They may establish a separate school for the rich, that the delicate taste of this favored class may not be offended by the humble garments of the poor.

All this, and much more, can be done in the exercise of that high-handed power which makes a discrimination on account of race or color.

We shall then have many different schools, representatives of as many different classes, opinions, and prejudices; but we shall look in vain for the true Common School of Massachusetts.

Here is the only safety worthy of a free people.

The Court will declare the by-law of the School Committee unconstitutional and illegal, although there are no express words of prohibition in the Constitution and Laws.

The words of the Constitution are plain, and it will be the duty of the Court to see that they are applied to the discrimination now waiting for judgment.

Banishing it from the schools of Boston, the Court will bring them into much-desired harmony with the schools of other towns, and with the whole system of Common Schools.

According to familiar practice, judicial interpretation is made always in favor of life or liberty.

So here the Court should incline in favor of Equality, that sacred right which is the companion of those other rights.

In proportion to the importance of this right will the Court be solicitous to vindicate and uphold it.

And in proportion to the opposition which it encounters from prejudices of society will the Court brace themselves to this task.

Nor can the Committee derive from this assent, or from any lapse of time, powers in derogation of the Constitution and the Rights of Man.

The present case, and the deep interest which they manifest in it, thronging the Court to watch this discussion, attest the change.

With increasing knowledge they have learned to know their rights, and feel the degradation to which they are doomed.

In similar spirit Slavery is sometimes said to be for the benefit of master and slave, and of the country where it exists.

Nothing unjust, nothing ungenerous, can be for the benefit of any person or any thing.

From some seeming selfish superiority, or from the gratified vanity of class, short-sighted mortals may hope to draw permanent good; but even-handed justice rebukes these efforts and redresses the wrong.

The whites themselves are injured by the separation.

With the Law as their monitor, they are taught to regard a portion of the human family, children of God, created in his image, coequals in his love, as a separate and degraded class; they are taught practically to deny that grand…

Hearts, while yet tender with childhood, are hardened, and ever afterward testify to this legalized uncharitableness.

Nursed in the sentiments of Caste, receiving it with the earliest food of knowledge, they are unable to eradicate it from their natures, and then weakly and impiously charge upon our Heavenly Father the prejudice derived from an…

The School Committee of Boston act with similar double-edged injustice in sacrificing the colored children to the prejudice or fancied advantage of the white.

A child should be taught to shun wickedness, and, as he is yet plastic under impressions, to shun wicked men.

The Boston Committee adopt the warning, but apply it not to the black in heart, but the black in skin.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.