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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



pages of history that told of these deeds of our 

 brave ancestors with a stern joy when they 

 exacted this punishment from their oppressors, 

 and now are we to yield up these rights which 

 have come to us through so many historic 

 struggles and which have been affirmed to us 

 in the Constitution ; are we to yield them up 

 to a set of upstart tyrants, because, if we refuse 

 to do it, we are to be denounced as revolu- 

 tionists ? " 



Mr. Morton, of Indiana, said : "Mr. Presi- 

 dent, I propose for a short time to consider 

 the legal question that is involved in this con- 

 troversy. The first section of the fourteenth 

 amendment declares that 



No State shall make or enforce any law which 

 shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens 

 of the United States ; nor shall any State deprive 

 any person of lite, liberty, or property, without due 

 process of law, nor deny to any person within its 

 jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. 



" The fifth section declares 

 The Congress shall have power by appropriate 

 legislation to enforce the provisions of this article. 



" The clause to which I call especial attention 

 is that which says that no State shall ' deny to 

 any person within its jurisdiction the equal 

 protection of the laws.' If a State fails to 

 secure to a certain class of people the equal 

 protection of the laws, it is exactly equivalent 

 to denying such protection. "Whether that fail- 

 ure is wilful or the result of inability can 

 make no difference, and is a question into which 

 it is not important that Congress should enter. 

 The meaning of the Constitution is, that every 

 person shall have the equal protection of the 

 laws. It is in its nature an affirmative provi- 

 sion, and not simply a negative on the power 

 of the States. Will it be pretended that the 

 meaning would be changed if it read, * every 

 person in the United States shall be entitled to 

 the equal protection of the laws?' It means 

 to confer upon every person the right to such 

 protection, and therefore gives to Congress the 

 power to secure the enjoyment of that right. 

 Whenever the Constitution confers a power or 

 guarantees a right, it gives also the means of 

 exercising the power and protecting the right. 



" The Government can act only upon indi- 

 viduals. It cannot prevent the Legislature of 

 a State from passing an act, or compel the pas- 

 sage of an act. If the effect of the amend- 

 ment is simply that the United States shall 

 exert a negative upon a State, it amounts to 

 but very little, and in fact would result only 

 in a lawsuit, and would, in effect, nullify the 

 concluding section of the amendment, which 

 gives to Congress the power to enforce the 

 amendment by appropriate legislation. There 

 can be no legislation to enforce it as against a 

 State. A criminal law cannot be made against 

 a State. A State cannot be indicted or pun- 

 ished as such. The legislation which Con- 

 gress is authorized to enact must operate, if at 

 ill, upon individuals. 



" The Constitution declares that the States 



shall not have the power to coin money. How 

 can that provision be enforced except by mak- 

 ing it a penal offence for any person to coin 

 money under color of the authority of a State? 



" This principle was recognized by Congress 

 in the act passed for the enforcement of the 

 fifteenth amendment, which is in form like the 

 fourteenth, a prohibition upon the States, de- 

 claring that no State shall deny or abridge suf- 

 frage on account of race, color, or previous 

 condition of servitude. In that act Congress 

 assumed the power to protect the right of suf- 

 frage, not only against any law that might be 

 passed by a State, but against a mob, against 

 any lawless individual, against the unauthor- 

 ized act of any public officer or election board. 

 It proceeded upon the hypothesis that the 

 amendment conferred upon colored men an 

 absolute right to vote upon the same terms 

 and conditions with white men, and that Con- 

 gress had the power to protect and enforce 

 this right against individuals or organizations, 

 whether acting in open violence or under color 

 of State law. 



" Believing that the fourteenth amendment 

 intended to secure to every person the equal 

 protection of the laws, it is competent for Con- 

 gress to furnish such protection by appropriate 

 legislation. If there be organizations in any 

 of the States having for their purpose to deny 

 to any class or condition of men equal protec- 

 tion, to deny to them the equal enjoyment of 

 rights that are secured by the Constitution of 

 the United States, it is the right and duty of 

 Congress to make such organizations and com- 

 binations an offence against the United States, 

 and punishable by such pains and penalties as 

 may be prescribed. Whatever conspiracy may 

 be formed having for its purpose to create a 

 terror which shall deter any class of people 

 from the exercise of those rights, it is a direct 

 infringement of this amendment which may 

 be punished by the laws of the United States." 



Mr. Thurman, of Ohio, said: "It has been 

 said here that it would be a good thing, and 

 tend to produce peace in the South, if this 

 body, by a unanimous vote, should show that 

 it was disposed to exercise all the powers 

 properly vested in it by the Constitution to 

 produce peace in the country. Well, sir, if that 

 is desired by Senators, they can have a unani- 

 mous vote very easily. All they have to do 

 is to put this resolution in a proper shape, and 

 they can have the unanimous vote, I think I 

 may venture to say, of this Senate ; and, if it is 

 not put in a proper shape, what is the reason ? 

 There can be only one reason, it seems to me, 

 why it is kept in a shape which is obnoxious 

 to some of the Senators ; and that is that it 

 may not receive a unanimous vote, that it may 

 go abroad to the country that the Democratic 

 Senators on this floor are opposed to proper 

 legislation. I wish to say that if the resolu- 

 tion is persisted in in its present form and " 

 for one shall not be able to vote for it in " 

 form that fact will furnish no reason what 



