In other words, the placing of the white children of the State in one class and the Negro children of the State in another class and requiring these classes to be taught separately, provision being made for their education in the same branches, with capable teachers, and to the extent of their pro rata share in the school revenue, does not amount to a denial of equal privileges to either, or conflict with the open character of the system required by the Constitution. The system would be equally open to all. The tuition would be free. The privileges of the schools would be denied to none. The white children go to one school, or to certain of the schools in the system of common schools. The colored children go to another school, or to certain others of the schools in the system of common schools.... If there be cause of complaint, the white class has as much, if not greater cause than the colored class, for the latter class receive their full share of the school revenue, although none of it may have been contributed by such class.... And in a telling section of its opinion, the Indiana court went on to make the point that Congress itself had fixed the spirit and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment by adopting legislation requiring racially segregated schools in the District of Columbia. The court called attention to the dates of such legislation: July 23, 1866; July 28, 1866; March 3, 1873. These acts of Congress were contemporaneous with adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. It seemed to the Indiana court unthinkable that the Congress should have fixed some standard for the States less than that required of the central government, and surely Congress itself, having framed the amendment, knew what was intended by the amendment: “This legislation of Congress continues in force ... as a legislative construction of the Fourteenth Amendment, and as a legislative declaration of what was thought to be lawful, proper, and expedient under such amendment, by the same body that proposed such amendment to the States for their approval and ratification.”