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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



the last point of its power, to protect the lib- 

 erty of all people wherever it might be assailed 

 by that form of crime? Nobody questions it. 



"But the chief point now is, that here is, 

 whether necessary or unnecessary, an express 

 grant of power to us, the national Legislature, 

 to defend the rights of citizens of the United 

 States and of all inhabitants of the country, 

 whether citizens or not, against slavery. Now, 

 how are you going to do it ? Are you going 

 to do it by passing a proclamation to the State 

 of Georgia when she may choose to reenslave 

 her negroes ? Or, are you going to do it by 

 making war upon her ? Or, are you going to 

 do it, as we by this bill do it under the four- 

 teenth amendment, by declaring that any man 

 who infracts that article shall be punished ? 



"But when you take the next step, and 

 come to the next article of the Constitution, 

 which secures the rights of white men as much 

 as of colored men, you touch a tender spot in 

 the party of our friends on the other side. If 

 you wish to employ the powers of the Consti- 

 tution to preserve the lives and liberties of 

 white people against attacks by white people, 

 against rapine, and murder, and assassination, 

 and conspiracy, contrived in order to drive 

 them from the States in which they have been 

 born or have chosen to settle, contrived in 

 order to deprive them of the liberty of having 

 a political opinion, contrived for the purpose 

 of driving them from a city or town where 

 they have endeavored to carry on a peaceable 

 and lawful business, or to cultivate the soil, 

 then the whole strength of the Democratic 

 party and all its allies is arrayed against the 

 constitutionality and propriety of such an act. 



"Therefore, I take it, Mr. President, that I 

 need not occupy much time in saying that 

 whatever this provision of the fourteenth arti- 

 cle guarantees to a citizen, that the citizen is 

 entitled to have; and if he is entitled to have 

 it, how is he to have it? The section answers, 

 he is to have it, in the language of the Con- 

 stitution, which is the voice of the people, 

 through the legislation of this body. The 

 people ha^e declared thnt he shall have this 

 protection. The people have declared that the 

 State authorities shall not deny it to him. The 

 people have declared that it is the solemn duty 

 of Congress to see that he has it, because they 

 have decreed that * Congress shall have power 

 to enforce the provisions ' of this section of 

 this clause ' of this article by appropriate legis- 

 lation.' Therefore, the Constitution contem- 

 plated that, whenever an occasion should arise 

 where it was necessary to protect these rights, 

 Congress should protect them. 



"It is impossible to resist the conclusion. 

 Suppose this did change the Government, as 

 my friend from Illinois appears to fear, do you 

 not rather think, Mr. President, that it is a 

 good change ? If the Constitution did not be- 

 fore, holding a sovereignty over its citizens, 

 have the faculty of, through its legislative 

 branch, protecting those citizens in the rights 



that the Constitution gave them, the rights 

 which a common human nature gives them, 

 against any assault by any State or under any 

 State, or through the neglect of any State, 

 then it was high time, for the honor of the 

 American name, and for the rights of humani- 

 ity, that the institutions of this country should 

 change. 



"If, as under the thirteenth article, slavery 

 was a constitutional institution, as it was 

 claimed before, I am sure the people will not 

 be alarmed that a great change has come over 

 the spirit of this Government; and, instead of 

 its being a Government of slavery, tolerated, 

 or upheld, or winked at, it has become a Gov- 

 ernment of freedom ; that, instead of its being 

 a Government which should suffer the local 

 authorities of a State to deny the common 

 rights of citizens to any of its people, it has 

 become a Government in which the national 

 power has guaranteed it to them, and which 

 it is the duty of the national power, in every 

 honorable and in the most exhaustive sense, 

 to see is fully and fairly enforced, and made a 

 practical reality. 



" If this is the Constitution (and how it can 

 be otherwise, in the face of its history and what 

 it says, is more than a puzzle to me, an amaze- 

 ment to me ; if this is the Constitution) which 

 gives to our people a right to the protection 

 of law, and it is a Constitution which makes 

 it our duty to see that they have the protec- 

 tion of law, what sin are we committing in 

 endeavoring to legislate so that they shall have 

 it? None, sir. 



" And, now, what do we propose to do ? 

 Some people have imagined, have stated, or 

 hinted, or insinuated in their observations that 

 we were making war upon the States in this 

 bill; that we were overturning the judiciary; 

 that we were resorting to new methods. That 

 is a mistake, a misrepresentation. The bill, 

 like all bills of this character, in its first and 

 second sections, is a declaration of rights and 

 a provision for the punishment of conspiracies 

 against constitutional rights, and a redress for 

 wrongs. It does not undertake to overthrow 

 any court. It does not undertake to make any 

 war. It does not undertake to interpose it- 

 self out of the regular order of the administra- 

 tion of law. It does not attempt to deprive 

 any State of the honor which is due to the 

 punishment of crime. It is a law acting upon 

 the citizen like every other law, and it is a law 

 to be enforced by the courts through the regu- 

 lar and ordinary processes of judicial adminis- 

 tration, and in no other way, until forcible re- 

 sistance shall be offered to the quiet and ordi- 

 nary course of justice. 



" When you come to the later sections, which 

 are in aid of the first, you have the simple 

 and ordinary provision in the third that, when 

 the laws are opposed, when the courts are 

 in danger of being unable to carry out their 

 decrees, to arrest and punish offenders, the 

 executive arm is to go to their assistance, is 



