master.⁷⁵ Yet many had earlier opposed the Thirteenth Amendment on the very ground that it would give Congress virtually unlimited power to enact laws for the protection of Negroes in every State.⁷⁶ And the majority leaders in Congress—who were, after all, the authors of the Thirteenth Amendment—had no doubt that its Enabling Clause contemplated the sort of positive legislation that *440 was embodied in the 1866 Civil Rights Act. Their chief spokesman, Senator Trumbull of Illinois, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, had brought the Thirteenth Amendment to the floor of the Senate in 1864. In defending the constitutionality of the 1866 Act, he argued that, if the narrower construction of the Enabling Clause were correct, then

“the trumpet of freedom that we have been blowing throughout the land has given an ‘uncertain sound,’ and the promised freedom is a delusion. Such was not the intention of Congress, which proposed the constitutional amendment, nor is such the fair meaning of the amendment itself. * * * I have no doubt that under this provision * * * we may destroy all these discriminations in civil rights against the black man; and if we cannot, our constitutional amendment amounts to nothing. It was for that purpose that the second clause of that amendment was adopted, which says that Congress shall have authority, by appropriate legislation, to carry into effect the article prohibiting slavery. Who is to decide what that appropriate legislation is to be? The Congress of the United States; and it is for Congress to adopt such appropriate legislation as it may think proper, so that it be a means to accomplish the end.”⁷⁷

 Surely Senator Trumbull was right. Surely Congress has the power under the Thirteenth Amendment rationally to determine what are the badges and the incidents of slavery, and the authority to translate that determination  **2204 into effective legislation. Nor can we say that the determination Congress has made is an irrational *441 one. For this Court recognized long ago that, whatever else they may have encompassed, the badges and incidents of slavery—its “burdens and disabilities”—included restraints upon “those fundamental rights which are the essence of civil freedom, namely, the same right * * * to inherit, purchase, lease, sell and convey property, as is enjoyed by white citizens.” Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 22, 3 S.Ct. 18, 29.⁷⁸ Just as the Black **2205 Codes, enacted after the Civil *442 War to restrict the free exercise of those rights, were substitutes for the salve system, so the exclusion of Negroes from white communities became a substitute for the Black Codes. And when racial discrimination herds men *443 into ghettos and makes their ability to buy property turn on the color of their skin, then it too is a relic of slavery.

 Negro citizens, North and South, who saw in the Thirteenth Amendment a promise of freedom—freedom to “go and come at pleasure”⁷⁹ and to “buy and sell when they please”⁸⁰—would be left with “a mere paper guarantee”⁸¹ if Congress were powerless to assure that a dollar in the hands of a Negro will purchase the same thing as a dollar in the hands of a white man. At the very least, the freedom that Congress is empowered to secure under the Thirteenth Amendment includes the freedom to buy whatever a white man can buy, the right to live wherever a white man can live. If Congress cannot say that being a free man means at least this much, then the Thirteenth Amendment made a promise the Nation cannot keep.

Representative Wilson of Iowa was the floor manager in the House for the Civil Rights Act of 1866. In urging that Congress had ample authority to pass the pending bill, he recalled the celebrated words of Chief Justice Marshall in McCulloch v. State of Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 421, 4 L.Ed. 579:

“Let the end by legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.”⁸²

“The end is legitimate,” the Congressman said, “because it is defined by the Constitution itself. The end is the *444 maintenance of freedom * * *. A man who enjoys the civil rights mentioned in this bill cannot be reduced to slavery. * * * This settles the appropriateness of this measure, and that settles its constitutionality.”⁸³

We agree. The judgment is reversed.

Reversed.

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, concurring.

The Act of April 9, 1866, 14 Stat. 27, 42 U.S.C. s 1982, provides: “All citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.”

This Act was passed to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment which in s 1 abolished “slavery” and “involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” and in s 2 gave Congress power “to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

Enabling a Negro to buy and sell real and personal property is a removal of one of many badges of slavery.

“Slaves were not considered men. * * * They could own nothing; they **2206 could make no contracts; they could hold no property, nor traffic in property; they could not hire out; they could not legally marry nor constitute families; they could not control their children; they could not appeal from their master; they could be punished at will.” W. Dubois, Black Reconstruction in America 10 (1964).¹

*445 The true curse of slavery is not what it did to the black man, but what it has done to the white man. For the existence of the institution produced the notion that the white man was of superior character, intelligence, and morality. The blacks were little more than livestock—to be fed and fattened for the economic benefits they could bestow through their labors, and to be subjected to authority, often with cruelty, to make clear who was master and who slave.

