CONGEESS, UNITED STATES. 



209 



ral Government undertook to see that the 

 citizen of each State should have all the rights 

 and privileges conceded to citizens of the sev- 

 eral States ; that is to say, a citizen of the 

 United States in Germany, or France, or Eng- 

 land, should receive the same protection that 

 was granted to other foreigners in those coun- 

 tries, and the citizen of Massachusetts should 

 he protected by the Federal Government in his 

 rights when he went to Carolina in the same 

 manner as the citizen of Carolina was protect- 

 ed by the laws of that State. 



" This was the character of the Federal Gov- 

 ernment as originally formed. The personal 

 rights of individuals were at the mercy of the 

 State governments in the respective States. 

 We all know that until 1808 the Constitution 

 of the United States permitted the various 

 States of the Union to bring persons from oth- 

 er countries into their borders and make them 

 slaves. We know that, under the Constitution 

 of the United States, previous to the war, ev- 

 ery person of African descent born in certain 

 States of the Union was -a slave, deprived of 

 all rights, and, in some, laws were passed re- 

 ducing to slavery free persons of color. The 

 Constitution in that respect has been changed 

 by the thirteenth amendment, which declares 

 that slavery shall no longer exist in the United 

 States ; and it is not competent now for any 

 State to make a slave of any person within its 

 jurisdiction, and the Federal Government is 

 clothed with authority to prevent that being 

 done. 



"Under that authority, there was passed, 

 shortly after, its enactment, a law known as 

 the civil rights act, which undertook to give 

 effect to the thirteenth amendment and pro- 

 tect those who had been slaves in the same 

 rights as were conceded to white citizens. 

 The civil rights act did not undertake to pro- 

 tect those who had been slaves, nor whites, in 

 particular rights; but it declared that the 

 rights of the colored people should be the 

 same as those conceded to the white people in 

 certain respects, which were named in the act. 

 The necessity for that legislation grew out of 

 the laws in several of the then late slavehold- 

 ing States, which denied to persons of color 

 the ordinary and fundamental rights which 

 were conceded to white citizens. 



" Subsequently to the enactment of the civil 

 rights act, the fourteenth constitutional amend- 

 ment was adopted. That amendment in its 

 first clause is but a copy of the civil rights act, 

 declaring that all persons born in the United 

 States, and not subject to any foreign jurisdic- 

 tion, are citizens of the United States. This 

 had been previously declared by act of Con- 

 gregs, and it was so without any act of Con- 

 gress. Every person born within the jurisdic- 

 tion of a nation must be a citizen of that 

 country. Such persons are called subjects of 

 the Crown in Great Britain, in this country 

 citizens of the United States. It is an entire 

 mistake to suppose that there was no such 

 VOL. xi. 14 A 



thing as an American citizen until the adop- 

 tion of the fourteenth amendment to the Con- 

 stitution of the United States. American 

 citizenship existed from the moment that the 

 Government of the United States was formed. 

 The Constitution itself prohibits any person 

 from sitting in this body who has not been 

 nine years a citizen of the United States, not 

 a citizen of a particular State. By the terms 

 of the Constitution he must have been a citizen 

 of the United States for nine years before he 

 could take a seat here, and seven years before 

 he could take a seat in the other House; and, 

 in order to be President of the United States, 

 a person must be a native-born citizen. 



" It is the common law of this country, and 

 of all countries, and it was unnecessary to 

 incorporate it in the Constitution, that a per- 

 son is a citizen of the country in which he is 

 born. That had been frequently decided in 

 the United States. It has been acted upon 

 by the executive department of the Govern- 

 ment in protecting the rights of native-born 

 persons of this country as citizens of the 

 United States. It has been held in the judi- 

 cial tribunals of the country that persons born 

 in the United States were citizens of the United 

 States. 



" It was because of the idea which obtained 

 before the adoption of the thirteenth amend- 

 ment to the Constitution of the United States, 

 that slaves were property and not persons, that 

 it was thought proper to embody, in the civil 

 rights bill, the declaration that all persons born 

 in the United States were citizens. I did not 

 think at that time that it was necessary. I 

 recollect that I had a discussion on that very 

 point with the then Senator from Maryland, 

 Mr. Reverdy Johnson, as to the propriety of 

 inserting in the civil rights act those words 

 declaring that all persons born in the United 

 States were citizens. We both agreed that 

 after the abolition of slavery everybody born 

 in and subject to the jurisdiction of the United 

 States was a citizen of the United States ; but 

 we both thought that in consequence of the 

 declaration which had been enunciated in the 

 Dred Scott case, and also in order that there 

 might be no cavil about it, it was better to de- 

 clare it by law." 



Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont : " That decision 

 was flatly the other way, that they were not 

 citizens, although free persons.-' 



Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois: "Yes, sir, there 

 is a decision, I think, that even free colored 

 persons were not citizens. After the abolition 

 of slavery and of the distinction in regard t 

 colored persons, I do not think such a decision 

 could have been maintained. It was advisable,. 

 at any rate, to put such an express declara- 

 tion in the law. After that bill was passed it 

 will be remembered that the President of the 

 United States vetoed it, and one of the reasons 

 that he gave for the veto was that Congress 

 could not by law declare that these persons- 

 were citizens of the United States. I remem- 



