the infinite resplendent images of truth are made more effulgent when they shine out amidst the black night of error. The removal of the opposition of race-obstructionists (who blemish all discussion by their partialities) to the prime requisites for the education of the rising generation, is an imperative preliminary condition to the success of any work in aid of your proposed gradual reform of a deep-seated, wide-spread evil.
That all sorts of partial affection may be laid clean aside in their consideration, those law points, the discussion of which constitutes the main work, are presented through the medium of an introductory conversation between the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and a foreign jurist void of the intellectual bias generated by the civil and social environments of slavery. By this conception an attempt has been made to thrust that skeleton into temporary retirement at the inception of the argument. After seeking an acquaintance with and consulting the notable leaders of the press, the foreign publicist, who has completed the studies in American law recommended by the Chief Justice, proceeds to review the civil-rights cases, Hall and De Cuir, and the Supreme Court's construction of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.
The professional reader may perhaps find some cause of complaint in regard to the preliminary statement, which is occupied in part with the introduction of what a severe critic might deem extraneous matter. But he must be reminded that the latitude of counsel in opening may lawfully exert a direct and powerful influence in dispelling the falsehood and delusion which may have eclipsed, but not extinguished, "Truth, the daughter of Time." If, for example, it is clearly seen that in the course of political evolution, the ballots of those citizens to whom their full civil rights are now denied may be made conservative of the equilibrium of the American state, and that they themselves may become factors in our advancement towards the mighty goal of political progress, leaders of public thought and legislators may see the fitness of establishing, by State laws, that mutual limitation upon men's civil conduct which their coexistence as units in civil society under a constitutional government demands.
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