Various - The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921

95 U. S., 487.

The Louisiana Act was:

Section—. All persons engaged within this State in the business of common carriers of passengers, shall have the right to refuse to admit any person to their railroad cars, street cars, steamboats or other water-crafts, stage coaches, omnibusses, or other vehicles, or to expel any person therefrom after admission, when such persons shall, on demand, refuse or neglect to pay the customary fare, or when such person shall be of infamous character or shall be guilty, after admission to the conveyance of the carrier, of gross, vulgar, or disorderly conduct, or who shall commit any act tending to injure the business of the carrier, prescribed for the management of his business, after such rules and regulations shall have been made known: Provided , said rules and regulations make no discrimination on account of race or color, and shall have the right to refuse any person admission to such conveyance where there is not room or suitable accommodation; and, except in cases above enumerated, all persons engaged in the business of common carriers of passengers are forbidden to refuse admission to their conveyance, or to expel therefrom any person whomsoever.

Section 4. For a violation of any provision of the first and second sections of this act, the party injured shall have right of action to recover any damage, exemplary as well as actual, which he may sustain, before any court of competent jurisdiction. Acts of 1869, page 77; Rev. Stat. 1870, page 93.

Mr. Justice Clifford concurred in the judgment but went into details to justify the segregation whereas the opinion of the court merely tried to see whether the details conflicted with the power of Congress to regulate commerce.

118 W. S., 557.

All of these are in 94 U. S.

133 U. S., 587.

This was the law of Mississippi:

Sec. 1. "Be it enacted, That all railroads carrying passengers in this State (other than street railroads) shall provide equal, but separate accommodation for the white and colored races by providing two or more passenger cars for each passenger train, or by dividing the passenger cars by a partition, so as to secure separate accommodations."

Sec. 2. That the conductors of such passenger trains shall have power and are hereby required to assign each passenger to the car or the compartment of a car (when it is divided by a partition) used for the race to which said passenger belongs; and that, should any passenger refuse to occupy the car to which he or she is assigned by such conductor, said conductor shall have the power to refuse to carry such passenger on his train and neither he nor the railroad company shall be liable for any damages in any event in this State.

Sec. 3. That all railroad companies that shall refuse or neglect within sixty days after the approval of this act to comply with the requirements of section one of this act, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall upon conviction in a court of competent jurisdiction, be fined not more than five hundred dollars; and any conductor that shall neglect to, or refuse to carry out the provisions of this act, shall, upon conviction, be fined not less than twenty-five nor more than fifty dollars for each offense.

Sec. 4. That all acts and parts of acts in conflict with this act be, and the same are hereby repealed, and this act to take effect and be in force from and after passage. Acts of 1888, p. 48.

133 U. S., 592.

163 U. S., 317.

Ibid. , 537.

169 U. S., 613, 645.

141 U. S., 61.

In Pa. R. R. Co. v. Hughes (191 U. S., 489), Justice White says:

"In the absence of Congressional legislation upon the subject an act of the Alabama legislature to require locomotive engineers to be examined and licensed by a board to be appointed by the governor for that purpose was sustained in Smith v. Alabama " (124 U. S., 465).

179 U. S., 393.

133 U. S., 587.

163 U. S., 537.

179 U. S., 388, 391.

133 U. S., 588.

218 U. S., 71.

235 U. S., 151.

U. S., 18, 1907 Revised Statutes, 1910, Section 860, et seq.

100 U. S., 303.

Ibid. , 313.

103 U. S., 370.

162 U. S., 565.

107 U. S., 110.

162 U. S., 592.

163 U. S., 101.

167 U. S., 442.

192 U. S., 226.

200 U. S., 316.

218 U. S., 161.

Laws of South Carolina, 1902, page 1066, section 2.

100 U. S., 371.

110 U. S., 651.

127 U. S., 731.

179 U. S., 58.

185 U. S.

189 U. S., 475.

193 U. S., 146.

The Constitution of Mississippi prescribing the qualifications for electors conferred upon the legislature the power to enact laws to carry those provisions into effect. Ability to read any section of the Constitution or to understand it when read was made a qualification necessary to a legal voter. Another provision made the qualifications for grand or petit jurors that they should be able to read and write. Upon the complaint of Negroes thus disabled the court held that these provisions do not on their face discriminate between white and Negro races and do not amount to a denial of the equal protection of the law secured by the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. It had not been shown that their actual administration was evil, but that only evil was possible under them.

In Washington County, Mississippi, Williams had been indicted for murder by a grand jury composed of white men altogether. He moved that the indictment be quashed because the law by which the grand jury was established was unconstitutional. ( Williams v. Mississippi. )

193 U. S., 621.

238 U. S., 347.

Ibid. , 368.

Ibid. , 763.

175 U. S., 528.

120 U. S., 102.

202 U. S., 1.

110 U. S., 651.

144 U. S., 236, 286, 293.

92 U. S., 214, 217.

110 U. S., 651.

178 U. S., 458, 462.

9 Wheaton, 738.

This sketch is drawn largely from a pamphlet, presented to the Association for the study of Negro Life and History by the author A. F. Fokeer. The author states that he has not had access to all the material which he desired to use, for when he applied to the municipality for one of the books concerning Ollier, he received an answer stating "that books written by Mauritians, and published in the colony are by no means to be lent to anybody." Therefore, the source from which most of our information is secured is A Biographical Sketch of the Life, Work and Character of Remy Ollier by A. F. Fokeer, published by the General Printing and Stationery Cy. Ld., 23 Church Street, Mauritius. 1917.