CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



157 



"It is not life, or liberty, or property, then, 

 that we are called upon by this bill to protect. 

 It is not the protection of either of them, but 

 it is the privileges which it is said belong to a 

 citizen of the United States that this bill is 

 designed to protect and enforce. Now, what 

 says the constitutional amendment under 

 which alone you can claim any power to pass 

 any such bill ? It is as plain as the spectacles 

 on my nose : " 



No State shall make or enforce any law which 

 shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens 

 of the United States. 



"No State shall make the law or enforce 

 the law. "Well, sir, the law must be made 

 either by the Federal Government or by the 

 State government, or it is no law at all. It 

 must be either a law recognized as the law of 

 the State, and therefore impliedly made by it, 

 or expressly made by it through its legislative 

 body, or it must be a law of the Federal Gov- 

 ernment, otherwise it is no law at all. Now, 

 the Constitution says that no State shall make 

 or enforce any law which shall abridge the 

 privileges or immunities of the citizen. 



"Take the case of South Carolina. My 

 friend (Mr. Sawyer) has said this morning 

 that under the law of South Carolina a rail- 

 road company can make no discrimination 

 between white and black passengers. I sup- 

 pose it is the same in hotels, too, and the same 

 in schools. Now, what do you say? Has 

 South Carolina made or enforced any law that 

 abridges any citizen in his privileges or immu- 

 nities? No, sir; just the reverse is the truth. 

 And yet the Senator from Massachusetts pro- 

 poses to go down into South Carolina, take 

 away these cases from the jurisdiction of the 

 State courts, transfer them all into the Federal 

 courts, forfeit State charters, interfere with 

 State rules, interfere with the worship of re- 

 ligion in churches, interfere with every thing 

 in a word, while the State itself has not de- 

 prived a single citizen, white or black, of any 

 privilege or immunity that belongs to him. 

 And yet it is said that this bill is constitution- 

 al under an amendment to the Constitution 

 which only gives you authority to act where 

 the State has made or enforced a law that de- 

 prived a citizen of his privileges or immuni- 

 ties, which gives you no right to act unless 

 the State has made or enforced such a law as 

 that! Under a Constitution which says that, 

 until the State has made or enforced such a 

 law, you the Congress of the United States 

 have no power at all, the Senator from Massa- 

 chusetts wipes it all away, and says that he 

 will go down there with this bill of his, a sup- 

 plementary civil rights bill, and assume the 

 whole protection of all the privileges and im- 

 munities that belong to every man in that 

 State ! 



" Well, sir, what more does the fourteenth 

 amendment say ? " 



Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, 

 liberty, or property, without due process of law. 



" Of course that clause gives no sanction to 

 this bill. This bill cannot fall under that, for, 

 in the first place, no State has deprived any 

 person of life, liberty, or property, without 

 due process of law. But the privilege and im- 

 munity here spoken of are neither life, liberty, 

 nor property, as I have already stated. Then 

 what is the last clause? " 



Nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction 

 the equal protection of the laws. 



"That, taken in connection, with the first 

 clause which relates to privileges and immu- 

 nities, shows that what is there meant by 

 4 the equal protection of the laws ' is that each 

 person shall be entitled to that protection 

 which the law affords for their life, liberty, and 

 property to the other citizens in the State; 

 and that is all of that. 



" With all the tautology of this amendment 

 to the Constitution you find what is very clear, 

 that it speaks of ' privileges and immunities ' 

 as one thing; it speaks of 'life, liberty, and 

 property ' in another sentence ; and it speaks 

 of the 'protection of the laws ' as not a privi- 

 lege or immunity, but as another right that 

 belongs to a citizen. But this bill is only to 

 secure privileges and immunities, and in re- 

 spect to them the Constitution is plain that 

 no State shall make or enforce any law to de- 

 prive any citizen of them, and it is equally 

 clear that you have no right to interfere until 

 the State has made or enforced such a law. 



" I say, then, without going further into this 

 matter, although the subject is by no means 

 exhausted, that to my mind nothing is clearer 

 than that this bill is a plain usurpation of 

 power that does not belong to Congress at all, 

 and, if so, no matter what may be the merits 

 of the general subject, that is a sufficient 

 reason with me for voting against it. 



Mr. Morton said: "Mr. President, there is 

 no disability arising under the Constitution and 

 laws of the United States, except under the 

 fourteenth amendment, as to the right to hold 

 office; and it is now proposed by the Senator 

 from South Carolina (Mr. Sawyer), who has 

 given notice of his motion, to strike out the 

 exceptions in the bill before the Senate, and 

 make amnesty universal. 



" The fourteenth amendment was adopted 

 by Congress in 1866, and presented to the 

 States for their ratification. It was done at a 

 time when it was understood that all punish- 

 ment had passed by, that nobody would be 

 punished under the laws of the United States 

 for having taken part in the rebellion. It was 

 done then as the only and the last means of 

 fixing a stigma and a legal disapprobation upon 

 the ringleaders and the authors of the rebel- 

 lion. Those to whom the fourteenth amend- 

 ment was made applicable were believed to be 

 the authors of the rebellion, men who had got- 

 ten it up, who had brought it upon the coun- 

 try, the old politicians who had been at work 

 on it for years, and it was intended to make 

 them ineligible to hold office. All prospect of 



