Pittsylvania Courthouse

Editor's Note

This is the second in a series of articles planned for "We the People" that will discuss National Historic Landmarks and other historic sites that are associated with the great constitutional debates in American History. The first article in this series appeared in the July-August 1990 issue of "We the People."

Dr. Harry A. Butowsky, the author of this series, Is a staff historian with the Division of History in the Washington Office of the National Park Service.

Introduction

In the 200 years since 1787, the U.S. Constitution has proved the most successful blueprint for popular sovereignty in human history. During these years the United States has evolved from a small agricultural nation of some five million people situated on the fringe of the western world to an industrial giant of more than 245 million people that is the center of the western world. In these years the Constitution has changed and evolved to meet new demands and conditions never foreseen by our forbearers.

The Pittsylvania County Courthouse, Chatham, Virginia

A two-story brick courthouse built in 1853 stands on the east side of U.S. Business Route 29 in the town of Chatham, Virginia—The Pittsylvania County Courthouse. The courthouse combines elements from the Classical Revival and Italianate styles and was recently restored. Portraits of past judges and other distinguished county residents line the walls of the courtroom. A traditional Confederate Civil War statue stands to the north of the courthouse. However, the Pittsylvania County Courthouse is more than just another local courthouse—it is a National Historic Landmark that bears an important educational lesson for the American People. The courthouse reminds us of how our Constitution evolved after the Civil War to ensure that all Americans would enjoy their full civil rights as guaranteed by the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

The Constitution Evolves

In the years after the Civil War, reform minded Republicans sought to ensure that the newly freed slaves enjoyed the same measure of equality and opportunity that white Americans enjoyed. Through their control of the Congress, the Republican Party initiated programs designed to accomplish these ends. In 1865 and 1866, Congress funded the Freedman's Bureau to feed, clothe, and protect the ex-slaves and passed civil rights acts to outlaw varied forms of segregation. In addition, Congress passed the 13th Amendment (1865) to outlaw slavery, the 14th Amendment (1868) to extend federal citizenship to blacks, and the 15th Amendment (1870) to protect the black man's right to vote. Congress backed up these efforts with the passage of a comprehensive Civil Rights Act in 1875.

In spite of these efforts, the tide of events was running against the effort to secure full civil equality for the ex-slaves. In state after state in the South, the conservative white leadership of the Democratic Party regained control of the political machinery, and through a process of legislation and intimidation, eliminated black participation in the political process and instituted a policy of racial segregation. After 1877, support for civil rights from the Congressional and Executive branches of government waned and black Americans turned to the courts to fight for and secure their civil rights.

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private discrimination and not state action. Speaking for the Court, Justice Bradley said the 14th Amendment "does not authorize Congress to create a code of municipal law for the regulation of private rights; but to provide modes of redress against the operation of state laws, and the action of State officers, executive or judicial, where these are subversive to the fundamental rights specified in the Amendment."

The combined impact of the Court's decision in these cases was devastating for the Negro. Having been abandoned by the Legislative and Executive branches of the Federal Government, the Negro found no help in the Courts. For all practical purposes the question of civil rights for black Americans was dropped from the national agenda, although the ultimate abandonment of civil rights did not come until 1896 with the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the Supreme Court found no constitutional objection to a Louisiana law requiring separate railway coaches for whites and blacks, provided that blacks were furnished accommodations equal to whites. Formal racial classification, which the court had earlier condemned, was thus legitimized.

Exparte Virginia

The question of whether or not the 14th amendment truly gave the federal government a new and powerful tool with which to protect the full civil rights of all American citizens remained in doubt until 1878. In that year the black citizens of Chatham, Virginia were told by Judge J. D. Coles that he would not permit them to fulfill their duties as citizens and serve on grand and petit juries then meeting in Pittsylvania County Virginia. A number of these excluded jurors then proceeded to sue Judge Coles for violating their civil rights as guaranteed by the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

This suit, known as Exparte Virginia, (1878) quickly made its way through the federal courts and to the Supreme Court.

The key to this effort to secure full civil and political rights for black Americans rested squarely on the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which stated, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The author of that first clause in the Fourteenth Amendment, U.S. Representative John Bingham of Ohio, fully intended that the Bill of Rights should limit the power of the individual states as well as that of the federal government. Only the federal government, acting under the authority of the 14th Amendment and the various civil rights acts, could guarantee the full civil and political equality of the ex-slaves. From time to time, before the Civil War, the states had denied the equal protection of the laws to citizens. The 14th Amendment, Bingham believed, changed all that and nationalized civil rights, but it did so in a way that respected the traditional federal-state relationship. Although the states would continue to be the principal regulators of personal liberty and civil rights, they would now do so under the supervision of the federal government.

