National Republican (Washington City

MEMPHIS, TENN., Nov. 3.—A large meeting of prominent colored citizens held last night adopted resolutions expressing regret at the decision of the supreme court in the civil rights case, and asking the people of the state to join in petitioning the legislature to repeal all its acts discriminating against the colored people, in protesting against confounding social and civil rights and in favoring the encouragement of colored people in habits of economy and intellectual culture. They also compliment Judge Harlan. Addresses were made by Congressman Casey Young and others.

So reads a dispatch in a Sunday paper. And so it would appear that there are on the statute book of Tennessee "acts discriminating against the colored people." If this be true, then the supreme court will, upon its own reasoning, be compelled to decide the civil rights act constitutional whenever a case comes before it in which one of those discriminating acts is made to appear. The recent opinion held that civil rights could not be protected by congressional legislation unless first assailed by a state, either through an act of its legislature or the acts of individuals sanctioned by customs having the force of law. The supreme court is prepared, as we read its decision, to declare the civil rights act constitutional and operative whenever a case is brought before it in which it is made to appear that any state, either by act of its legislature or by acts of an individual, based on a custom having the force of law, has, since the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, made any law, or enforced one already in existence, abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.