CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



201 



was then ordered to bo engrossed, read a third 

 timi> and passed, as follows: 



YKAB Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Chandler, Clark, 

 Conncss, Crapn, Dixon, Fessendcn, Foot, Foster, 

 Harris, Hfii.l.-rson, Howard, Howe, Kirkwood, Lane 

 of Indiana, Lam' of Kansas, Morgan, Merrill, Nye, 

 1'o'ui: , Kamsey, Sherman, Sprague, Stew- 



nrt, Summer, Trumbull, Wado, Willcy, Williams, 

 Wilson, and Yates 33. 



NAT Buckalew, Cowan, Davis, Guthric, 



Hemlrii'k*, McDougall, Nesmith, Norton, Iliddle, 

 Saul-bury, Stockton, and Van Winkle 12. 



ABSENT Messrs. Creswell, Doolittle, Grimes, John- 

 son, and Wright 5. 



la the House, on March 1st, the bill to pro- 

 ill persons in the United States in their 

 civil rights, was called up and amended. 



Mr. Wilson, of Iowa, said : " Mr. Speaker, I 

 think I may safely affirm that this bill, so far as 

 it declares the equality of all citizens in the en- 

 joyment of civil rights and immunities, merely 

 affirms existing law. We are following the Con- 

 stitution. We are reducing to statute form the 

 spirit of the Constitution. We are establishing 

 no new right, declaring no new principle. It 

 is not the object of this bill to establish new 

 rights, but to protect and enforce those which 

 already belong to every citizen. I am aware, 

 sir, that this doctrine is denied in many of the 

 States ; but this only proves the necessity for 

 the enactment of the remedial and protective 

 features of this bill. If the States would all 

 observe the rights of our citizens, there would 

 be no need of this bill. If the States would 

 all practise the constitutional declaration, that 



The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all 

 privileges and immunities of citizens in the several 

 States (Article four, section two, Constitution of the 

 United States), 



and enforce it, as meaning that the citizen has 



The right of protection by the Government, the 

 enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right to ac- 

 quire and possess property of every kind, and to pur- 

 sue and obtain happiness and safety ; to claim the 

 benefit of the writ of habeas corpus ; to institute and 

 maintain actions of any kind in the courts of the 

 State; to take, hold, and dispose of property, either 

 real or personal ; to be exempt from higher taxes or 

 impositions than are paid by the other citizens of the 

 State (Corfield vs. Uoryell, 4 Washington's Circuit 

 Court Import*, p. 380), 



wo might very well refrain from the enact- 

 ment of this bill into a law. If they would 

 recognize that ' general citizenship ' (Story on 

 the Constitution, vol. ii., p. 604), which under 

 this clause entitles every citizen to security and 

 protection of personal rights (Campbell w. 

 Morris, 3 Harris & McIIenry, 535), wo might 

 safely withhold action. And if, above all, Mr. 

 Speaker, the States should admit, and practise 

 the admission, that a citizen does not surrender 

 these rights because ho may happen to bo a citi- 

 zen of the State which would deprive him of 

 them, we might, without doing violence to the 

 duty devolved upon us, leave the whole subject 

 to the several States. But, sir, the practice of 

 the States leaves us no avenue of escape, and 

 wo must do our duty by supplying the protec- 

 tion which the States deny. 



"Mr. Speaker, if all our citizens were of one 

 race and one color, we would bo relieved of 



of the difficulties which surroui 

 This bill would bo almost, if not entirely, un- 

 necessary, and if the States, seeing that wo 

 havo citizens of different races and colors, 

 would but shut their eyes to these differences, 

 and legislate, so far at least as regards civil 

 rights and immunities, as though all citizens 

 were of one race and color, our troubles as a 

 nation would bo well-nigh over. But such is 

 not the case, and we must do as best we can to 

 protect our citizens, from the highest to the 

 lowest, from the whitest to the blackest, in the 

 enjoyment of the great fundamental rights 

 which belong to all men. 



" It will be observed that the entire structure 

 of this bill rests on the discrimination relative to 

 civil rights and immunities made by the States 

 on ' account of race, color, or previous condi- 

 tion of shivery.' That these things should not 

 be, is no answer to the fact of their existence. 

 That the result of the recent war, and the enact- 

 ment of the measures to which the events of tho 

 war naturally led us, havo intensified the hate 

 of the controlling class in the insurgent States 

 toward our colored citizens is a fact against 

 which we can neither shut our ears nor close our 

 eyes. Laws barbaric and treatment inhuman 

 are the rewards meted out by our white enemies 

 to our colored friends. Wo should put a stop 

 to this at once and forever. And yet I would 

 not do this in a way which would deprive a 

 white man of a single right to which he is en- 

 titled. I would merely enforce justice for all 

 men ; and this is lawful, it is right, and it is 

 our bounden duty." 



Mr. Rogers, of New Jersey, said : " N"ow, sir, 

 no bill has been offered in this House or in the 

 other, the freedmen's bill not excluded, which 

 proposes to give to Congress such dangerous 

 powers over the liberties of tho people as this 

 bill under consideration, and if it can be consti- 

 tutionally passed by the Congress of the United 

 States, and is no infringement upon the re- 

 served or undelegated powers of the States, 

 then Congress has the right, not only to extend 

 all the rights and privileges to colored men that 

 are enjoyed by white men, but h:is the right to 

 take away.- If Congress has the right to extend 

 the groat- privileges of citizenship, which here- 

 tofore have been controlled by tho States, to 

 any class of beings, they have the right, by the 

 same authority, to take away from any class of 

 people in nny State the same rights that they 

 have the rijrht to extend to another class of 

 persons in the same State. In other 1 words, 

 if the Congress has power under our present 

 organic law to decide what rights and privileges 

 shall bo extended to negroes, it has tho same 

 power and authority under that organic law to 

 extend its legislation so as to take away the 

 most inestimable and valuable rights of the white 

 men and tho white women of this country, and 

 not only take away but destroy every blessing 

 of life, liberty, and property, upon the principle 



