"As for those whose minds are blinded with superstition, magnanimity and true liberty do not appear so glorious to them as they are in themselves; it will be in vain to contend with them, either by reason and arguments or examples."—Milton.
"The great, fundamental, and long-established principles of toleration."—Schlegel.
In grave contrast with the old pro-slavery version of civil rights, which the Supreme Court thus quotes with approval in the Civil-Rights Cases, is the refreshing new version of constitutional civil rights, by the greatest of all the great expounders of our Constitution, Justice Story, who, in his treatise on the Constitution, quotes and adopts,as a sound exposition of constitutional law, Sumner and Everett's interpretation of the spirit of American constitutional liberty, which lifts human consciousness out of the dust into dignity, and, instead of relegating seven millions of people to the outer darkness of Scott v. Sandford, sheds upon their civil rights a more benign and genial light. Says this great authority upon constitutional law:[1]
"Such are the privileges and immunities of citizens of the States: to be protected in life and liberty , and in the acquisition and enjoyment of property, under equal and impartial laws, which govern the whole community. This 'puts the state upon its true foundation: a society for the establishment and administration of general justice,—justice to all, equal and fixed, recognizing individual rights and not imparting them.' It recognizes 'the important truth—in a republican government, the fundamental truth—that the minority have indisputable and inalienable rights; that the majority are not everything and the minority nothing; that the people may do what they please, but that their power is limited to what is just to all composing society.' The people of the States, in framing their several Constitutions, have undertaken to secure these fundamental rights against invasion: sometimes by particular enumeration; more often by general words; always in some form of language supposed to be completely effectual; and we may, with the ut-
- ↑ Story on Constitutional Law, 4th ed., vol. ii., sec. 1936.
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