forcement, where the defendants are by the statute charged with no duty and have done and attempted to do nothing to the harm of the plaintiff. Such action is in effect against the State. Fitts v. McGhee, 172 U. S., 516.

But where a State by its officer seizes the property of a citizen, in violation of his rights under the Constitution, the officer can be sued, and can not plead that the act is that of the State, because the State can not authorize an unconstitutional act. The action is against the officer as a wrong-doer, and not against the State. Coupon Cases, 114 U. S., 269; Cunningham v. R. R. Co., 109 U. S., 453; Tomlinson v. Branch, 15 Wall., 460; Board of Liquidation v. McComb, 92 U. S., 531.

Suits in the Supreme Court by one State against another. The State of Louisiana filed a bill against Texas, her Governor and health officer, alleging that the latter State had granted its Governor and health officer extensive powers to maintain quarantine over infectious diseases, which power was purposely exercised to build up commerce in Texan cities to the detriment of New Orleans. A decree was prayed for that neither the State of Texas nor her Governor nor health officer have the right under an exercise of police or quarantine powers to declare and enforce an embargo against interstate commerce nor to discriminate against Louisi

ana in such regulations. The bill, on demurrer, was dismissed for want of jurisdiction, because—

(1) In order to maintain jurisdiction it must appear that the controversy to be determined was directly between State and State and not in vindication of the grievances of particular individuals; and that in this case the State presented herself as parens patriae, guardian or representative of her citizens; and (2) that the bill failed to show that the State of Texas had so authorized or confirmed the act of her health officer as to make it her own; (3) that the court was unable to hold that the bill presented a case in controversy between a State and citizens of another State, or, (4) that it could be maintained as a suit against the health officer alone on the theory that he had acted in excess of or violation of a valid law of the State. Louisiana v. Texas, 176 U. S., 1. The previous cases are cited and explained in See, ante, p. 207.

this case.

ARTICLE XII.

TWELFTH AMENDMENT.

Article XII of the amendments is given in connection

with the part of the original Constitution amended by it.

ARTICLE XIII.

SLAVERY PROHIBITED.

Section 1. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. "Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

Decisions explanatory of the Thirteenth Amendment. The Thirteenth Amendment relates only to slavery and the involuntary servitude which it abolishes; and thus establishes universal freedom in the United States; and Congress may lawfully pass laws directly enforcing its provisions; but this legislative power extends only to slavery and its incidents; and the denial of equal accommodations in inns, public conveyances, and places of public amusement imposes no badge of slavery or involuntary servitude upon the party, but at most infringes rights which by the Fourteenth Amendment are protected from State aggression. Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S., 3.

"One great purpose of these (Thirteenth and Fourteenth) Amendments was to raise the colored race from that condition of inferiority and servitude in which most of them had previously stood, into perfect equality of

civil rights with all other persons within the jurisdiction, to take away all possibility of oppression by law because of race or color. They were intended to be, what they really are, limitations of the power of the States and enlargements of the power of Congress. They are to some extent declarations of rights, and though in form prohibitions, they imply immunities, such as may be protected by congressional legislation." Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S., 339, 344.

An examination of the history of the causes which led to the adoption of these amendments demonstrates that the main purpose of all the last three amendments was the freedom of the African race, the security and perpetuation of that freedom, and their protection from the oppressions of the white man who had formerly held them in slavery. In construing them it is necessary to have in view the main purposes, though the letter and spirit of those articles must apply to all cases coming within their purview, whether the party concerned be of African descent or not. The Thirteenth Amendment, primarily intended to abolish slavery, equally forbids Mexican peonage or the Chinese Cooley trade, when they amount to slavery or involuntary servitude; and the use of the word "servitude" is intended to prohibit all forms of involuntary servitude of every class of men. Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall., 36.

A person in Arkansas, one of the late slave-holding States, for a valuable consideration, passed in March,

1861, before the Rebellion had broken out, sold a negro slave which he then had, in the bill of sale warranting the said negro to be a slave for life, and also warranting the title to be clear and perfect. The Thirteenth Amendment subsequently made operated to give this slave his freedom. In an action brought, after the amendment, upon the promissory note given for the slave, the defendant pleaded the warranty that the negro was a slave for life. Held, by the Supreme Court:

1. That slavery, having been lawful in Arkansas when the contract was made, the contract was legal.

2. That the right to sue upon it was not taken away by the Thirteenth Amendment, as the destruction of vested rights can not be presumed to result by implication.

3. That the warranty of the negro as a slave for life was not a warranty of continuity of title against the acts of sovereign power. Osborn v. Livingston, 13 Wall.,

654.

The Act of Congress of March 1st, 1865 (18th Stats. at L., part 3,336), which enacts that no citizen possessing all the other qualifications which are or may be prescribed by law, shall be disqualified from service as grand or petit juror in any court of the United States or of any State, on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude; and making it a misdemeanor to exclude or fail to summon them for that cause, was held constitutional. Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S., 339.