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Opinion of the Court.

334 U.S.

white sellers and Negro purchasers of property, guaranteed by the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment. Petitioners point out that this Court in Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81, 100 (1943), reached its decision in a case in which issues under the Fifth Amendment were presented, on the assumption that "racial discriminations are in most circumstances irrelevant and therefore prohibited. . . And see Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214, 216 (1944).

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Upon full consideration, however, we have found it unnecessary to resolve the constitutional issue which petitioners advance; for we have concluded that judicial enforcement of restrictive covenants by the courts of the District of Columbia is improper for other reasons hereinafter stated."

Section 1978 of the Revised Statutes, derived from § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866,' provides:

"All citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in every State and Territory, as is en

6 It is a well-established principle that this Court will not decide constitutional questions where other grounds are available and dispositive of the issues of the case. Recent expressions of that policy are to be found in Alma Motor Co. v. Timken-Detroit Axle Co., 329 U. S. 129 (1946); Rescue Army v. Municipal Court, 331 U. S. 549 (1947).

.. That all per

714 Stat. 27. Section 1 of the Act provided: sons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment,

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Opinion of the Court.

joyed by white citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property." 8

All the petitioners in these cases, as found by the District Court, are citizens of the United States. We have no doubt that, for the purposes of this section, the District of Columbia is included within the phrase "every State and Territory." Nor can there be doubt of the constitutional power of Congress to enact such legislation with reference to the District of Columbia.10

We may start with the proposition that the statute does not invalidate private restrictive agreements so long as the purposes of those agreements are achieved by the parties through voluntary adherence to the terms. The action toward which the provisions of the statute under consideration is directed is governmental action. Such was the holding of Corrigan v. Buckley, supra.

In considering whether judicial enforcement of restrictive covenants is the kind of governmental action which

pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding."

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was reenacted in § 18 of the Act of May 31, 1870, 16 Stat. 144, passed subsequent to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. Section 1977 of the Revised Statutes (8 U. S. C. § 41), derived from § 16 of the Act of 1870, which in turn was patterned after § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, provides: "All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other."

88 U.S. C. § 42.

9 Cf. Talbott v. Silver Bow County, 139 U. S. 438, 444 (1891).

10 See Keller v. Potomac Electric Power Co., 261 U. S. 428, 442-443 (1923).

Opinion of the Court.

334 U.S.

the first section of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was intended to prohibit, reference must be made to the scope and purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment; for that statute and the Amendment were closely related both in inception and in the objectives which Congress sought to achieve.

Both the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the joint resolution which was later adopted as the Fourteenth Amendment were passed in the first session of the Thirty-Ninth Congress." Frequent references to the Civil Rights Act are to be found in the record of the legislative debates on the adoption of the Amendment." It is clear that in many significant respects the statute and the Amendment were expressions of the same general congressional policy. Indeed, as the legislative debates reveal, one of the primary purposes of many members of Congress in supporting the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment was to incorporate the guaranties of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 in the organic law of the land.13 Others supported the adoption of the Amendment in order to eliminate

11 The Civil Rights Act of 1866 became law on April 9, 1866. The Joint Resolution submitting the Fourteenth Amendment to the States passed the House of Representatives on June 13, 1866, having previously passed the Senate on June 8. Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. 3148-3149, 3042.

12 See, e. g., Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. 2459, 2461, 2462, 2465, 2467, 2498, 2506, 2511, 2538, 2896, 2961, 3035.

13 Thus, Mr. Thayer of Pennsylvania, speaking in the House of Representatives, stated: "As I understand it, it is but incorporating in the Constitution of the United States the principle of the civil rights bill which has lately become a law, . . . in order . . . that that provision so necessary for the equal administration of the law, so just in its operation, so necessary for the protection of the fundamental rights of citizenship, shall be forever incorporated in the Constitution of the United States." Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. 2465. And note the remarks of Mr. Stevens of Pennsylvania

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Opinion of the Court.

doubt as to the constitutional validity of the Civil Rights Act as applied to the States.114

14

The close relationship between § 1 of the Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment was given specific recognition by this Court in Buchanan v. Warley, supra at 79. There, the Court observed that, not only through the operation of the Fourteenth Amendment, but also by virtue of the "statutes enacted in furtherance of its purpose," including the provisions here considered, a colored man is granted the right to acquire property free from interference by discriminatory state legislation. In Shelley v. Kraemer, supra, we have held that the Fourteenth Amendment also forbids such discrimination where imposed by state courts in the enforcement of restrictive covenants. That holding is clearly indicative of the construction to be given to the relevant provisions of the Civil Rights Act in their application to the Courts of the District of Columbia.

Moreover, the explicit language employed by Congress to effectuate its purposes leaves no doubt that judicial

in reporting to the House the joint resolution which was subsequently adopted as the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. at 2459. See also id. at 2462, 2896, 2961. That such was understood to be a primary purpose of the Amendment is made clear not only from statements of the proponents of the Amendment but of its opponents. Id. at 2467, 2538. See Flack, The Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment 94-96.

14 No doubts were expressed as to the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act in its application to the District of Columbia. Senator Poland of Vermont stated: "It certainly seems desirable that no doubt should be left existing as to the power of Congress to enforce principles lying at the very foundation of all republican government if they be denied or violated by the States, and I cannot doubt but that every Senator will rejoice in aiding to remove all doubt upon this power of Congress." Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. 2961. See also id. at 2461, 2498, 2506, 2511, 2896, 3035.

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enforcement of the restrictive covenants by the courts of the District of Columbia is prohibited by the Civil Rights Act. That statute, by its terms, requires that all citizens of the United States shall have the same right "as is enjoyed by white citizens . . . to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property." That the Negro petitioners have been denied that right by virtue of the action of the federal courts of the District is clear. The Negro petitioners entered into contracts of sale with willing sellers for the purchase of properties upon which they desired to establish homes. Solely because of their race and color they are confronted with orders of court divesting their titles in the properties and ordering that the premises be vacated. White sellers, one of whom is a petitioner here, have been enjoined from selling the properties to any Negro or colored person. Under such circumstances, to suggest that the Negro petitioners have been accorded the same rights as white citizens to purchase, hold, and convey real property is to reject the plain meaning of language. We hold that the action of the District Court directed against the Negro purchasers and the white sellers denies rights intended by Congress to be protected by the Civil Rights Act and that, consequently, the action cannot stand.

But even in the absence of the statute, there are other considerations which would indicate that enforcement of restrictive covenants in these cases is judicial action contrary to the public policy of the United States, 15 and as such should be corrected by this Court in the exercise of its supervisory powers over the courts of the District of Columbia.16 The power of the federal courts to en

15 See United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U. S. 219, 235 (1941); Johnson v. United States, 163 F. 30, 32 (1908).

16 Section 240 (a) of the Judicial Code, 43 Stat. 938, 28 U. S. C. § 347 (a), provides: "In any case, civil or criminal, in a circuit court

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