Page:Justice and Jurisprudence - 1889.pdf/105

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
54
Justice and Jurisprudence.

will convince the simplest understanding, that, if the satanic profoundnesses of race-hatred are now to preponderate over the people's love and veneration for their Constitution, which pays no respect to persons, if Jurisprudence can with safety pluck Justice by the nose, and if the exclusive possession of constitutional right will once become subordinated to classes, then the rising flood of anarchy will soon weaken the pillars of the State; and its turbulent torrent, rushing with tumultuous uproar and quickly inundating the country, will eventually overturn our whole system of government.

It is demonstrable, that, if the gratification of the civic rights of one class, in consequence of their previous condition of slavery, can be avoided by the tyranny of this generation, in the tomorrow of the country ,another class, by reason of their previous condition of master, or rebel, or of their existing beliefs, religious, aristocratic, political, civil, or other "natural and well-known repugnances" to still grander tyrants, under this precedent of arbitrary power, may be denied their constitutional rights.

The jurisprudence which tolerated the usurpation of justice in the case of the one class of citizens, would not be less anarchical in its tendency than that which justified the disfranchisement of it in the other; and thus the community of the present and future nation would be exposed to the dire peril of a governmental condition in which the measure of right might be the anarchy power. There would then follow that state of society in which oppression, terror, and confusion would not be limited by any other law than the aggressive, revolutionary, unreasoning mob violence of popular opinion. The government having abandoned the impartial administration of justice, and the rule of no rule but the "bare-faced power" of unenlightened public opinion having been proclaimed, the mandate of that imperious anarch, whose charter is as large as the wind, would eventually be substituted for the Constitution itself.

It appears to the writer, that the invitement of your letter, respecting the structure, functions, and development of monopolistic labor caste, involves a discussion of many subjects unrelated to the legal status of civil rights. Any delineation of this department, to be of value, would require the treatment of a