"To degrade and stamp out the liberties of a race" signified the "studied purpose" of linking social and civil equality. Douglass concluded that if the Civil Rights Law attempted to promote social equality, so did "the laws and customs of every civilized country in the world," including the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the Sermon on the Mount, the Golden Rule, and the Apostles' Creed. He warned his fellow Americans that if the vile spirit of caste as exemplified in the ignoble Supreme Court decision of 1883 persisted there would be a "black Ireland in America" (Gregory, 1971) .

Evidence of the Republican party's betrayal of blacks encompassed its failure to enforce the letter and spirit of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. It likewise included its failure to pass: an Election Reform Bill (during President Hayes's administration) to eliminate election abuses in the South; the Lodge Force...
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