CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



153 



under the authority of the fourteenth amend- 

 ment, was in aid of the suppression of insurrec- 

 tion and for the preservation of the public 

 peace, and Avas clearly national in its charac- 

 ter. It may be insisted that the General Gov- 

 ernment cannot enact a law generally regu- 

 lating inns and cemeteries, schools, churches, 

 colleges, etc., in the States. If this law, as 

 modified, does undertake such regulation, un- 

 less there is some express authority in the 

 Constitution giving us this power, I agree that 

 the act is unconstitutional. 



" But the amendment of the Senator from 

 Massachusetts, as modified, in no manner 

 assumes to regulate the relations of common 

 carriers, inn-keepers, etc., with the public. 

 All this it leaves to the States, excepting that 

 it provides that every citizen shall be treated 

 as a citizen, be he white or colored. That is 

 constitutional. If the people of South Caro- 

 lina, in their former animosity to the people of 

 New England, should deprive them of the 

 common rights of citizenship in that State, 

 should refuse them the accommodation of cars 

 or inns, we would find some constitutional 

 power to protect them in the equal rights 

 of American citizenship. "We have the same 

 right and are under the same obligation to the 

 citizens of color. 



" This act virtually says there has existed in 

 this country an enslaved and degraded race ; 

 and the people have prejudices incident to 

 their being associated with slavery. We have 

 just passed through a war from which we have 

 garnered three great principles which it is the 

 purpose of this law to enforce. One is, that 

 every person in the land has a chartered right 

 to freedom. Before the thirteenth amend- 

 ment it was in the power of a State to make 

 any one a slave. They did by State law make 

 four million such; and the Supreme Court 

 held that the slaves had none of the rights of 

 freemen. Now, every man has a charter for 

 his freedom, which no State, no power on 

 earth can take from him. 



" I hope that the amendment of the Senator 

 from Massachusetts, after due consideration 

 by him, will be properly amended and be 

 passed by this Senate. To that end I prefer 

 that it should be presented as an independent 

 bill, so as to require only a majority and not a 

 two'-thirds vote to pass it. But of that he 

 must be the judge. 



" Mr. President, I have a word to say as to 

 the proposed amnesty. There are conflicting 

 considerations, some prompting me to vote 

 for, and some to vote against it. Understand- 

 ing that a proposition is to be make to strike 

 out all the exceptions in the bill and to make 

 the amnesty universal, I will, while I have 

 the floor, say to those who are in favor of the 

 passage of the bill, that if they undertake thus 

 to change the bill they will lose many votes, 

 probably enough to defeat the measure." 



Mr. Sawyer, of South Carolina, said: "No 

 sound principle is sacrificed by granting am- 



nesty. Political disabilities, whatever apology 

 or excuse might have existed for them when 

 they were imposed, have ceased to have any 

 reasonable ground for existence. The last of 

 the Southern States is admitted to its full 

 privileges as a member of the brotherhood of 

 States; the constitutional amendments, intend- 

 ed to secure the principles established by the 

 war and subsequent events, have been accepted 

 as valid.^ There can be no fear or danger of 

 their being disturbed. Political rights once 

 acquired by a people are not surrendered ex- 

 cept through the process of despotism, a pro- 

 cess from which we need fear nothing unless 

 we are untrue to ourselves and to all the tra- 

 ditions and instincts of our race. 



" A few words more, Mr. President, and I 

 shall have done. I have said, sir, that I re- 

 gard the attempt to attach the supplementary 

 Civil Eights bill to the pending measure as an 

 unfriendly act toward the former. Well may 

 the Civil Rights bill ask to be delivered from 

 such peril. I say, also, Mr. President, that the 

 attempt to unite these two measures is in effect 

 an unfriendly act to the amnesty measure. I 

 do not charge the Senator from Massachusetts 

 with the purpose to defeat the amnesty bill 

 by this unnecessary and unnatural union. I 

 do say that the amnesty bill is endangered by 

 the alliance. I shall work for the passage of 

 each at the earliest practicable moment. That 

 moment will, in my judgment, be considerably 

 delayed by attempting to unite them. The 

 amnesty bill is the pending bill. I say let us 

 now work for that. Were the bill of the Senator 

 from Massachusetts the pending measure, or 

 were there good reason to suppose that each 

 would be strengthened by the other, I should 

 say let us work for that." 



Meanwhile, in the House, on January 15th, 

 Mr. Hale, of Maine, said : " I move to suspend 

 the rules for the purpose of putting upon its pas- 

 sage a bill for the removal of legal and politi- 

 cal disabilities imposed by the third section of 

 the fourteenth article of amendments to the 

 Constitution of the United States." 



The bill was read. 



The first section provides for the removal 

 of all legal and political disabilities imposed 

 by the third section of the fourteenth article 

 of the amendments to the Constitution of the 

 United States, on the persons therein men- 

 tioned, because of their having engaged in in- 

 surrection or rebellion against the United 

 States, or given aid or comfort to the enemies 

 thereof; provided the act shall not apply to 

 or in any way affect or remove the disabilities 

 of any person included in either of the follow- 

 ing classes, namely : First. Members of the 

 Congress of the Union who withdrew there- 

 from to aid the rebellion. Second. Officers 

 of the Army or the Navy of the United States 

 who, being above the age of twenty-one years, 

 left said Army or Navy and aided the rebel- 

 lion. 



