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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



that Congress has unlimited sovereign power 

 over the rights of the States ; and whenever, in 

 its judgment, it may see fit, it may carry this 

 power on to an unlimited extent." 



Mr. Cook, of Illinois, in reply, said: "Sir, I 

 know of no way by which these men can he pro- 

 tected except it be by the action of Congress, 

 cither by passing this bill or by passing a consti- 

 tutional amendment. And when gentlemen tell 

 me that they are in favor of protecting the people 

 of color, and yet oppose every practicable method 

 of protecting them, I beg leave most respect- 

 fully to doubt their judgment in the matter. 

 The question is, shall we leave these men in this 

 condition ? It is idle to say we are not leaving 

 them to a system of slavery. If it had not been 

 for the acts of the military commanders, had 

 not the laws which have already been enacted 

 by the Legislatures of the rebel States been set 

 aside, the negroes would all have been slaves 

 now under the operation of their vagrant acts 

 or other laws. 



" I believe that this bill is a proper remedy 

 for these evils. I believe that we have the con- 

 stitutional power to pass it, and that it is our 

 duty to pass it. I affirm that we shall be justly 

 chargeable with want of good faith, want of 

 honor and of common honesty, if we abandon 

 these men, who by our invitation have aided 

 us and have thereby made themselves obnox- 

 ious to the majority of the white men of the 

 South, and leave them to the tender mercies of 

 our enemies and theirs." 



Mr. Thayer, of Pennsylvania, followed on the 

 same side of the question, saying: "The sole 

 purpose of the bill is to secure to that class of 

 persons the fundamental rights of citizenship; 

 those rights which constitute the essence of 

 freedom, and which are common to the citizens 

 of all civilized States; those rights which se- 

 cure life, liberty, and property, and which make 

 all men equal before the law, as they are equal 

 in the scales of eternal justice and in the eyes 

 of God. 



"To accomplish this great purpose, the bill 

 declares, in the first place, that all persons bora 

 in the United States, and not subject to any 

 foreign power, are citizens of the United States. 

 Now, I do not regard that as the enunciation 

 of any new principle. It is, in my judgment, 

 but declaratory of the existing law. According 

 to my apprehension, every man born in the 

 United States, and not owing allegiance to a 

 foreign power, is a citizen of the United States. 

 It is a rule of universal law, adopted and main- 

 tained among all nations that they who are born 

 upon the soil are the citizens of the State. They 

 owe allegiance to the State, and are entitled to 

 the protection of the State. Such is the law, 

 whether you put it into this bill or not. So far 

 as this declaration of the bill is concerned, it is 

 but reiterating an existing and acknowledged 

 principle of law. 



" Well, conceding that this general proposition 

 is true, either by the force of existing law, or 

 by the declaration which it is proposed to put 



into this bill, it is then asked, by what power, 

 by what authority, do you propose to guarantee 

 and protect the rights of the citizens of this 

 Government ? If the proposition which I have 

 assumed as true be correct, that these people 

 are citizens of the United States, does it not 

 seem at the first blush to be a very singular 

 proposition to say that the United States under 

 its Constitution have no right to guarantee to its 

 own citizens, by positive law, those great fun- 

 damental rights of citizenship which are enu- 

 merated in this bill ? Does it not strike the 

 mind of every man with wonder that the fram- 

 ers of the Constitution of the United States 

 who made this great and wonderful fabric of 

 human Government, and who evinced so much 

 skill and foresight in making it, should have 

 framed a Government which is incapable of 

 protecting its citizens in these fundamental 

 rights of citizenship ? Would it not be an ex- 

 traordinary circumstance if the framers of the 

 Constitution had made a Constitution which 

 was powerless to protect the citizens of the 

 United States in their fundamental civil rights, 

 their rights of life, liberty, and property ? And 

 yet to that position are these gentlemen driven 

 who deny the existence of any power which 

 authorizes Congress to pass this bill. 



"If I am asked from whence the power is de- 

 rived to pass this bill, I reply that I derive it, 

 in the first place, from the second section of 

 the late amendment to the Constitution. I say, 

 further, that so far as regards the power to 

 declare the freemen citizens is concerned, it 

 may be clearly derived (if it be not inherent in 

 the very frame of every Government) from that 

 clause of the Constitution which gives the ex- 

 press power to Congress to pass laws for natu- 

 ralization. And I might say, also, that in my 

 judgment sufficient power is found, by impli- 

 cation at least, in that clause of the Constitu- 

 tion which guarantees to all the citizens of the 

 United States their right to life, liberty, and 

 property." 



Mr. Eldridge, of Wisconsin, in opposition, 

 said : " This bill is, it appears to me, one of the 

 most insidious and dangerous of the various 

 measures which have been directed against the 

 interest of the people of this country. It is an- 

 other of the measures designed to take away 

 the essential rights of the States. I know that 

 when I speak of States and State rights, I enter 

 upon unpopular subjects. But, sir, whatever 

 other gentlemen may think, I hold that the 

 rights of the States are the rights of the Union, 

 that the rights of the States and the liberty of 

 the States are essential to the liberty of the in- 

 dividual citizen. The gentleman from Penn- 

 sylvania (Mr. Thayer) inquires what right of 

 the States this bill proposes to take away. I 

 reply, it seeks to lay prostrate at the feet of the 

 Federal Government the judiciary of the States. 

 It not only proposes to enter the States to reg- 

 ulate their police and municipal affairs, but it 

 attempts to destroy the independence of tha 

 State judiciary. 



