CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



U23 



bill, and it was impracticable to procure the 

 yielding of the Senate from that in some shape. 



" Now, then, Mr. Speaker, this is the report. 

 The question now of duty is of course before 

 the House. It is entirely too late to enter on 

 a discussion of a question so intricate in some 

 of its aspects as well as so new in some of its 

 aspects as the question made in regard to the 

 right to pass this Sherman amendment as we 

 call it." 



Mr. Bingham, of Ohio, said: "I ask the at- 

 tention of gentlemen of the House, especially 

 those on the Republican side of it, to the state- 

 ment which I make of some facts touching this 

 bill. I desire, in the first place, to say that 

 every part and parcel of the bill as reported 

 from the committee of conference meets my 

 entire approval, except the section known as 

 the Sherman amendment, or the seventh sec- 

 tion of the bill as reported by the conference 

 committee. I am the freer to make that re- 

 mark for the reason that, with the exception 

 of that seventh section as reported, the bill is 

 substantially the bill that received the vote of 

 every Republican member of this House. 



"They voted also upon the seventh section, 

 now reported by the conference committee, not 

 without due consideration. The principle in- 

 volved in that section was printed and before 

 this House for a month before we received 

 this measure from the Senate. The learned 

 special committee of the House ignored it, and 

 would have nothing to do with it, for manifest 

 and good reasons to them appearing. They 

 reported a bill without that section ; the House 

 never entertained it, but proceeded to pass the 

 bill as it is now substantially, without that 

 section, by the vote of every Republican in the 

 House. I stand for the bill to-day as it passed 

 the House originally. I stand for it with the 

 exception of the Sherman amendment, as it is 

 called, in the form in which it is reported ; 

 for it is substantially in law and in fact the 

 very bill which received the vote of every 

 Republican member of the House, my own in- 

 cluded. 



" Something was due to the judgment of the 

 House, under the circumstances, on the part 

 of the Senate. But, in utter disregard of the 

 recorded judgment of the House, with full 

 knowledge of the fact that the very proposi- 

 tion they tender us had been presented to the 

 consideration of the House for months, but had 

 not been considered even by our committee, 

 much less reported by it, and had not been ac- 

 cepted by the House, but the bill passed with- 

 out it, the Senate ought to have considered be- 

 fore they undertook to throw that amendment 

 in upon us by a vote of some thirty or thirty- 

 two votes in the Senate against the votes of 

 some one hundred and forty or more in the 

 House who supported this bill without that 

 amendment. A decent respect to the judgment 

 of this House required some consideration. 



"But this provision was sent to us attached 

 to our bill : and what took place ? The House 



rejected it substantially as it comes back to us 

 to-day ; there being, on a division, 118 votes 

 against it, and only 25 in its favor. The yeas 

 and nays were then called ; and 132 votes (at 

 least seventy of them cast by Republicans) 

 were recorded against this section, and only 

 35 votes in its favor. The bill went back to 

 the Senate, who insisted upon the amendment. 

 I now ask the House to reject this report for 

 reasons which must be obvious to the mind of 

 the House; and I hope that the vote of every 

 Republican will be cast against it. It is use- 

 less, and worse than useless, to vote down this 

 important measure with any doubtful voice. 

 Let the House record its vote emphatically for 

 the rights of all the people of every State and 

 all the States in the Union. 



"Gentlemen talk about finding precedents 

 in the legislation of the States. With all re- 

 spect, I deny it. My learned and accomplished 

 colleague (Mr. Shellabarger) has referred this 

 morning to the decision pronounced in the 

 State of New York by Judge Denio, than 

 whom none of the recent judges of that State 

 was superior in all the attainments of a jurist ; 

 but that decision, instead of supporting any 

 such legislation as this, in its very text and 

 philosophy condemns it." 



Mr. Farnsworth, of Illinois, said: "What 

 have we now presented to us for our action ? 

 We have a section which authorizes suits to 

 be brought against counties and cities in every 

 case of destruction of property or injury of the 

 person by two or more persons in a riotous or 

 tumultuous manner, when it is done in deroga- 

 tion of the exercise of some constitutional right 

 of the person, or done on account of color, or 

 race, or previous condition of servitude ; such, 

 for instance, Mr. Speaker, as this: if a China- 

 man should be mobbed by three or four miners 

 in California or Nevada on account of being 

 a Chinaman, he may sue the county in the 

 United States courts and recover damages. 

 Or, to take another case of a man mobbed in 

 Illinois on account of race or color, suppose a 

 colored and a white person get married, and 

 some of the young men of the village get up a 

 charivari, not for the purpose of preventing 

 any right to vote, but because of color, then 

 the person claiming that he is injured may sue 

 the county and recover damages. 



"The Supreme Court of the United States 

 has decided repeatedly that Congress can im- 

 pose no duty on a State officer. We can im- 

 pose no duty on a sheriff or any other officer 

 of a county or city. We cannot require the 

 sheriff to read the riot act or call out the posse 

 comitatus, or perform any other act or duty. 

 Nor can Congress confer any power or impose 

 any duty upon the county or city. Can we, 

 then, impose on a county or other State munici- 

 pality liability where we cannot require a duty ? 

 I think not." 



The question on agreeing to the conference 

 report was taken ; and it was decided as fol- 

 lows: 



