CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



163 



accept the decree which twenty-three States 

 of this Union have already solemnly ratified, 

 declaring that no State of this Union shall 

 make or enforce any law which shall abridge 

 the privileges or immunities of citizens of the 

 United States, nor shall any State deny to any 

 person the equal protection of the laws.' 



" That, sir, is the first proposition involved 

 in this contest, that this limitation shall be 

 placed by irrepealable amendment in the Con- 

 stitution. There is not an intelligent man in 

 America but knows that to secure the rights 

 of all citizens and free persons in every State 

 was the spirit and intent of the Constitution in 

 the beginning. There is not an intelligent man 

 in America but knows that this spirit and intent 

 of the Constitution was most flagrantly violated 

 long anterior to the rebellion, and that the 

 Government was powerless to remedy it by 

 law. That amendment proposes hereafter that 

 this great wrong shall' be remedied by putting 

 a limitation expressly into the Constitution, 

 coupled with a grant of power to enforce it by 

 law, so that when either Ohio or South Caro- 

 lina or any other' State shall in its madness or 

 its folly refuse to the gentleman or his children, 

 or to me or to mine, any of the rights which 

 pertain to American citizenship or to a common 

 humanity, there will be redress for the wrong 

 through the power and majesty of American 

 law. 



" That is the first issue ; and it is as essential 

 to the life of this Kepublic as is the light of 

 God in which we live. 



"What is the next? That representation 

 shall be apportioned among the people of all 

 the Stages according to the whole number of 

 representative population. "What is the next ? 

 That those who added to the great crime of 

 treason the additional crime of perjury, cloth- 

 ing themselves with perjury as with a garment, 

 to enact this great drama of armed revolt and 

 blood, shall never again exercise official trust, 

 State or national, until their disability shall be 

 removed by an act of Congress. 



" What next ? That the national debt con- 

 tracted in defence of the nation's life shall be 

 forever inviolate and shall never be challenged 

 by congressional or by State legislation ; that 

 the plighted faith of this nation to its dead 

 and its living defenders shall be inviolate ; 

 that the pledge which the nation gave to the 

 one hundred thousand childless mothers in this 

 land, when in the day of battle they gave 

 their sons a beautiful and holy sacrifice for the 

 life of tli e nation, lifting their hands and in- 

 voking God's blessing on their going, shall 

 never be broken." 



Mr. Beck, of Kentucky, said: "Mr. Speak- 

 er, the minority of the Committee on Recon- 

 struction felt it to be their duty to differ with 

 the majority of that committee in regard to 

 the presentation of the bill now before the 

 House, and to give our reasons for that differ- 

 ence of opinion in the form of a minority re- 

 port which is now before the House and the 



country. The question before the House is 

 whether the majority or the minority of that 

 committee are right. The majority maintain 

 that the bill presented by them is constitu- 

 tional, and that its constitutionality can be 

 maintained here and everywhere. We of the 

 minority in our report contend that that bill is 

 unconstitutional. That, sir, is the question 

 before us, and I intend to confine myself as 

 strictly as possible to this question. I will not 

 follow the lead of the gentleman from Ohio 

 (Mr. Bingham) in giving the history of previous 

 parties or the past conduct of men. I am not 

 aware that the fact how any man voted seven 

 years ago, or how any man felt ten years ago, 

 or how he feels now, will tend to elucidate the 

 question under consideration. 



" The question is simply this : Is this a bill 

 which we ought to pass ; is it a bill which we 

 have the right to pass, according to the Consti- 

 tution ? I say it is not. 



"While I believe that the interference by 

 the present Executive was of a character that 

 cannot on principle be successfully defended, 

 because it infringed to some extent the right 

 of the States to control their own domestic 

 affairs, yet these people had accepted this plan 

 of restoration proposed by President John- 

 son, and had acted upon it. The Republican 

 Congress and Mr. Lincoln himself were com- 

 mitted to the proposition, and the people of 

 the South were content with it. The Presi- 

 dent knew the exigency in which he was placed, 

 and that the only chance he had was some 

 plan which should be approved by the Repub- 

 lican party, and, as they were committed to 

 Mr. Lincoln's plan, he, doubtless, thought it 

 the best means of speedy and harmonious set- 

 tlement. The people of the South acted under 

 it, whether they liked it or not. They organ- 

 ized State conventions, elected Legislatures, 

 adopted the thirteenth amendment to the Con- 

 stitution, and sent members to these Halls 

 asking for admission. What did Congress do 

 then? Did it tell them they had no civil gov- 

 ernments ? Not at all. It sanctioned the proc- 

 lamation by the Secretary of State of the adop- 

 tion of the thirteenth amendment by the Legis- 

 latures of the Southern States ; it passed the 

 Freedmen's Bureau Bill and the Civil Rights Bill 

 without saying a word against their State gov- 

 ernments. But what farther did it do ? Tak- 

 ing advantage of the action of those State 

 governments, recognizing them as valid for the 

 purpose of acting upon that constitutional 

 amendment and of passing laws, it proposed for 

 submission to the Legislatures of those States 

 a further constitutional amendment, thus rec- 

 ognizing their State governments as valid all 

 the time. And, when Tennessee adopted the 

 fourteenth amendment, the gentleman from 

 Ohio (Mr. Bingham) became the champion of 

 the measure to admit that State to represen- 

 tation in Congress, a resolution for their ad- 

 mission was passed, as shown above, and her 

 Senators and Representatives took their seats 



