178 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



stitution becomes null and void, because it be- 

 comes repugnant to this provision of the Con- 

 stitution of the United States. So if there are 

 laws of the States that discriminate against any 

 person otherwise qualified to vote, because of 

 his race, color, or previous condition of servi- 

 tude, those laws ipso facto become void, because 

 they are repugnant to this provision of the Con- 

 stitution of the United States. 



" If a State should hereafter attempt to pass 

 such laws, it wold be attempting to do an un- 

 constitutional thing, and its action would be 

 absolutely null and void, and for a remedy 

 against any such violation whatsoever the courts 

 afford precisely the same redress that they do 

 against the violation of any other portion of 

 the Constitution of the Union. If there is a 

 necessity for passing a stringent bill to enforce 

 this amendment of the Constitution, the very 

 same reason would require bills of pains and 

 penalties and persecutions to enforce every 

 other prohibition of the Constitution, for there 

 is not one of them that may not be violated. 

 This, then, being simply a limitation on the 

 power of the State, simply withholding from it 

 one of the powers which it heretofore possessed, 

 the power of fixing the qualifications of elec- 

 tors, or restricting that power in a single par- 

 ticular, it is as plain, it seems to me, as the 

 sun at noonday in a cloudless sky, that this 

 amendment can only be held to speak of a 

 State as a State; as a State in her political 

 character, as a distinct autonomy, and does 

 not deal with individuals at all. 



"Now, sir, there is a case in which Congress 

 might, perhaps, deal with individuals, the case 

 supposed by my friend from California. Sup- 

 pose, for instance, the State of Ohio should 

 pass a law that no colored man should vote ; 

 or, to change it, suppose it should pass a law 

 that no white man should vote, and the officers 

 charged with the execution of that law should 

 attempt to carry it into effect, they would be 

 liable to civil actions without any act passed 

 by Congress at all ; but possibly in a case like 

 that Congress might by law reach those indi- 

 viduals thus executing a State law, and there- 

 fore, acting in pursuance of an act of the State, 

 which the Constitution of the United States 

 forbids. 



" That is one thing; but a wholly different 

 thing from that is the unauthorized act of an 

 individual, which tends to interfere with the 

 right of another man to vote, and which unau- 

 thorized act is even in violation of the law of 

 the State itself. Why, sir, take the case of a 

 State ; take Massachusetts, for instance. There 

 is no distinction in the right to vote on ac- 

 count of race, color, or previous condition of 

 servitude ; and there has been none for a long, 

 long time. I suppose Massachusetts has laws, 

 as every other State has, that forbid any one 

 to prevent a citizen from exercising his right 

 to vote. When a man thus violates the law 

 of the State of Massachusetts, when he thus 

 renders himself liable to indictment and pun- 



ishment under the statute of Massachusetts, can 

 you say that that man is the State of Massachu- 

 setts, and that therefore he is doing what this 

 constitutional amendment forbids, and that 

 you will punish him ? The prohibition here is 

 upon the State. Can you undertake to punish 

 an individual who is not acting under the au- 

 thority of the State, but directly against the 

 statute law of the State, and who is punishable 

 under that statute law by indictment in the 

 courts of the State ? And yet you undertake 

 to say that that individual, thus acting con- 

 trary to the law of his State, liable to punish- 

 ment by his own State in her own courts, can 

 be taken away from the jurisdiction of his 

 State, removed from under the law which he 

 has violated, and taken into a Federal court to 

 be punished under an act of Congress. 



" It is amazing to me that any lawyer can 

 think for a moment that this bill in this respect 

 where it acts on individuals not officers of a 

 State at all, mere private individuals, mere 

 trespassers, mere breakers of the peace, mere 

 violators of the State law that this bill which 

 seizes them and punishes them under this act 

 of Congress and in the Federal courts', is war- 

 ranted by the fifteenth amendment of the Con- 

 stitution. 



" But now what is proposed to be done ? 

 Now you propose to seize hold of a mere idler ; 

 now you propose to seize hold of a mere ruf- 

 fian ; now you propose to seize hold of some 

 man who is simply a cheater at the election ; 

 all of whom are punishable under the State 

 law ; and under the pretence of restricting the 

 power of the State, which declares the very 

 acts complained of to be unlawful, and pun- 

 ishes those acts, you take the individual from 

 under the State law, send him before the Fed- 

 eral court, and punish him in virtue of an act 

 of Congress. 



" Why, sir, if you can do this, if this is to be 

 the interpretation of the fifteenth amendment 

 and the right to pass appropriate legislation 

 in support of it, then you may go the whole 

 length. It is only a question, then, of discre- 

 tion with you. You are foolish to talk about 

 such a bill as this if this interpretation is right. 

 Why not go the whole length at once ? Why 

 not take all the elections in your own hands ? 

 Why not provide by Federal law for the whole 

 registration ? Why n ot provide Federal j udges 

 of election, Federal boards of canvassers, and 

 Federal machinery for the whole of the pro- 

 cess of election from the time the voter goes 

 to register until the time that the successful 

 candidate is inaugurated into his office? You 

 can do that just as constitutionally as you can 

 pass this bill." 



Mr. Sherman : " I will ask my colleague if 

 he has any doubt about the power of Congress 

 to prescribe the mode and manner of electing 

 members of Congress, and all elections growing 

 out of the national Government? " 



Mr. Thurman : " I have not the least doubt 

 in the world of the power of Congress to pro- 



