Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 169, 10 April 1891 — The Contract Labor Decision. [ARTICLE]

The Contract Labor Decision.

A cf k reful reading of tbe decision of the fcll Court in haneo, will do more than any commentary thereon to eatisfy any candid mind of th<? hullow and impolUio character of o«r law oii contract labor. The written deciB:on of the Court is a labored tffort to answer the question: Whiit is Blavery? The Court says, " Weeo noe hesitate to say th it if the master and servants law shall be f to develope 8lav;-ry of any rac> within our Kingdom, this Article 11 of our Consti Lntion may Bafely be trusted to make it —the sl#very—void."

The 3egal phraseology whieh authorizes slavery, has been CHrefallv and delicatety eovered with a tinted veil~from away back. Aiiiiie 1. Sectjon 9, of the Constit«Uon of tfte United States, reads: The immi <*ratioh or init>ortation of such persons as any of the States now texisting shall think proner to admit. shall n©t be prohibited by the Gon gress prior to tho year 1808, bat. a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation not exceoditig ten dollars for eaeh person." The persons not pnihihiiwl."» herein, might be supposed to indicate immigrants »f so»ie t>f the hest old families «f Europe.but m n»ality was a guarantee to the Suuthern States of the Unien, that be at 1 i berty to cai*ry on A fri cr. n imtil thē year 1808. and the "persons ,; were dnly adimtted trar s sferred undi'r g4,vernment_protection, and ran. o.n to sugar and cotton plantfitkns on whieh judge r-nd other officials held stock, and it did not matter niueh to the " pers»ns" whether Uie statute books ot" tHeir owriei , s dubbed them gentlemen or niggers, or eon|tract laborers, they got i/ierc all the same. ; īn like manner, also, how rosetinted the fugitive slave reads, and what resemblance it bears to its sur-viving t\vin-brother in Hawaii. I N® person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall. in.consequence ;of any law or regulation therem, be discharged from such service or lafeor, but shall be delivered up on elaiai of tfye party to whoai such service or labor may be due." Const (J U. S., Art. IV, 5.2. ! These infamous laws, the products a.nd growth of a despotic age, have !ong since heen swept away bv the joint force of puhlie opinion and th(? sword. It has remained for $orrw of the descendants of the earlv Christian teachers to lend tneir talenls to the transpl.\nting of a modificaticn of ithe uprooted ahomination on these fair islands! Biit, thank God, there is at least one nohle exceptioni. We shall return to the subject !