Some badges of slavery remain today. While the institution has been outlawed, it has remained in the minds and hearts of many white men. Cases which have come to this Court depict a spectacle of slavery unwilling to die. We have seen contrivances by States designed to thwart Negro voting, e.g., Lane v. Wilson, 307 U.S. 268, 59 S.Ct. 872, 83 L.Ed. 1281. Negroes have been excluded over and again from juries solely on account of their race, e.g., Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 25 L.Ed. 664, or have been forced to sit in segregated seats in courtrooms, Johnson v. State of Virginia, 373 U.S. 61, 83 S.Ct. 1053, 10 L.Ed.2d 195. They have been made to attend segregated and inferior schools, e.g., Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873, or been denied entrance to colleges or graduate schools because of their color, e.g., Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Board of Directors of City of Trusts, 353 U.S. 230, 77 S.Ct. 806, 1 L.Ed.2d 792; Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629, 70 S.Ct. 848, 94 L.Ed. 1114. Negroes have been prosecuted for marrying whites, e.g., Loving v. Commonwealth Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 1817, 18 L.Ed.2d 1010. They have been forced to live in segregated residential districts, Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U.S. 60, 38 S.Ct. 16, 62 L.Ed. 149 and residents of white neighborhoods have denied them entrance, e.g., Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1, 68 S.Ct. 836, 92 L.Ed. 1161. Negroes have been forced to use segregated facilities in going about their daily lives, having been excluded from railway coaches, Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S.Ct. 1138, 41 L.Ed. 256; public parks, New Orleans City Park Improvement Assn. v. Detiege, 358 U.S. 54, 79 S.Ct. 99, 3 L.Ed.2d 46; restaurants, Lombard v. State of Louisiana, 373 U.S. 267, 83 S.Ct. 1122, 10 L.Ed.2d 338; public beaches, Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. Dawson, 350 U.S. 877, 76 S.Ct. 133, 100 L.Ed. 774; municipal *446 golf courses, Holmes v. City of Atlanta, 350 U.S. 879, 76 S.Ct. 141, 100 L.Ed. 776; amusement parks, Griffin v. State of Maryland, 378 U.S. 130, 84 S.Ct. 1770, 12 L.Ed.2d 754; buses, Gayle v. Browder, 352 U.S. 903, 77 S.Ct. 145, 1 L.Ed.2d 114; public libraries, Brown v. State of Louisiana, 383 U.S. 131, 86 S.Ct. 719, 15 L.Ed.2d 637. A state court judge in Alabama convicted a Negro woman of contempt of court because she refused to answer him when he addressed her as “Mary,” although she had made the simple request to be called “Miss Hamilton.” Hamilton v. State of Alabama, 376 U.S. 650, 84 S.Ct. 982, 11 L.Ed.2d 979.

That brief sampling of discriminatory practices, many of which continue today, stands almost as an annotation to what Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) wrote nearly a century earlier:

“Of all the races and varieties of men which have suffered from this feeling, the colored people of this **2207 country have endured most. They can resort to no disguises which will enable them to escape its deadly aim. They carry in front the evidence which marks them for persecution. They stand at the extreme point of difference from the Caucasian race, and their African origin can be instantly recognized, though they may be several removes from the typical African race. They may remonstrate like Shylock—‘Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter, as a Christian is?’—but such eloquence is unavailing. They are Negroes—and that is enough, in the eye of this unreasoning prejudice, to justify indignity and violence. In nearly every department of American life they are confronted by this insidious influence. It fills the air. It meets them at the workshop and factory, when they apply for work. It meets them at the church, at the hotel, at the *447 ballot-box, and worst of all, it meets them in the jurybox. Without crime or offense against law or gospel, the colored man is the Jean Valjean of American society. He has escaped from the galleys, and hence all presumptions are against him. The workshop denies him work, and the inn denies him shelter; the ballot-box a fair vote, and the jury-box a fair trial. He has ceased to be the slave of an individual, but has in some sense become the slave of society. He may not now be bought and sold like a beast in the market, but he is the trammeled victim of a prejudice, well calculated to repress his manly ambition, paralyze his energies, and make him a dejected and spiritless man, if not a sullen enemy to society, fit to prey upon life and property and to make trouble generally.”²

Today the black is protected by a host of civil rights laws. But the forces of discrimination are still strong.

A member of his race, duly elected by the people to a state legislature, is barred from that assembly because of his views on the Vietnam war. Bond v. Floyd, 385 U.S. 116, 87 S.Ct. 339, 17 L.Ed.2d 235.

