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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



raerly exercised unlimited dominion over them. 

 It is in this broad light that all these amend- 

 ments must be read, the purpose to secure the 

 perfect equality before the law of all citizens 

 of the United States. "What you give to one 

 class you must give to all ; what you deny to 

 one class you shall deny to all, unless in the 

 exercise of the common and universal police 

 power of the State you find it needful to con- 

 fer exclusive privileges on certain citizens, to 

 be held and exercised still for the common 

 good of all. 



" Such are the doctrines of the Slaughter- 

 house cases doctrines worthy of the republic, 

 worthy of the age, worthy of the great tribunal 

 which thus loftily and impressively enunciates 

 them. Do they I put it to any man, be he 

 lawyer or not ; I put it to the gentleman from 

 Georgia do they give color even to the claim 

 that this Congress may not now legislate against 

 a plain discrimination made by State laws or 

 State customs against that very race for whose 

 complete freedom and protection these great 

 amendments were elaborated and adopted? 

 Is it pretended I ask the honorable gentleman 

 from Kentucky or the honorable gentleman 

 from Georgia is it pretended anywhere that 

 the evils of which we complain, our exclusion 

 from the public inn, from the saloon and table 

 of the steamboat, from the sleeping-coach on 

 the railway, from the right of sepulture in the 

 public burial-ground, are an exercise of the po- 

 lice power of the State ? Is such oppression 

 and injustice nothing but the exercise by the 

 State of the right to make regulations for the 

 health, comfort, and security of all her citi- 

 zens ? Is it merely enacting that one man 

 shall so use his own as not to injure another's? 

 Are the colored race to be assimilated to an 

 unwholesome trade or to combustible materials, 

 to be interdicted, to be shut up within pre- 

 scribed limits? Let the gentleman from Ken- 

 tucky or the gentleman from Georgia answer. 



" But each of these gentlemen quotes at some 

 length from the decision of the court to show 

 that the court recognize a difference between 

 citizenship of the United States and citizenship 

 of the States. That is true, and no man here 

 who supports this bill questions or overlooks 

 the difference. There are privileges and im- 

 munities which belong to me as a citizen of the 

 United States, and there are other privileges and 

 immunities which belong to me as a citizen of 

 my State. The former are under the protection 

 of the Constitution and laws of theUnited States, 

 and the latter are under the protection of the 

 constitution and laws of my State. But what 

 of that ? Are the rights which I now claim 

 the right to enjoy the common public conven- 

 iences of travel on public highways, of rest and 

 refreshment at public inns, of education in pub- 

 lic schools, of burial in public cemeteries rights 

 which I hold as a citizen of the United States 

 or of my State ? Or, to state the question 

 more exactly, is not the denial of such privileges 

 to me a denial to me of the equal protection of 



the laws ? For it is under this clause of the 

 fourteenth amendment that we place the pres- 

 ent bill, no State shall ' deny to any person 

 within its jurisdiction the equal protection of 

 the laws.' No matter, therefore, whether his 

 rights are held under the United States or under 

 his particular State, he is equally protected by 

 this amendment. He is always and everywhere 

 entitled to the equal protection of the laws. 

 All discrimination is forbidden ; and while the 

 rights of citizens of a State as such are not de- 

 fined or conferred by the Constitution of the 

 United States, yet all discrimination, all denial 

 of equality before the law, all denial of the equal 

 protection of the laws, whether State or na- 

 tional laws, are forbidden. 



" The distinction between the two kinds of 

 citizenship is clear, and the Supreme Court have 

 clearly pointed out this distinction, but they 

 have nowhere written a word or line which 

 denies to Congress the power to prevent a de- 

 nial of equality of rights, whether those rights 

 exist by virtue of citizenship of the United 

 States or of a State. Let honorable mem- 

 bers mark well this distinction. There are 

 rights which are conferred on us by the United 

 States. There are other rights conferred on 

 us by the States of which we are individually 

 the citizens. The fourteenth amendment does 

 not forbid a State to deny to all its citizens any 

 of those rights which the State itself has con- 

 ferred, with certain exceptions, which are 

 pointed out in the decision which we are ex- 

 amining. What it does forbid is inequality, is 

 discrimination, or, to use the words of the 

 amendment itself, is the denial ' to any person 

 within its jurisdiction the equal protection of 

 the laws.' If a State denies to me rights which 

 are common to all her other citizens, she violates 

 this amendment, unless she can show, as was 

 shown in the Slaughter-house cases, that she 

 does it in the legitmate exercise of her police 

 power. If she abridges the rights of all her 

 citizens equally, unless those rights are specially 

 guarded by the Constitution of the United 

 States, she does not violate this amendment. 

 This is not to put the rights which I hold by 

 virtue of my citizenship of South Carolina under 

 the protection of the national Government ; it 

 is not to blot out or overlook in the slightest 

 particular the distinction between rights held 

 nnder the United States and rights held under 

 the States ; but it seeks to secure equality, to 

 prevent discrimination, to confer as complete 

 and ample protection on the humblest as on the 

 highest. 



"Sir, I have replied to the extent of my 

 ability to the arguments which have been pre- 

 sented by the opponents of this measure. I 

 have replied also to some of the legal proposi- 

 tions advanced by gentlemen on the other side ; 

 and now that I am about to conclude, I am 

 deeply sensible of th'e imperfect manner in 

 which I have performed the task. Technically 

 this bill is to decide upon the civil status of tho 

 colored American citizen ; a point disputed at 



