204 



CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



with the colored children. You will destroy 

 the public schools altogether, and will not bene- 

 fit the colored people by doing it. If there was 

 no question as to your power if the Constitu- 

 tion of the United States gave to you the au- 

 thority it would be impolitic and unwise to 

 force it to that extent. It is this question in 

 regard to schools that I look at with the most 

 serious apprehension, though the other provi- 

 sions of the bill are equally vicious in principle. 

 Does any gentleman upon this floor think that 

 any intelligent man representing a Southern 

 State wants to keep the colored people of the 

 South in ignorance ? If he does he is grievously 

 mistaken. 



" No, sir ; if he had no higher motive than 

 his own interest, he would endeavor by every 

 means in his power to improve them mentally 

 and morally ; and the States are rapidly devel- 

 oping means to do so, as rapidly as can be ex- 

 pected. They are straining every nerve to fur- 

 nish them the means of education, to make 

 them industrious, to make them honest, to make 

 them understand the great duties .imposed on 

 them by the amendments to the Constitution 

 in their altered condition. No matter what 

 may have been his views of the policy of those 

 changes, now that they are the fundamental 

 law, no man desires to restore the former state 

 of things. Every man is desirous of seeing that 

 the interests of the colored people are pro- 

 moted ; that their intelligence shall be in- 

 creased ; and that all the elements which will 

 make them more virtuous citizens than they 

 were shall be given them in abundance. 



" Why, sir, if Congress takes this step, it is 

 the entering wedge to take absolute control 

 over education everywhere. Your courts will 

 have to watch the States, and will have to 

 punish the wrongs done, and the colored peo- 

 ple will be driven on and on as demagogues 

 arise wanting their votes, and they will be 

 brought here to hold conventions and make 

 demands of Congress, until there is no telling 

 where the strife will end. 



" I suppose there are gentlemen on this floor 

 who would arrest, imprison, and fine a young 

 woman in any State of the South if she were 

 to refuse to marry a negro man on account of 

 color, race, or previous condition of servitude, 

 in the event of his making her a proposal of 

 marriage, and her refusing on that ground. 

 That would be depriving him of a right he had 

 under the amendment, and Congress would be 

 asked to take it up, and say, 'This insolent 

 white woman must be taught to know that it 

 is a misdemeanor to deny a man marriage be- 

 cause of race, color, or previous condition of 

 servitude ; ' and Congress will be urged to say 

 after a while that that sort of thing must be 

 put a stop to, and your conventions of colored 

 men will come here asking you to enforce that 

 right." 



Mr. Kainey, of South Carolina, said: "Mr. 

 Speaker, I did not expect to participate in this 

 debate at this early period ; and I would have 



preferred to wait until I should have had a full 

 exposition of the opinions entertained by the 

 other side of the House. I know, sir, that 

 gentlemen on the other side have professed a 

 great deal of friendship for the race to which 

 I belong ; and in the last presidential election 

 they pledged themselves that they would ac- 

 cord to the negroes of this country all the 

 rights that were given to other citizens. I am 

 somewhat surprised to perceive that on this 

 occasion, when the demand is made upon Con- 

 gress by the people to guarantee those rights 

 to a race heretofore oppressed, we should find 

 gentlemen on the other side taking another 

 view of the case from that which they pro- 

 fessed in the past. The gentleman from Ken- 

 tucky (Mr. Beck) has taken a legal view of 

 this question, and he is undoubtedly capable 

 of taking that view. I am not a lawyer, and 

 consequently I cannot take a legal view of this 

 matter, or perhaps I cannot view it through 

 the same optics that he does. I view it in the 

 light of the Constitution in the light of the 

 amendments that have been made to that Con- 

 stitution ; I view it in the light of humanity ; 

 I view it in the light of the progress and civil- 

 ization which are now rapidly marching over 

 this country. We, sirs, would not ask of this 

 Congress as a people that they should legislate 

 for us specifically as a class if we could only 

 have those rights which this bill is designed to 

 give us accorded us without this enactment. 

 I can very well understand the opposition to 

 this measure by gentlemen on the other side 

 of the House, and especially of those who come 

 from the South. They have a feeling against 

 the negro in this country that I suppose will 

 never die out. They have an antipathy against 

 that race of people, because of their loyalty to 

 this Government, and because at the very time 

 when they were needed to show their man- 

 hood and valor they came forward in defense 

 of the flag of the country and assisted in crush- 

 ing out the rebellion. They, sir, would not 

 give to the colored man the right to vote or 

 the right to enjoy any of these immunities 

 which are enjoyed by other citizens, if it had 

 a tendency to make them feel their manhood 

 and elevate them above the ordinary way of 

 life. So long as he makes himself content 

 with ordinary gifts, why, it is all well ; but 

 when he aspires to be a man, when he seeks 

 to have the rights accorded him that other citi- 

 zens of the country enjoy, then he is asking 

 too much, and such gentlemen as the gentleman 

 from Kentucky are not willing to grant it." 



Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, said : "I am op- 

 posed to the passage of this measure, or any 

 one kindred to it, even if any of the rights 

 proposed to be secured by it were properly 

 just in themselves, because of the want of 

 the necessary power, under the Constitution, 

 on the part of Congress to apply the appro- 

 priate remedy by the enactment of any such 

 law as this bill proposes. I presume that it 

 will not be assuming too much to take it for 