Real estate agents use artifice to avoid selling “white property” to the blacks.³ The blacks who travel the country, though entitled by law to the facilities for sleeping and dining that are offered all tourists, Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 85 S.Ct. 348, 13 L.Ed.2d 258, may well learn that the “vacancy” sign does not mean what it says, especially if the motel has a swimming pool.

On entering a half-empty restaurant they may find “reserved” signs on all unoccupied tables.

*448 The black is often barred from a labor union because of his race.⁴

He learns that the order directing admission of his children into white schools has not been obeyed “with all deliberate speed,” Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U.S. 294, 301, 75 S.Ct. 753, 756, 99 L.Ed. 1083 but has been delayed by numerous stratagems and devices.⁵ State **2208 laws, at times, have been encouraged *449 discrimination in housing. Reitman v. Mulkey, 387 U.S. 369, 87 S.Ct. 1627, 18 L.Ed.2d 830.

This recital is enough to show how prejudices, once part and parcel of slavery, still persist. The men who sat in Congress in 1866 were trying to remove some of the badges or “customs”⁶ of slavery when they enacted s 1982. And, as my Brother STEWART shows, the Congress that passed the so-called Open Housing Act in 1968 did not undercut any of the grounds on which s 1982 rests.

Mr. Justice HARLAN, whom Mr. Justice WHITE joins, dissenting. (omitted)

80 U.S. 581

Supreme Court of the United States

BLYEW ET AL.

v.

UNITED STATES.

December Term, 1871

***

Mr. Justice STRONG delivered the opinion of the court.

Addressing ourselves to the first of the questions presented by the record-the question of jurisdiction-it may be remarked that clearly the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction of the crime of murder committed within the district of Kentucky, unless it was conferred by the third section of the act of Congress of April 9th, 1866.

It must be admitted that the crimes and offences of which the District Courts are, by this section, given exclusive jurisdiction, are only those…causes ‘affecting persons who are denied, or cannot enforce in the courts of judicial tribunals of the State, or locality, where they may be, any of the rights secured to them by the first section of the act.’

**8 Was, then, the prosecution, or indictment, against these defendants a cause affecting any such person or persons? If it was, then by the provisions of the act it was within the jurisdiction of the court, and if it was not, that court had no jurisdiction.

It was, the record shows, an indictment for the murder of Lucy Armstrong, a citizen of the United States of the African race, and it contained an averment that other citizens of the United States of the same race, witnessed the alleged murder. It contained also an averment that those other persons, namely, Richard Foster and Laura Foster, as well as the deceased Lucy Armstrong, were, on account of their race and color, denied the right to testify against the defendants, or either of them, of and concerning the killing and murder, in the courts and judicial tribunals of the State of Kentucky.

We are thus brought to the question whether a criminal prosecution for a public offence is a cause ‘affecting,’ …persons who may be called to testify therein. Obviously the only parties to such a cause are the government and the persons indicted. They alone can be reached by any judgment that may be pronounced. No judgment can either enlarge or diminish the personal, relative, or property rights of any others than those who are parties. It is true there are some cases which may affect the rights of property of persons who are not parties to the record. Such cases, however, are all of a civil nature, and none of them even touch rights of person. But an indictment prosecuted by the government against an alleged criminal, is a cause in which none but the parties can have any concern, except what is common to all the members of the community. Those who may possibly be witnesses, either for the prosecution or for the defense, are no more affected by it than is every other person, for any one *592 may be called as a witness. It will not be thought that Congress intended to give to the District and Circuit Courts jurisdiction over all causes both civil and criminal. They have expressly confined it to causes affecting certain persons. And yet, if all those who may be called as witnesses in a case, and who may be alleged to be important witnesses, were intended to be described in the class of persons affected by it, and if the jurisdiction of the Federal courts can be invoked by the assertion that there are persons who may be witnesses, but who, because of their race or color, are incompetent to testify in the courts of the State, there is no cause either civil or criminal of which those courts may not at the option of either party take jurisdiction. The statute of Kentucky which was in existence when this indictment was found, and which denied the right of Richard Foster and Laura Foster to testify in the courts of the State, enacted as follows: ‘that a slave, negro, or Indian shall be a competent witness in the case of the commonwealth for or against a slave, negro, or Indian, or in a civil case to which only negroes or Indians are parties, but in no other case.’ It will be observed that this statute prohibits the testimony of colored persons either for or against a white person in any civil or criminal cause to which he may be a party. If, therefore, they are persons affected by the cause, whenever they might be witnesses were they competent to testify, it follows that in any suit between white citizens, jurisdiction might be taken by the Federal courts whenever it was alleged that a citizen of the African race was or might be an important witness. And such an allegation might always be made. So in all criminal prosecutions against white persons a similar allegation would call into existence the like jurisdiction. We cannot think that such was the purpose of Congress in the statute of April 9th, 1866. It would seem rather to have been to afford protection to persons of the colored race by giving to the Federal courts jurisdiction of cases, the decision of which might injuriously affect them either in their personal, relative, or property rights, whenever they are denied in the State courts any of the rights *593 mentioned and assured to them in the first section of the act.

