The barbarous decision of the United States Supreme Court declaring the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional and disrobing the Colored race of all civil protection

Turner criticizes the Supreme Court's decision to declare the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. He reports the events leading up to this landmark Supreme Court decision and includes the text of the Civil Rights Act, approved by Congress on 1 March 1875. This text includes the October 1883 ruling, the majority opinion written by Associate Justice Joseph P. Bradley and the dissenting opinion by Associate Justice John M. Harlan. He concludes his pamphlet with a report from the Daily Republican of Washington, D.C. which featured speeches by Frederick Douglass and Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, a well-known lawyer and orator of the day.