Feb 27, 2007 - Sale 2105

Sale 2105 - Lot 177

Price Realized: $ 2,880
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
THE SUPREME COURT SANCTIONS JIM CROW DOUGLASS, FREDERICK. Proceedings of the Civil Rights Mass-Meeting held at Lincoln Hall, October 22, 1883. Speeches of Frederick Douglass and Robert G. Ingersoll. Original errata slip tipped in. 53 pages. 8vo, original printed brick-red wrappers, lightly faded; very slight wear to the spine. Washington, D.C.: C. P. Farrell, 1883
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One of Douglass's most stirring speeches. On October 15, 1883 the Supreme Court handed down a decision that Douglass said "came down upon the country like a clap of thunder." The court held that the owner of a place of public accommodation did not have to admit people of color. The nine Republicans who made up the majority of the court were ostensibly "friends," yet only one held a dissenting view. And that was, ironically enough, Judge Harlan, who was the only one of nine who had ever owned slaves.
Robert Ingersoll, who shared the dais with Douglass, was the only man beside Lincoln to whom Douglass said he ever felt inferior. Ingersoll, an attorney and one of the great orators of the 19th century, began his speech, "We have met for the purpose of saying a few words about the recent decision of the Supreme Court, in which that tribunal has held the first and second sections of the Civil Rights Act to be unconstitutional . . ." He continues, "But I shall speak of the decision as I feel, and in the same manner as I should speak even in the presence of the Court. You must remember that I am not attacking persons, but opinions--not motives, but reasons--not judges, but decisions."