**9 Nor can it be said that such a construction allows little or no effect to the enactment. On the contrary, it concedes to it a far-reaching purpose. That purpose was to guard all the declared rights of colored persons, in all civil actions to which they may be parties in interest, by giving to the District and Circuit Courts of the United States jurisdiction of such actions whenever in the State courts any right enjoyed by white citizens is denied them. And in criminal prosecutions against them, it extends a like protection. We cannot be expected to be ignorant of the condition of things which existed when the statute was enacted, or of the evils which it was intended to remedy. It is well known that in many of the States, laws existed which subjected colored men convicted of criminal offences to punishments different from and often severer than those which were inflicted upon white persons convicted of similar offences. The modes of trial were also different, and the right of trial by jury was sometimes denied them. It is also well known that in many quarters prejudices existed against the colored race, which naturally affected the administration of justice in the State courts, and operated harshly when one of the race was a party accused. These were evils doubtless which the act of Congress had in view, and which it intended to remove. And so far as it reaches, it extends to both races the same rights, and the same means of vindicating them.

In view of these considerations we are of opinion that the case now before us is not within the provisions of the [Civil Rights Act of 1866], and that the Circuit Court had [no] jurisdiction of the crime of murder committed in the district of Kentucky, merely because two persons who witnessed the murder were citizens of the African race, and for that reason incompetent by the law of Kentucky to testify in the courts of that State. They are not persons affected by the cause.

We need hardly add that the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court is not sustained by the fact…that Lucy Armstrong, the person murdered, was a citizen of *594 the African race, and for that reason denied the right to testify in the Kentucky courts. In no sense can she be said to be affected by the cause. Manifestly the act refers to persons in existence. She was the victim of the frightful outrage which gave rise to the cause, but she is beyond being affected by the cause itself.

***

**10 An attempt has…been made to discriminate between the words ‘case affecting,’ as found in the constitutional provision, and the words ‘cause affecting,’ contained in the [Civil Rights Act of 1866]. We are unable to perceive any substantial ground for a distinction. The words ‘case’ and ‘cause’ are constantly used as synonyms in statutes and judicial decisions, each meaning a proceeding in court, a suit, or action. Surely no court can have jurisdiction of either a case or a cause until it is presented in the form of an action…[J]urisdiction of the offence for which these defendants were indicted, was not conferred upon the Circuit Court by the act of Congress.

It is unnecessary, therefore, to consider the other questions presented by the record.

JUDGMENT REVERSED.

***

Mr. Justice BRADLEY, with whom concurred Mr. Justice SWAYNE, dissenting.

**10 I dissent from the opinion of the court in this case for the following reasons:

The [Civil Rights Act of 1866] was primarily intended to carry out, in all its length and breadth, and to all its legitimate consequences, the then recent constitutional amendment abolishing slavery in the United States, and to place persons of African descent on an equality of rights and privileges with [white] citizens of the United States. To do this effectually it was not only necessary *596 to declare this equality and impose penalties for its violation, but, as far as practicable, to counteract those unjust and discriminating laws of some of the States by which persons of African descent were subjected to punishments of peculiar harshness and ignominy, and deprived of rights and privileges enjoyed by white citizens.

This general scope and object of the act will often furnish us a clue to its just construction. It may be remarked, however, that the terms of the act are broad enough to embrace other persons as well as those of African descent, but that is a point not now in question in this case.

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 sue, be parties, and give evidence; to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.

**11 This is the fundamental section of the act. All that follows is intended to secure and vindicate, to the objects of it, the rights herein declared, and to establish the requisite machinery for that end.

This section is in direct conflict with those State laws which forbade a free colored person to remove to or pass through the State, from having firearms, from exercising the functions of a minister of the gospel, and from keeping a house of entertainment; laws which prohibited all colored persons from being taught to read and write, from holding or conveying property, and from being witnesses in any case where a white person was concerned; and laws which subjected them to cruel and ignominious punishments not imposed upon white persons, such as to be sold as vagrants, to *597 be tied to the whipping-post, &c., &c. All these, and all other discriminations, were intended to be abolished and done away with.

The second section makes it a misdemeanor, punishable by fine or imprisonment, for any person, under color of any law or custom, to deprive any inhabitant of a State or Territory of any right secured by the act, or to subject him to different punishment or penalties on account of his having been a slave, or by reason of his color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of white persons.

