Now, if the legislation of Congress must be "corrective," then I ask, corrective of what? Certainly not of unconstitutional and void laws. That which is void, cannot be corrected. That which is unconstitutional is not the subject of correction. Congress either has the right to legislate directly, or not at all; because indirect or corrective legislation can apply only, according to the Supreme Court, to unconstitutional and void laws that have been passed by a Stale; and as such laws cannot be "corrected," the doctrine of "corrective legislation" dies an extremely natural death. A State can do one of three things: 1. It can pass an unconstitutional law; 2. It can pass a constitutional law; 3. It can fail to pass any law. The unconstitutional law, being void, cannot be corrected. The constitutional law does not need correction. And where no law has been passed, correction is impossible. The Supreme Court insists that Congress can not take action until the State does. A State that fails to pass any law on the subject, has not taken action. This leaves the person whose immunities and privileges have been invaded, with no redress except such as he may find in the State Courts in a suit at law; and if the State Court takes the same view that is apparently taken by the Supreme Court in this case,--namely, that it is a "social question," one not to be regulated by law, and not covered in any way by the Constitution--then, discrimination can be made against citizens by landlords and railway conductors, and they are left absolutely without remedy. The Supreme Court asks, in this decision, "Can the act of a mere individual--the owner of the inn, or public conveyance, or place of amusement, refusing the accommodation, be justly regarded as imposing any badge of slavery or servitude upon the applicant, or only as inflicting an ordinary civil injury properly cognizable by the laws of the State, and presumably subject to redress by those laws, until the contrary appears?" How is "the contrary to appear"? Suppose a person denied equal privileges upon the railway on account of race and color, brings suit and is defeated? And suppose the highest tribunal of the State holds that the question is of a "social" character--what then? If, to use the language of the Supreme Court, it is "an ordinary civil injury, imposing no badge of slavery or servitude," then, no Federal question is involved. Why did not the Supreme Court tell us what may be done when "the contrary appears"? Nothing is clearer than the intention of the Supreme Court in this case--and that is, to decide that denying to a man equal accommodations at public inns on account of race or color, is not an abridgment of a privilege or immunity of a citizen of the United States, and that such person, so denied, is not in a condition of involuntary servitude, or denied the equal protection of the laws. In other words--that it is a "social question."