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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



seeking to avail themselves of the benefit of 

 relief acts passed by their States, which acts 

 the Supreme Court of the United States have 

 declared, in the way properly provided by 

 Congress, to be in violation of that clause of 

 the Constitution prohibiting the States, sever- 

 ally, from passing any law impairing the obli- 

 gation of contracts. The prohibition against 

 the States in the one case is the same in words 

 and effect as in the other. To what mon- 

 strous consequences would not such a con- 

 struction lead ? It is my purpose, sir, to show, 

 beyond the power of refutation, the correct- 

 ness of all these propositions or positions. 



" First, then, that the chief object of the 

 first and fifth sections of the fourteenth amend- 

 ment was, as stated, to make citizens of this 

 class of persons there can be no doubt, or if 

 there was any doubt before, it seems that 

 there ought to be none any longer ; for the Su- 

 preme Court, in the case before cited, said in 

 direct terms of these parts of the fourteenth 

 amendment just quoted, ' that its main ob- 

 ject was to establish citizenship of the negro 

 can admit of no doubt.' So that proposition 

 may rest there. 



"Next, as to the correctness of the other 

 propositions, I prefer to rely upon the same 

 high authority rather than to indulge in any 

 process of reasoning myself. I therefore shall 

 cite extensively from the same decision in sus- 

 tainment of all the positions taken. 



" In speaking of that clause of the Constitu- 

 tion as it stood before this amendment, in ref- 

 erence to the privileges and immunities of 

 citizens of the several States secured by it, 

 this court distinctly assert : 



Its sole purpose was to declare to the several States 

 tli at, whatever those rights, as you grant or establish 

 them to your own citizens, or as yon limit or qualify, 

 or impose restrictions on their 'exercise, the same, 

 neither more nor less, shall be the measure of the 

 rights of citizens of .other States within your juris- 

 diction. 



" And in relation to the powers of Congress 

 to enforce such rights under the Constitution, 

 as it stood before, by municipal laws operat- 

 ing over the people of the States, the court fur- 

 ther assert : 



It would be the vainest show of learning to at- 

 tempt to prove, by citations of authority, that up to 

 the adoption ot the recent amendments, no claim or 

 pretense was set up that those rights depended on 

 the Federal Government for their existence or pro- 

 tection, beyond the very few express limitations 

 which the Federal Constitution imposed upon the 

 States such, for instance, as the prohibition against 

 ex post facto laws, bills of attainder, and laws impair- 

 ing the obligation of contracts. But, with the ex- 

 ception of these and a few other restrictions, the en- 

 tire domain of the privileges and immunities of citi- 

 zens of the States, as above defined, lay within the 

 constitutional and legislative power of the States, 

 and without that of the Federal Government. 



" The court, then, in reference to the powers 

 of Congress to pass municipal laws as a proper 

 remedy against the exercise of powers pro- 

 hibited to the States by the Constitution, with- 

 great point and potency put the question : 



W.as it the purpose of the fourteenth amendment, 

 by the simple declaration that no State should make 

 or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges 

 and immunities of citizens of the United States^ to 

 transfer the security and protection of all the civil 

 rights which we have mentioned from the States to 

 the Federal Government ? And where it is declared 

 that Congress shall have power to enforce that arti- 

 cle, was it intended to bring within the power of Con- 

 gress the entire domain of civil rights heretofore be- 

 longing exclusively to the States ? 



" They answer it, too, with equal emphasis 

 and power, in these words : 



All this and more must follow if the proposition 

 of the plaintiffs in error be sound. For not only are 

 these rights subject to the control of Congress when- 

 ever, in its discretion, any of them are supposed to 

 be abridged by State legislation, but that body may 

 also pass laws in advance, limiting and restricting 

 the exercise of legislative power by the States in their 

 most ordinary and usual functions, as in its judg- 

 ment it may think proper on all such subjects. And 

 still further, such a construction, followed by the re- 

 versal of the judgments of the Supreme Court of Lou- 

 isiana in these cases, would constitute this court a 

 perpetual censor upon all legislation of the States on 

 the civil rights of their own citizens, with authority 

 to nullify such as it did not approve as consistent 

 with these rights as they existed at the time of the 

 adoption of this amendment. 



" Further on, in the same decision, in speak- 

 ing of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments 

 and the heat and excitement of popular senti- 

 ment when they were before the people, the 

 court gives forth certain other most important 

 utterances on this subject, to which I call spe- 

 cial attention. They say : 



Under the pressure of all the excited feeling grow- 

 ing out of the war, our statesmen have still be- 

 lieved that the existence of the States, with powers 

 for domestic and local government, including the 

 regulation of civil rights the rights of person and 

 of property was essential to the perfect working of 

 our complex form of government, though they have 

 thought proper to impose additional limitations on 

 the States and to confer additional power on that of 

 the nation. 



"Additional prohibitions imposed on the 

 States severally and additional powers con- 

 ferred on the General Government, but none 

 of a new nature or character. It is here judi- 

 cially affirmed that all the essential features of 

 our original complex Federal system are still 

 preserved. In substance it amounts to this, 

 that these amendments (whether rightfully or 

 wrongfully incorporated into the Constitution) 

 do not change the nature and character of the 

 Government. Soul-inspiring words are these ! 

 So long as an incorruptible judiciary shall 

 sustain the pillars of the Constitution in their 

 stately position, and the grand old Federal 

 arch unbroken in any of its parts, no serious 

 apprehension need be indulged in as to our 

 future safety from the batteries of legislative 

 demolition or reconstruction of the temple of 

 our liberties, if the people of the several States 

 shall continue equally true to themselves. 

 The United States still exist as a Federal 

 republic, and are not yet merged into a cen- 

 tralized empire. It is true the - court here 

 speaks of the States in union as a nation. 



