162 



abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the 

 United States. 



" The immediate object of this was to pro- 

 hibit for the future all hostile legislation on the 

 part of the recently rebel States in reference to 

 the colored citizens of the United States who 

 had become emancipated, and who finally were 

 declared to be citizens by the civil rights bill 

 passed by Congress. It was to secure them 

 against any infringement or violation of their 

 rights by those Southern Legislatures. That is 

 the whole history of it." 



Mr. Sumner : " The Senate must meet very 

 soon again, and can then come to a vote on all 

 these different propositions and give them the 

 attention they deserve. I therefore move that 

 the Senate adjourn." 



The President pro tempore : " The question 

 is on the motion of the Senator from Massa- 

 chusetts, that the Senate adjourn." 



Mr. Stewart called for the yeas and nays, 

 and they were ordered ; and, being taken, re- 

 sulted yeas 11, nays 37; as follows: 



YEAS Messrs. Anthony, Buckalew, Fowler, Hen- 

 dricks, McCreery, Norton, Eamsey, Saulsbury, Sum- 

 ner, Vickers, and Yates 11. 



NATS Messrs. Abbott, Cameron, Cattell, Chan- 

 dler, Cole, Corbett, Cragin, Drake, Ferry, Frelinghuy- 

 sen, Harlan, Harris, Howard, Howe, Kellogg, Mc- 

 Donald, Morgan, Morrill of Maine, Morrill of Ver- 

 it, Nye, Osborn, Patterson of New Hampshire, 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



ABSENT Messrs. Bayard, Conkling, Conness, 

 Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Edmunds, Fessenden, 

 Grimes, Henderson, Morton, Patterson of Tennessee, 

 Pomeroy, Pool, Sherman, Sprague, Tipton, and 

 Whyte 18. 



So the Senate refused to adjourn. 



Mr. Cragin, of New Hampshire, said : "Mr. 

 President, I did not think that I could pos- 

 sibly be tempted to say any thing in refer- 

 ence to the question now under consider- 

 ation ; but the position taken by the Senator 

 from Vermont greatly surprises me. When 

 I remember the struggle that we had here 

 in the passage of the fourteenth amendment ; 

 when I remember that it was announced upon 

 this floor by more than one gentleman, and 

 contradicted and denied by no one, so far 

 as I recollect, that that amendment did not 

 confer the right of voting upon anybody, I say 

 I am surprised that such a position should be 

 taken at this late hour in the debate. There 

 is no doubt upon the question. It was the 

 understanding of Congress and of the people 

 of this country that that amendment did not 

 confer and did not seek to confer any right to 

 vote upon any citizen of the United States. 

 That amendment was passed after the passage 

 of the civil rights bill. That law had not been 

 carried out. It had not been enforced. It 

 was passed also for the purpose of deciding 

 once and forever that the emancipated slave 

 was a citizen of the United States. There were 

 other reasons which entered into the considera- 

 tion of that question. But that it conferred 



the right to vote was distinctly disclaimed on 

 this floor in the caucus which has been alluded 

 to here to-night ; and, for one, I am not will- 

 ing to have it go out from this Senate that we 

 passed that amendment understanding that it 

 conferred any right to vote." 



The President pro tempore: "The question 

 is on the amendment of the Senator from Mis- 

 souri to the amendment of the Senator from 

 Nevada." 



The amendment to the amendment was re- 

 jected. 



The President pro tempore : " The question 

 now is on the amendment offered by the Sen- 

 ator from Nevada." 



Mr. Howard: "I now offer the amendment 

 to which I referred during the discussion as a 

 substitute for the pending amendment. It is 

 as follows : 



Citizens of the United States of African descent 

 shall have the same right to vote and hold office ic. 

 States and Territories as other citizens, electors of 

 the most numerous branch of their respective Legis- 

 latures." 



Mr. Sumner : " If we are to have a consti- 

 tutional amendment now, I want to have it as 

 complete as possible, so that it shall provide 

 against any possible necessity of any amend- 

 ment hereafter. It will be observed that this 

 amendment of my friend from Michigan, like 

 the amendment of the committee, is confined 

 simply to the right to vote and hold office. It 

 seems to me that we ought to make a complete 

 work, and to provide for full equality of rights 

 in all respects. If there be any other particu- 

 lar under the head of right, we ought to secure 

 it to all persons, without distinction of color. 

 I propose, therefore, to add to the amendment 

 of my friend from Michigan these words : ' 



And there shall be no discrimination in rights on 

 account of race or color. 



" Of course the object of this is to broaden 

 the proposition, not merely to make it a guar- 

 antee of the right to vote and to hold office, 

 bu a guarantee of equal rights universally." 



Mr. Drake: "I would ask the honorable 

 Senator from Massachusetts what is the neces- 

 sity for that, in view of the language of the 

 first section of the fourteenth article of the 

 amendment to the Constitution, which says : 



Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, 

 liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor 

 deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal 

 protection 01 the laws." 



Mr. Sumner: "I should answer the Sena- 

 tor's question by putting him another. What 

 is the use of the constitutional amendment on 

 which you are now to vote ? " 



Mr. Drake: "Just the very use that it ex- 

 presses on its face, to secure the right of suf- 

 frage to these men whose personal and legal 

 rights we had guaranteed in the previous 

 amendment, but had not guaranteed to them 

 the right of suffrage." 



Mr. Sumner: "I differ radically and entirely 

 from my friend, and I think there is just the 



