by the nation in enforcing obedience to its will beyond the
three mile limit on the high seas.

Although conceding that the Thirteenth Amendment was direct and
primary legislation, the court held that it had nothing to do with the
guarantee against that race discrimination commonly referred to in the
bills of complaint as the badges and incidents of slavery. The court
found the Fourteenth Amendment negative rather than direct and primary
because of one of its clauses providing that "no State shall make or
enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of
citizens of the United States nor shall any State deprive any person
of life, liberty and property without due process of law, nor deny to
any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
The court was too evasive or too stupid to observe that the first
clause of this amendment was an affirmation to the effect that all
persons born and naturalized in the United States and subject to the
jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the
State wherein they reside. In other words, the court held that if
there is one negative clause in a paragraph, the whole paragraph is a
negation. Such sophistry deserves the condemnation of all fairminded
people, when one must conclude that any person even without formal
education, if he has heard the English language spoken and is of sound
mind, would know better than to interpret a law so unreasonably.

In declaring this act unconstitutional the Supreme Court of the United
States violated one of its own important principles of interpretation
to the effect that this duty is such a delicate one, that the court in
declaring a statute of Congress invalid must do so with caution,
reluctance and hesitation and never until the duty becomes manifestly
imperative. In the decision of _Fletcher_ v. _Peck_,[21] the court
said that whether the legislative department of the government has
transcended the limits of its constitutional power is at all times a
question of much delicacy, which seldom, if ever, is to be decided in
the affirmative, in a doubtful case. The position between the
Constitution and the law should be such that the judge feels a clear
and strong conviction of their incompatibility with each other. In the
_Sinking Fund Cases_[22] the court said: "When required in the regular
course of judicial proceedings to declare an act of Congress void if
not within the legislative power