The third section proceeds to confer upon the District Courts of the United States, exclusive of the State courts, jurisdiction to try these offences, and then follows the clause under which the indictment in the present case was found, declaring that the …District Courts shall also have cognizance, concurrently with the Circuit Courts of the United States, ‘of all causes, civil and criminal, affecting persons who are denied, or cannot enforce in the courts or judicial tribunals of the State, or locality where they may be, any of the rights secured to them by the first section,’ with right of removal of causes from State courts…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; whereas the second section provides for actual, positive invasion of rights. 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. Suppose that, in any State, *598 assault and battery, mayhem-nay, murder itself, could be perpetrated upon a colored man with impunity, no law being provided for punishing the offender, would not that be a case of denial of rights to the colored population of that State? Would not the clause of the civil rights bill now under consideration give jurisdiction to the United States courts in such a case? Yet, if an indictment should be found in one of those courts against the offender, the technical parties to the record would only be the United States as plaintiff and the criminal as defendant. Nevertheless could it be said, with any truth or justice, that this would not be a cause affecting persons denied the rights secured to them by the first section of the law?

**12 The case before us is just as clearly within the scope of the law as such a case would be. I do not put it upon the ground that the witnesses of the murder, or some of them, are colored persons, disqualified by the laws of Kentucky to testify, but on the ground that the cause is one affecting the person murdered, as well as the whole class of persons to which she belonged. Had the case been simple assault and battery, the injured party would have been deprived of a right, enjoyed by every white citizen, of entering a complaint before a magistrate, or the grand jury, and of appearing as a witness on the trial of the offender. I say ‘right,’ for it is a right, an inestimable right, that of invoking the penalties of the law upon those who criminally or feloniously attack our persons or our property. Civil society has deprived us of the natural right of avenging ourselves, but it has preserved to us,…the right of bringing the offender to justice…[A]lthough in this country it is almost the universal practice to appoint public and official prosecutors in criminal cases,…it is the right of the injured party, and a duty he owes to society, to *599 furnish what aid he can in bringing the offender to justice; and an important part of that right and duty consists in giving evidence against him.

To deprive a whole class of the community of this right, to refuse their evidence and their sworn complaints, is to brand them with a badge of slavery; is to expose them to wanton insults and fiendish assaults; is to leave their lives, their families, and their property unprotected by law. It gives unrestricted license and impunity to vindictive outlaws and felons to rush upon these helpless people and kill and slay them at will, as was done in this case. 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. 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.

***

**13 If the case above supposed is within the act (as it assuredly must be), does it cease to be so when the violence offered is so great as to deprive the victim of life? Such a construction would be a premium on murder. If mere violence offered to a colored person (who, by the law of Kentucky, was denied the privilege of complaint), gives the United States court jurisdiction, when such violence is short of being fatal, that jurisdiction cannot cease when death is the result. The reason for its existence is stronger than before. If it would have been a cause affecting him when living, it will *600 be a cause affecting him though dead. The object of prosecution and punishment is to prevent crime, as well as to vindicate public justice. The fear of it, the anticipation of it, stands between the assassin and his victim like a vindictive shade. It arrests his arm, and loosens the dagger from his grasp. Should not the colored man have the aegis of this protection to guard his life, as well as to guard his limbs, or his property? Should he not enjoy it in equal degree with the white citizen? In a large and just sense, can a prosecution for his murder affect him any less than a prosecution for an assault upon him? He is interested in both alike. They are his protection against violence and wrong. 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.

***

I have considered the case irrespective of the fact that the witnesses of the transaction were all colored people who, at *601 the time this indictment was found, were denied the right to testify against white persons in Kentucky. I have placed it on the sole ground, that prosecutions for crimes committed against colored persons, are causes which, in the sense of the civil rights bill, most seriously affect them; and that in Kentucky they were denied the privilege of being witnesses in these causes…

**14 To conclude, I have no doubt of the power of Congress to pass the law now under consideration. Slavery, when it existed, extended its influence in every direction, depressing and disfranchising the slave and his race in every possible way. Hence, in order to give full effect to the National will in abolishing slavery, it was necessary in some way to counteract these various disabilities and the effects flowing from them. Merely striking off the fetters of the slave, without removing the incidents and consequences of slavery, would hardly have been a boon to the colored race. Hence, also, the amendment abolishing slavery was supplemented by a clause giving Congress power to enforce it by appropriate legislation. No law was necessary to abolish slavery; the amendment did that. 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.

In my opinion the judgment of the Circuit Court should be affirmed.