SCHOOL COMMITTEE HAVE NO POWER TO DISCRIMINATE ON ACCOUNT OF COLOR. The Committee charged with the superintendence of the Common Schools of Boston have no _power_ to make any discrimination on account of race or color. It has been seen already that this power is inconsistent with the Declaration of Independence, with the Constitution and Laws of Massachusetts, and with adjudications of the Supreme Court. The stream cannot rise higher than the fountain-head; and if there be nothing in these elevated sources from which this power can spring, it must be considered a nullity. Having seen that there is nothing, I might here stop; but I wish to show the shallow origin of this pretension. Its advocates, unable to find it among express powers conferred upon the School Committee, and forgetful of the Constitution, where "either it must live or bear no life," place it among implied or incidental powers. The Revised Statutes provide for a School Committee "who shall have _the general charge and superintendence_ of all the Public Schools" in their respective towns.[37] Another section provides that "the School Committee shall determine the number and qualifications of the scholars to be admitted into the school kept for the use of the whole town."[38] These are all the clauses conferring powers on the Committee. [37] Chap. 23, sec. 10. [38] Chap. 23, sec. 15. From them no person will imply a power to defeat a cardinal principle of the Constitution. It is absurd to suppose that the Committee in general charge and superintendence of schools, and in determining the number and qualifications of scholars, may engraft upon the schools a principle of inequality, not only unknown to the Constitution and Laws, but in defiance of their letter and spirit. In the exercise of these powers they cannot put colored children to personal inconvenience greater than that of white children. Still further, they cannot brand a whole race with the stigma of inferiority and degradation, constituting them a Caste. They cannot in any way violate that fundamental right of all citizens, Equality before the Law. To suppose that they can do this would place the Committee above the Constitution. It would enable them, in the exercise of a brief and local authority, to draw a fatal circle, within which the Constitution cannot enter,--nay, where the very Bill of Rights becomes a dead letter.