182 



CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



posed to this social equality bill, but I want 

 to see now who is for it. I want to see 

 whether the Senate is for it, or whether Sen- 

 ators are simply using it to defeat amnesty. 

 This will give us a direct vote on it. Let us 

 see now those in favor of this social equality 

 bill. On that question I ask for the yeas and 

 nays." 



Mr. Sumner : " And, Mr. President, I too 

 shall vote against it " 



Mr. Morton : " Mr. President, I am a friend 

 of the civil rights bill, as I have shown by a 

 good many votes ; but when the civil rights 

 bill is offered by one of its enemies, not for 

 the purpose of securing its success, but for the 

 purpose of securing its defeat along with the 

 defeat of the measure we have been engaged 

 upon for several days, I shall vote against that 

 as an amendment to the amnesty amendment, 

 and I hope the bill will be passed without 

 having any thing of the kind attached to it. 

 It is an important bill." 



The question being taken by yeas and nays, 

 resulted as follows : 



YEAS Messrs. Caldwell, Clayton, Edmunds, Har- 

 lan, Pomcroy, and Sprague 6. 



NAYS Messrs. Alcorn, Anthony, Blair, Boreman, 

 Buckingham, Cameron, Carpenterj Casserly, Cole, 

 Cooper, Corbett, Davis of West Virginia, Ferry of 

 Connecticut, Ferry of Michigan, Flanagan, Frelmg- 

 huysen, Gilbert, Goldthwaite, Hamilton of Maryland, 

 Hamilton of Texas, Hamlin, Hill, Hitchcock, John- 

 ston, Kellogg, Kelly, Logan, Morrill of Maine, Mor- 

 rill of Vermont, Morton, Norwood, Pool, Pratt, 

 Ramsey, Ransom, Rice, Robertson, Saulsbury, Saw- 

 yer, Schurz, Scott, Sherman, Stevenson, Stockton, 

 Sumner, Thurman, Tipton, Trumbull, Wilson, and 

 Windom 50. 



ABSENT Messrs. Ames, Bayard, Brownlow, 

 Chandler, Conkling, Crajyin, Davis of Kentucky, 

 Fenton, Howe, Lewis, Nye, Osborn, Patterson, 

 Spencer, Stewart, Vickers, West, and Wright 18. 



So the amendment to the amendment was 

 rejected. 



The Vice-President : " The question recurs 

 on the amendment of the Senator from Il- 

 linois, which is to add the amnesty proposition 

 as generally known in the Senate." 



The question being taken by yeas and nays, 

 resulted yeas 22, nays 33. 



So the amendment was rejected. 



Mr. Sumner : " I now send to the Chair an 

 amendment which I desire to come in at the 

 end of the bill. It is known as the civil rights 

 bill. It is the same that has been read just 

 now." 



The Vice-President : "The question is on 

 the amendment of the Senator from Massachu- 

 setts, to add the sections known in the Senate 

 as the civil rights proposition." 



Mr. Boreman, of West Virginia, said : " I 

 move to strike out in the first section all after 

 the word ' amusement ' in the ninth line." 



The Vice-President: "The amendment, in 

 brief, is to strike from the first section of the 

 civil rights bill that provision relative to 

 schools and cemeteries." 



Mr. Ferry, of Connecticut, said: "I shall vote 



for the amendment of the Senator from West 

 Virginia, because I believe from the depths of 

 my inmost convictions that the passage of the 

 bill of the Senator from Massachusetts, so far as 

 it relates to common schools, will be the very 

 destruction of the entire system of common- 

 school education throughout the whole south- 

 ern portion of our country, where that com- 

 mon-school education is now most needed." 



Mr. Thurman said: "When this subject 

 was under discussion before, I called upon the 

 Senator from Massachusetts to point out some 

 provision in the Constitution that authorized 

 Congress to pass such a bill as this ; I never 

 have received an answer to that question yet. 

 I never have found anybody who could point 

 out one single line of the Constitution that 

 gives Congress authority to pass such a meas- 

 ure as this. 



- " Now, sir, since that debate took place, I 

 wish to say to the Senate that the very ques- 

 tion has been before the Supreme Court of my 

 State, composed of five judges, every one of 

 whom is a Kepublican, the question whether 

 the law of Ohio requiring the schools for col- 

 ored children and white children to be kept 

 separate is constitutional or not ; whether it 

 is a violation of any provision of the Consti- 

 tution of the United States, and that court 

 has just decided, by a unanimous vote, that 

 that law violates no provision whatever of the 

 Constitution of the United States, nor any law 

 of Congress passed in pursuance of the Consti- 

 tution of the United States. If that decision 

 be sound, and of its soundness I do not think 

 any good lawyer can doubt for a moment, 

 there is an end of all pretence of constitutional 

 foundation for this bill. 



"The question was made in that court di- 

 rectly on an application to the court for a 

 mandamus to compel the directors of a school 

 for whites a public school supported by pub- 

 lic money to receive the child of a colored 

 man living within the school district. It was 

 a question which the colored people made. 

 The father did not send his child to the colored 

 school, but demanded his admission into the 

 white school. He, being a resident of the 

 school district, a tax-payer there, made the 

 demand for the purpose of trying the question, 

 and applied to the Supreme Court for a man- 

 damus to compel the directors to receive the 

 child ; and the court, by a unanimous vote, 

 decided to refuse the mandamus, on the ground 

 stated in a learned and able opinion, that the 

 law of Ohio which excludes that child from 

 that school violates no provision of the Con- 

 stitution of the United States, or of any law 

 of Congress passed in pursuance of the Con- 

 stitution." 



Mr. Ilamlin, of Maine, said : " I have voted, 

 I believe, on several occasions to unite the am- 

 nesty bill and the civil rights bill so called. I 

 did so under the impression that perhaps it 

 was the wisest and best method of progressing 

 in our legislation. I am, however, satisfied 



