Efforts have been made to prohibit intermarriage in the District of Columbia. At the last session of the Sixtieth Congress, Senator Milton, of Florida, introduced a bill to make intermarriage between white persons and Negroes a crime punishable by imprisonment for ten years and a fine of one thousand dollars, providing that one with one-eighth or more Negro blood should come within the prohibition, declaring such marriages to be null and void and the issue resulting from them illegitimate and so incapable of inheritance. This bill apparently died in the committee room. A resolution in the Senate to recall it from the Committee on the Judiciary was tabled on March 1, 1909, by a vote of 43 to 21. INTERMARRIAGE AND THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION The constitutionality of State statutes and judicial decisions which have refused to recognize marriages between Negroes and white persons celebrated in other States or in the District of Columbia have been attacked on two grounds: First, that they are in violation of article one, section ten, of the Constitution of the United States, which says, in part, that no State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts; and, secondly, that they contravene that part of the Fourteenth Amendment which says that no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States. Marriage is declared by the statutes of the States which prohibit intermarriage, just as by other States, to be a civil contract. If it is a contract and if marriage between a white person and a Negro in Massachusetts, for instance, is valid, when the parties go to South Carolina to live, how can the South Carolina courts declare the marriage a nullity and prosecute the parties for fornication and adultery without contravening the Federal Constitution? The only answer is: Marriage is a civil contract, but it is something more. Almost without exception, the courts have held that a State has the absolute control of the marriage status within its borders. The early case of State v. Gibson,[209] coming in 1871 during Reconstruction, sounded a warning to the Federal Government’s interfering with the laws of marriage. The court said: “In this State [Indiana] marriage is treated as a civil contract, but it is more than a mere civil contract. It is a public institution established by God himself, is recognized in all Christian and civilized nations, and is essential to the peace, happiness, and well-being of society. In fact, society could not exist without the institution of marriage, for upon it all the social and domestic relations are based. The right of all the States to regulate and control, to guard, protect, and preserve this God-given, civilizing, and Christianizing institution is of inestimable importance, and cannot be surrendered, nor can the States suffer or permit any interference therewith. If the Federal Government