CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



159 



diction thereof, are citizens of the United States 

 and of the States in which they reside." 



Mr. Edmunds : " Not reversed at all ; for 

 that is exactly what the decision holds. It 

 holds that everybody, subject to the qualifica- 

 tion I have named, is a citizen of the country 

 for that purpose ; that there belongs to every- 

 body who, as a part of the highest class in 

 community, may exercise political privileges, 

 equal political rights; and therefore, as the 

 case was in Kentucky, a male person cannot 

 be a citizen unless, being a citizen, he has 

 breathed into him, at the same moment with 

 the fact that he is a citizen, the right to vote. 

 That is perhaps a sufficient definition of citizen- 

 ship in the narrow sense we are now speaking 

 of, as distinguishing between the rights of cit- 

 izens, rather than denning what they are. A 

 citizen is a person in community who, other 

 things being equal, is invested with all the 

 privileges that belong to the highest class in 

 community, by whatever name you may call 

 them." 



Mr. Warner, of Alabama, said : "I will ask 

 the Senator from Vermont how long he thinks 

 it would be before the construction which he 

 gives to the Constitution, namely, that the 

 right to vote and hold office inure to citizen- 

 ship, would be so far enforced as to practically 

 give to every citizen the right to vote and hold 

 office ? " 



Mr. Edmunds : " I think that depends upon 

 the courageous fortitude and the vigorous ag- 

 gressive assertion of that right under the Con- 

 stitution that the two Houses of Congress may 

 show. I believe if we were to pass a law under 

 the fourteenth article of amendment which 

 should assert and put into practical operation 

 what I believe to be the true spirit and life of 

 it, that it would not be two years, or one year, 

 before in three-fourths of the States more 

 than you can get in one year or ten years for 

 any new amendment of the Constitution it 

 would be an accomplished fact." 



Mr. Drake: "Mr. President, I would not 

 protract this debate a moment longer, if it were 

 not that the honorable Senator from Vermont, 

 it seems to me, has taken an exceedingly er- 

 roneous and detrimental view of the first sec- 

 tion of the fourteenth article of amendments to 

 the Constitution. We have arrived at the stage 

 of the debate upon this great question when it 

 is exceedingly important that we should un- 

 derstand precisely what we are about and ex- 

 press our views with the utmost perspicuity 

 that we are capable of, for now is the time 

 when we are to select the language that is to go 

 into this amendment. 



" The honorable Senator from Vermont takes 

 the position that the fourteenth article of 

 amendment does in fact now, at this moment 

 of time, confer the right to vote upon all citi- 

 zens of the United States. I am constrained 

 to differ from the Senator from Vermont in 

 that view ; and I think it will be apparent to 

 the Senate, by a very brief examination of the 



terms of that section, that no such claim can be 

 rightfully based upon it. Let us look at the 

 first sentence of that section : 



All persons born or naturalized in the United 

 States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are cit- 

 izens of the United States and of the State wherein 

 they reside. 



" Does the honorable Senator contend that 

 that sentence is the one which confers upon 

 men the right to vote ? If he does, then every 

 State provision with regard to voters is com- 

 pletely overridden and put out of sight. Where 

 they require a man to reside in a State twelve 

 months, that is abrogated and annulled by this 

 sentence, if that be operative to confer the 

 right of suffrage ; because the very moment 

 that a man takes up his residence in a State, it 

 may be upon the very morning of the day of 

 election, he can go to the polls and deposit his 

 ballot, notwithstanding the declaration of the 

 constitution of that State that he shall have 

 resided there one year, or two, as is the case 

 in some States. 



" I do not think that the honorable Senator 

 from Vermont will claim that that sentence of 

 the first section of the fourteenth article con- 

 fers upon any man the right of suffrage. It is 

 simply, and never was intended for any thing 

 else than, a definition of what constitutes a 

 citizen of the United States and a citizen of a 

 State a question that had been debated in this 

 country, about which judicial decisions pro and 

 con. had been given, and about which the opin- 

 ions of Attorneys-General of the United States 

 had been given ; and yet it was never settled, 

 and probably never would be settled, until set- 

 tled just in this way. 



" Now, sir, let us look at the next portion of 

 that sentence which, from the remarks of the 

 honorable Senator, I take to be the one that 

 h,e considers to cover the right to vote. It reads 

 thus: 



No State shall make or enforce any law which shall 

 abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of 

 the United States. 



" To make the argument of the Senator from 

 Vermont good, it must be that he holds that a 

 privilege of a citizen of the United States is to 

 vote." 



Mr. Edmunds : " Is it not one of yours ? " 



Mr. Drake : " It is ; but I am a citizen also 

 of Missouri, and under her constitution entitled 

 to vote. I say a. citizen of the United States 

 merely is not entitled to vote anywhere in the 

 United States. There is not a spot of land in 

 the United States where a man is entitled to 

 vote merely because he is a citizen of the Uni- 

 ted States. He must comply with the terms 

 of the local constitution or the local law." 



Mr. Sumner : " Does the Senator take into 

 view the clause of that amendment by which 

 Congress is expressly empowered to enforce 

 the amendment ? " 



Mr. Drake: "I do." 



Mr. Sumner: "Is there not a source of 

 power in that ? " 



