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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



ber very well the answer which I gave to that 

 suggestion of the President, which was two- 

 fold : first, that it was competent to make 

 persons citizens by statute ; second, that the 

 statute was but declaratory of what the law 

 already was. I agreed that they were citizens. 

 The President said in his veto message that, if 

 that was true, the law was of no use, and, if it 

 was not true, the law could not make them 

 citizens; the answer to which was that the 

 statute was declaratory of what the law was 

 before, and numerous statutes were referred to 

 to show that it had been the practice, almost 

 from the origin of the Government, to make 

 persons citizens of the United States by act of 

 Congress. It had been done in reference to 

 Indian tribes ; it had been done in regard to 

 Mexicans ; and different classes of persons had 

 been made citizens by act of Congress before, 

 and the act was a proper one to settle the 

 question. 



" Then, when we came to the adoption of 

 the fourteenth amendment, it was suggested 

 by some persons that there might still be a 

 cavil upon this question as to whether all per- 

 sons born in the United States were citizens, 

 and it was thought advisable, for the purpose 

 of putting that question once and forever at 

 rest, to insert the words which are in the four- 

 teenth amendment, declaring that all persons 

 born within the United States and subject to 

 its jurisdiction were citizens of the United 

 States. In my opinion, that has not changed 

 at all the fact that, after the abolition of sla- 

 very, and after the authority of the States to 

 deprive persons of liberty ceased, every person 

 born in the United States was a citizen of the 

 United States. I do not think there could 

 have been any question that they were all citi- 

 zens without the declaration in the civil rights 

 act, or without the declaration in the four- 

 teenth amendment. Who believes any court 

 would ever have held that a person born in the 

 United States was not a citizen, if slavery had 

 never existed? " 



Mr. Scott, of Pennsylvania, said : " I have 

 felt interested in the statement which the Sen- 

 ator has made, but I wish, in view of the ques- 

 tion which he suggests was made as to the ne- 

 cessity of incorporating this clause in the four- 

 teenth amendment, to make a statement with 

 reference to an opinion upon that point, which 

 might have been held to have very consider- 

 able weight upon it, and as justifying the dec- 

 laration in the fourteenth amendment. 



"Very considerable attention was being 

 directed in the year 1834 to the status of the 

 free colored population in Pennsylvania, both 

 under the Constitution of the United States 

 and under the constitution of Pennsylvania, 

 in view of the fact that the calling of a con- 

 vention to reform the constitution was being 

 agitated. At that time a pamphlet was pub- 

 lished, by a member of the Pennsylvania bar, 

 elaborately discussing the question, and arriv- 

 ing at the conclusion that the free colored man 



was not a citizen of the United States, and 

 that he was not a citizen of Pennsylvania. I 

 have a copy of that pamphlet in my posses- 

 sion. It is a rare pamphlet. It was submitted 

 to Chief-Justice Marshall, and he addressed to 

 the author of the pamphlet a letter indorsing 

 and approving the conclusions at which lie 

 arrived ; so that there was eminent authority 

 at least it was not judicially delivered, but 

 the opinion of an eminent judge that the free 

 colored man was not a citizen of the United 

 States." 



Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont : " That was the 

 very point in the Dred Scott case, where the 

 Supreme Court flatly decided so." 



Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois : " That has been 

 so decided judicially ; but that grew out of 

 this same system of slavery. The Senator 

 from Pennsylvania will see at once to what 

 straits those who maintained slavery were 

 driven. If the colored man in Pennsylvania 

 was a citizen of the United States, he had a 

 right to go to Carolina, and there to enjoy all 

 the rights and immunities of a citizen of Caro- 

 lina, under the protection of the national Gov- 

 ernment; and that was inconsistent, as was 

 insisted, with another provision of the Consti- 

 tution, which authorized, or tolerated, holding 

 the African race in slavery; and, therefore, 

 taking the whole Constitution together, the 

 advocates of slavery insisted that a colored 

 man could not be a citizen anywhere ; a very 

 illogical and unjust conclusion, in my opinion, 

 and never warranted either by reason or by 

 the Constitution. 



"But the Senator from Pennsylvania will 

 see that the whole force of that argument was 

 destroyed when the authority to hold anybody 

 in slavery was taken away. Then there was 

 no conflict between different portions of the 

 Constitution to be reconciled, even in the view 

 of those who had before insisted that slavery 

 was sustained by that instrument, a position 

 which I do not admit at all, and never did ad- 

 mit ; but I do not wish to go into that. I 

 think all that the Constitution of the United 

 States ever did in regard to slavery was sim- 

 ply to tolerate its existence in the States which 

 by their laws authorized it. I think, then, the 

 reason of the decision originally made, that 

 a colored person could not be a citizen, fell 

 when slavery was abolished, and I can hardly 

 conceive that the decision would have been 

 repeated afterward. 



" The amendment further declares that they 

 are also citizens of the States in which they 

 reside. That vas judicially decided to be so 

 before. A person who was a citizen of the 

 United States and resided in one of the States 

 was a citizen of that State before the adoption 

 of the fourteenth amendment ; and so it had 

 been judicially decided. 



" I come now, Mr. President, to those clauses 

 of the fourteenth amendment which, it is sup- 

 posed, have changed the Constitution as it was 

 originally formed. The next is : 



