190 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as 

 a member of any State Legislature, or as an execu- 

 tive or judicial officer of any State, to support the 

 Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged 

 !n insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given 

 aid or comfort to the enemies thereof; but Congress 

 may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove 

 such disability. 



" The following is to come in as section four : 

 The obligations of the United States incurred in 

 suppressing insurrection, or in defence of the Union, 

 or for payment of bounties or pensions incident there- 

 to, shall remain inviolate. 



"Section four, as it now stands, will be 

 changed to section five, and I propose to amend 

 that section as follows: strike out the word 

 ' already,' in line thirty-four, and also the words 

 ' or which may hereafter be incurred,' in lino 

 thirty-five, and also the words ' or of war ' in 

 lines thirty-five and thirty-six, and insert the 

 word 'rebellion ' in lieu thereof; and also strike 

 out the words 'loss of involuntary service or 

 labor ' in line thirty-seven, and insert ' the loss 

 or emancipation of any slave; but all such 

 debts, obligations, and claims shall be forever 

 held illegal and void.' " 



Mr. Sumner, of Massachusetts, said : " I wish 

 to give notice of an amendment which at the 

 proper time I intend to offer to Senate bill No. 

 292, entitled ' A bill to provide for restoring to 

 the States lately in insurrection their full po- 

 litical rights.' "it is to strike out all after the 

 enacting clause of the first section and to insert 

 a section as a substitute which I ask to have 

 printed." 



The Secretary read it, as follows : 



Strike out all after the enacting clause of the first 

 section of the bill and insert in lieu thereof the fol- 

 lowing: 



That when any State lately in rebellion shall have 

 ratified the foregoing amendment and shall have 

 modified its constitution and laws in conformity 

 therewith, aud shall have further provided that there 

 shall be no denial of the elective franchise to citizens 

 of the United States because of race or color, and 

 that all persons shall be equal before the law, the 

 Senators and Representatives from such State, if 

 found duly elected and qualified, may, after having 

 taken the required oaths of office, be admitted into 

 Congress as such: Provided, That nothing in this 

 section shall be so construed as to require the dis- 

 franchisement of any loyal person who is now al- 

 lowed to vote. 



On May 30th, the first amendment, moved by 

 Mr. Howard, was considered. 



The Secretary read the amendment, which 

 was, after the words " section one," to insert : 



All persons born in the United States, and subject 

 10 the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United 

 States and of the States wherein they reside. 



So that the section will read : 



Sec. 1. All persons born in the United States, and 

 subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the 

 United States and of the States wherein they reside. 

 No State shall make or enforce any law which shall 

 abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of 

 the United States, nor shall any State deprive any 

 person of life, liberty, or property, without due pro- 

 cess of law, nor deny to any person within its juris- 

 diction the equal protection of the laws. 



Mr. Doolittle, of "Wisconsin, moved to amend 

 the amendment, by inserting after the word 

 "thereof " the words "excluding Indians not 

 taxed." 



Mr. Howard, of Michigan, objected to the 

 amendment, on the ground that Indians who 

 maintain tribal relations have always been re- 

 garded in our legislation and jurisprudence as 

 quasi foreign nations. 



The effect of the amendment on the Chinese 

 in California was thus stated by Mr. Conness : 

 "Now, I will say, for the benefit of my friend, 

 that he may know something about the Chi- 

 nese in future, that this portion of our popula- 

 tion, namely, the children of Mongolian parent- 

 age, born in California, is very small indeed, 

 and never promises to be large, notwithstanding 

 our near neighborhood to the Celestial land. 

 The habits of those people, and their religion, 

 appear to demand that they all return to their 

 own country at some time or other, either alive 

 or dead. There are, perhaps, in California to- 

 day about forty thousand Chinese from forty 

 to forty-five thousand. Those persons return 

 invariably, while others take their places; and, 

 as I before observed, if they do not return alive, 

 their bones are carefully gathered up arid sent 

 back to the Flowery Land. It is not an unusual 

 circumstance that the clipper-ships trading be- 

 tween San Francisco and China carry at a time 

 three or four hundred human remains of these 

 Chinese. When interred in our State they are 

 not interred deep in the earth, but laid very 

 near the surface, and then mounds of earth are 

 laid over them, so that the process of disinter- 

 ment is very easy. That is their habit and 

 custom ; and as soon as they are fit for trans- 

 mission to their own country they are taken up 

 with great regularity and sent there. None of 

 their bones are allowed to remain. They will 

 return, then, either living or dead. 



"Another feature connected with them is, 

 that they do not bring their females to our 

 country but in very limited numbers, and rarely 

 ever in connection with families ; so that their 

 progeny in California is very small indeed. 

 From the description we have had, from the 

 honorable Senator from Pennsylvania, of the 

 Gypsies, the progeny of all Mongolians in Cali- 

 fornia is not so formidable in numbers as that 

 of the Gypsies in Pennsylvania. We are not 

 troubled with them at all. Indeed, it is only in 

 exceptional cases that they have children in our 

 State : and therefore the alarming aspect of tho 

 application of this provision to California, or 

 any other land to which the Chinese may come 

 as immigrants, is simply a fiction in the brain 

 of persons who deprecate it, and that alone." 



Mr. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, supported his 

 amendment on the ground that there was a 

 large mass of Indian population, clearly subject 

 to the jurisdiction of the United States, who 

 ought not to be included as citizens of the United 

 States. 



Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, urged that tha 

 words " subject to the jurisdiction of the United 



