CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



187 



have exclusive jurisdiction, constitute some 

 one of the following offences : either murder, 

 manslaughter, mayhem, robbery, assault and 

 battery, perjury, subornation of perjury, crimi- 

 nal obstruction of legal process or resistance 

 of officers in discharge of official duty, arson, 

 or larceny. That makes exact and definite the 

 act which must be charged in the indictment. 



"And now, Mr. Speaker, I proceed to the 

 consideration for a few moments of the ques- 

 tion whether either of those sections in the 

 enforcement act of 1870, or section two of this 

 bill, has warrant in the Constitution for enact- 

 ment. I have written down and condensed 

 into a single sentence what I believe to be the 

 legal principle and idea upon which the en- 

 forcement act of 1870 and this section of this 

 act may be based, and it is this: when the 

 United States inserted into its Constitution 

 that which was not in it before, that the people 

 of this country, born or naturalized therein, 

 are citizens of the United States and of the 

 States also in which they reside, and that Con- 

 gress shall have power to enforce by appropri- 

 ate legislation the requirement that their privi- 

 leges and immunities as citizens should not be 

 abridged, it was done for a purpose, and that 

 purpose was that the United States thereby 

 were authorized to directly protect and defend 

 throughout the United States those privileges 

 and immunities which are in their nature 

 ' fundamental ' and I use my words cautious- 

 ly when I say ' in their nature fundamental ' 

 and which inhere and belong of right to 

 the citizenship of all free governments. The 

 making of them United States citizens and 

 authorizing Congress by appropriate law to 

 protect that citizenship gave Congress power 

 to legislate directly for enforcement of such 

 rights as are fundamental elements of citizen- 

 ship. 



"This, sir, is the foundation idea on which 

 this section and the whole bill rest for their 

 constitutional warrant. If right, it solves 

 every possible doubt and difficulty in every 

 part of this great inquiry. The United States 

 added to its Constitution what was not in it 

 before ; because never before was it found in 

 the Constitution in express words that all 

 people in this country were citizens of the 

 United States as well as of the States. This 

 was added, and added for a purpose. 



"But the addition did not stop there. It 

 was also added that no State should make 

 or enforce any law abridging those rights of 

 citizenship then first declared by express con- 

 stitutional enactment. But they did not stop 

 there. In the abundance of caution they added 

 that no State should deprive them of life, 

 liberty, or property, without due process of 

 law. Nor did they stop there, but added that 

 the State should not deprive any person with- 

 in its jurisdiction of the equal protection of 

 the laws. And they did not stop there yet, 

 but in still more abundant caution added that 

 Congress should have power by appropriate 



legislation to enforce these provisions. What 

 provisions? Why, sir, the provisions that we 

 are all citizens of one, and but one, republic. 

 More than that. That we all have, as such, 

 privileges and immunities. More than that. 

 These privileges and immunities shall not be 

 abridged. More than that. That under the 

 laws of the Union and the States there should 

 be exact equality upon the face of the laws ; 

 they should not abridge rights. More than that. 

 That under these laws, so equal, the States 

 should not deny equal protection. More than 

 that. That Congress should have power to 

 make laws appropriate to secure all that was 

 meant by and included in all this more than 

 trinity of ' provisions ' that we are all United 

 States citizens; that our laws shall, as to us 

 all, be equal; that we shall all have due pro- 

 cess of law, and all equal protection under 

 these equal laws. 



"Putting all these constitutional elements 

 together, Mr. Speaker, where is the doubt Con- 

 gress may, by appropriate legislation, protect 

 those rights of American citizenship so soli- 

 citously and so abundantly guarded and guar- 

 anteed and made eternal as the Constitution 

 itself? If, after all this transcendent profusion 

 of enactment in restraint of the States and 

 affirmative conferment of power on Congress, 

 the States still remain unrestrained, the com- 

 plete, sole arbiters of power, to defend or deny 

 national citizenship to make laws abridging 

 or not abridging, to protect or to destroy, by 

 banded murder, these United States citizens as 

 the State may please, and the United States 

 must stand by, a powerless spectator of the 

 overthrow of the rights and liberties of its 

 own citizens, then not only is the profusion 

 of guards put by the fourteenth amendment 

 around our rights a miserable waste of words, 

 but the Government is itself a miserable sham, 

 its citizenship a curse, and the Union not fit 

 to be. 



"Such are plainly the general aspects of 

 this question of power to defend, by Federal 

 law the essential franchises of national citizen- 

 ship. I will go now into further detail. 



"I have stated that Congress has power to 

 protect those rights, whatever they may be, 

 which inhere in citizenship. "What are those 

 rights? Here, Mr. Speaker, wo tread upon 

 ground that, fortunately, has been explored. 

 From the beginning of the Government down, 

 the words in the old Constitution, 'privileges 

 and immunities of citizens in the several 

 States,' have come under judicial notice and 

 interpretation. I will read a single sentence, 

 which expresses what 'the privileges and im- 

 munities of citizens 1 are w r ith sufficient legal 

 accuracy for the purpose of this debate. I 

 read from 4 Washington Circuit Court Reports, 

 page 380, Corfield vs. Cory el : 



The inquiry is, what are the privileges and im- 

 munities of citizens in the several States? . We feel 

 no hesitation in confining these expressions to those 

 privileges and immunities which are in their nature 



