216 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



in the Western Hemisphere, the victory of 

 freedom over slavery, should have placed the 

 cap-stone on the structure he was permitted 

 to be an efficient instrumentality in aiding to 

 erect. But it was otherwise decreed. 



" I call the attention of the Senate to but 

 two sections of this measure the first section 

 and the fourth section of the amendment ; the 

 other parts of the bill being mere machinery to 

 carry those into effect. The first section pro- 

 vides : 



That all persons within the jurisdiction of the 

 United States shall be entitled to the full and equal 

 enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facili- 

 ties, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on 

 land or water, theatres, and other places of public 

 amusement; and also of common schools and public 

 institutions of learning or benevolence supported^ in 

 whole or in part, by general taxation ; and of cemete- 

 ries so supported : subject only to the conditions and 

 limitations established by law, and applicable alike 

 to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any 

 previous condition of servitude. 



" The fourth section provides : 



That no citizen possessing all other qualifications 

 which are or may be prescribed by law shall be dis- 

 qualified for service as grand or petit juror in any 

 court of the United States, or of any State, on account 

 of race, color, or previous condition of servitude ; 

 and any officer or other person charged with any 

 duty in the selection or summoning of jurors who 

 shall exclude or fail to summon any citizen for the 

 cause aforesaid shall, on conviction thereof, be 

 deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and be fined not 

 more than $5,000. 



" It is the one purpose of this bill to assert, 

 or rather to reassert, 'freedom from all dis- 

 crimination before the law as one of the funda- 

 mental rights of United States citizenship.' If, 

 sir, we have not the constitutional right thus 

 to legislate, then the people of this country 

 have perpetrated a blunder amounting to a 

 grim burlesque over which the world might 

 laugh were it not that it is a blunder over 

 which humanity would have occasion to mourn. 

 Sir, we have the right, in the language of the 

 Constitution, to give ' to all persons within the 

 jurisdiction of the United States the equal pro- 

 tection of the laws.' 



" This bill when enacted, it is believed, will 

 Ue a finality, removing from legislation, from 

 politics, and from society, an injurious agita- 

 tion, and securing to every citizen that proud 

 equality which our nation declares to be his 

 right, and Avhich is a boon in defense of which 

 most men would die. 



"The colored citizens ask this legislation, 

 not because they seek to force themselves into 

 associations with the whites, but because they 

 have their prides and emulations among them- 

 selves, and wish tkere in those associations to 

 feel that there is no ban upon them, but that 

 they are as fully enfranchised as any who 

 breathe the air of heaven. 



" I ask you, should the colored citizens be 

 content to demand less than full and equal 

 enfranchisement; should they say, '"We are 

 content that we and our children shall wear 

 forever the badge of political inferiority,' would 



they not thereby prove themselves to you to 

 be unfit for the high dignity to which the na- 

 tion has called them? Let us not doubt the 

 foundation principle of our Government ; it 

 has always proved true. Give equality to all. 

 Our confidence will not be abused. 



" This bill applies alike to the white citizen 

 and to the colored citizen. 



"I am aware that the majority of the Su- 

 preme Court in the Slaughter-house case (16 

 Wallace), giving construction to the thirteenth, 

 fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments in the 

 light of the history which called them into 

 being, make them apply especially, though not 

 exclusively, I think, to the enfranchisement of 

 the colored race. There can be no doubt they 

 apply equally to all races. 



" The court, in the case of The Live-stock 

 Association vs. The Crescent City Live-stock 

 Company (1 Abbot, page 38), undoubtedly 

 give the true construction to the amendments 

 as to their application. The court say : 



It is possible that tho.se who framed the articles 

 were not themselves aware of the far-reaching char- 

 acter of their terms. They may have had in mind but 

 one particular p_hase of social and political wrongs 

 which they desired to redress. Yet if the amend- 

 ment as framed and expressed does in fact bear a 

 broader meaning, and does extend its protecting 

 shield over those who were never thought of when 

 it was conceived and put in form, and does reach 

 social evils which were never before prohibited by 

 constitutional enactment, it is to be presumed that 

 the American people in giving it their imprimatur 

 understood what they were doing, and meant to de- 

 cree what has in fact been decreed. 



" This bill therefore properly secures equal 

 rights to the white as well as to the colored 

 race. 



" Again let me say that this measure does 

 not touch the subject of social equality. That 

 is not an element of citizenship. The law 

 which regulates that is found only in the tastes 

 and affinities of the mind ; its law is the arbi- 

 trary, uncontrolled human will. You cannot 

 enact it. 



" This bill does not disturb any laws, whether 

 statute or common, relating to the administra- 

 tion of inns, places of public amusement, 

 schools, institutions of learning or benevolence, 

 or cemeteries, supported in whole or in part 

 by general taxation (and it is only to these that 

 it applies), excepting to abrogate such laws as 

 make discrimination on account of race, color, 

 or previous servitude. 



" Inns, places of amusement, and public con- 

 veyances, are established and maintained by 

 private enterprise and capital, but bear that 

 intimate relation to the public, appealing to 

 and depending upon its patronage for support, 

 that the law has for many centuries measur- 

 ably regulated them, leaving at the same time 

 a wide discretion as to their administration in 

 their proprietors. This body of law and this 

 discretion are not disturbed by this bill, except 

 when the one or the other discriminates on ac- 

 count of race, color, or previous servitude. 



"As the capital invested in inns, places of 