Even with the 14th Amendment and the various civil rights acts, enormous obstacles still impeded federal civil rights enforcement. These obstacles included the overwhelming opposition of the majority of whites in the South and the country's traditional deep-seated commitment to federalism.

The Obstacles Continue

The Slaughterhouse Cases in 1873 presented the Supreme Court with its first opportunity to review and interpret the 14th Amendment. These cases involved butchers who were excluded by a monopoly granted by the Louisiana legislature to a New Orleans slaughter house and who, therefore, claimed that the legislature had denied them property rights guaranteed under the 14th Amendment. The court, in an exceedingly narrow interpretation of the 14th Amendment, held that the butchers were not denied "the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States" guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, since this amendment protected only federal rights, such as travel upon the high seas, governmental protection in foreign countries, and the availability of the writ of habeas corpus. Most rights, the court said, flowed from state citizenship, including the property rights of the butchers, and were not protected by the 14th Amendment. Thus, as a practical matter, the definition and protection of the rights of citizens were left to the states. The implications of the Slaughterhouse Cases for blacks were ominous.

Local authorities soon saw that this principle could be used to establish jurisdiction over the lives of black citizens and make the 14th Amendment impotent as an instrument for their protection. This was precisely what happened once radical Republican politicians were driven from office in the South. Black citizens were deprived of their basic civil rights.

In the years after 1873, the Supreme Court continued to narrowly interpret the 14th and 15th Amendments and the Civil Rights Acts. In the case of United States v. Cruiks hank (1876), in which scores of Louisiana whites were indicted under the Enforcement Act of 1870 for conspiracy to deprive blacks of their rights as United States citizens, Justice Joseph P. Bradley held that the 14th Amendment authorized federal legislation only against state action denying rights. Under the 13th and 15th Amendments Congress could prohibit private denial of rights, Bradley reasoned, but only where the denial was motivated by racial hostility rather than ordinary criminal intent. Because the government's indictment of the rioters failed to specify their intention to deprive blacks of civil rights on account of race, Bradley found it invalid.

Similarly, in the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, the Supreme Court struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875 because it was directed against

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As a result of his action Judge Coles was arrested and charged with a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1875. After his arrest Judge Coles filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking that he be released from custody and that all charges be dropped on the ground that his arrest and imprisonment were not warranted by the Constitution and the laws of the United States. In this case, the Court held that Judge J. D. Coles' action was a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and denied his petition for release.

Ex parte Virginia represented one of the few victories for blacks in the federal courts in the generation after 1865. After 1865 black Americans fought for their political and civil rights and took case after case to the Supreme Court. Ex parte Virginia was a victory in this struggle because the issue involved the clear attempt by a state official to deny citizens within that official's jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws--a protection guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. While the states retained their primary responsibility and power to regulate civil rights, they were no longer autonomous. Ex parte Virginia showed that the federal government now had a qualified but potentially effective power to protect the rights of American citizens.

Summary

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution nationalized civil rights. The states had been the principal regulators of personal liberty and civil rights, and they would continue to perform that function. Now, however, they would continue to do so under federal supervisory authority. The 14th Amendment intended that both the executive and legislative branches of government would exercise this supervisory authority.

In the years after the Civil War, the executive, legislative and even the judicial branches of government failed to exercise this supervisory responsibility. The meaning and intention of the 14th Amendment was lost in a welter of politics and concessions to local interests. The rights of black Americans to enjoy the equal protection of the laws was violated.

Nonetheless, black Americans did not forget, and for those who continued to struggle, Ex parte Virginia epitomized the promise of the future. The 14th amendment had, after all, changed the course of American Constitutional history and, in time, would result in a new birth of freedom for all Americans. Plessy v. Ferguson ushered in the era of the "Jim Crows" laws with their involuntary and forced segregation and years of struggle still remained in the future, but after 1878, no one could deny the legitimate meaning of the 14th Amendment. An enlightened and educated citizenry would continue the struggle. The eventual victory of the people in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) was based on the faithful interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and the fact that generations of Americans would not accept anything less than the full promise of their civil rights that was their unalienable birthright under the Constitution.

In 1987, the Pittsylvania County Courthouse was designated a National Historic Landmark.

...Harry A Butowsky...

© Copyright 1991
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