218 



CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



eterieg, supported by taxation, are under the 

 regulation of the States, and not of the Gen- 

 eral Government. The bill proposes to leave 

 them under State control, and expressly says 

 that all persons are to have the full and equal 

 enjoyment of inns, etc., subject to the condi- 

 tions and limitations established by law State 

 statutes and common law with the exception 

 that such laws must be applicable alike to citi- 

 zens of every race and color, and regardless of 

 previous servitude. 



" Is it constitutional for the General Govern- 

 ment to legislate to prevent discrimination on 

 account of race, etc. ? We maintain that the 

 General Government has this right under three 

 different grants of power : 



" 1. Under the thirteenth, fourteenth, and 

 fifteenth amendments, considered together and 

 in connection with the contemporaneous his- 

 tory; 



" 2. Under the provision of the fourteenth 

 amendment, which prohibits a State from en- 

 forcing any law which abridges the privileges 

 and immunities of citizens of the United States ; 

 and also, 



" 3. Under the provision of article fourteen, 

 which requires a State to give to every person 

 within its jurisdiction the equal protection of 

 the laws ; and under the general power given 

 Congress to enforce these provisions by appro- 

 priate legislation. 



" I cannot more forcibly nor with greater 

 brevity show that these amendments were in- 

 tended to do away with slavery to wipe out 

 every consequence of it ; to prevent State legis- 

 lation of every kind that discriminated on ac- 

 count of race, color, etc., and make the race 

 formerly in servitude equal in all respects to 

 other citizens than by reading a portion of 

 the opinion of the majority of the court in the 

 Slaughter-house cases (16 "Wallace, 67, 68, and 

 69): 



But within the last eight years three other articles 

 of amendment of vast importance have been added 

 by the voice of the people to that now Venerable in- 

 strument. 



The most cursory glance at those articles discloses 

 a unity of purpose, when taken in connection with 

 the history of the times, which cannot fail to have 

 an important bearing on any question of doubt con- 

 cerning their true meaning. 



Nor can such doubts, when any reasonably exist, 

 be safely-and rationally solved without a reference to 

 that history ; for in it is found the occasion of the 

 necessity for recurring again to the great source of 

 power in this country, the people of the States, for 

 additional guarantees of human rights: additional 

 powers of the Federal Government ; additional re- 

 straints upon those States; Fortunately, that history 

 is fresh within the memory of us all, and its leading 

 features, as they bear upon the matter before us, free 

 from doubt. 



The institution of African slavery as it existed in 

 about half the States of the Union, and the contests 

 pervading the public. mind for many years between 

 those who desired its curtailment and ultimate ex- 

 tinction and those who desired additional safeguards 

 for its security and perpetuation, culminated in the 

 effort, on the part of most of the States in which 

 slavery existed, to separate from the Federal Govern- 

 ment, and to resist its authority. This constituted 



the war of the rebellion, and, whatever auxiliary 

 causes may have contributed to bring about this 

 war, undoubtedly the overshadowing and efficient 

 cause was African slavery. In that struggle slavery, 

 as a legalized social relation, perished. * * * 



The proclamation of President Lincoln expressed 

 an accomplished fact as to a large portion of the in- 

 surrectionary districts, when ne declared slavery 

 abolished in them all. But, the wa_r being over, 

 those who had succeeded in reestablishing the au- 

 thority of the Federal Government were not content 

 to permit this great act of emancipation to rest on 

 the actual results of the contest or the proclamation 

 of the Executive, both of which might have been 

 questioned in after-times, and they determined to 

 place this main and most valuable result in the Con- 

 stitution of the restored Union as one of its funda- 

 mental articles. Hence the thirteenth article of the 

 amendment of that instrument. Its short sections 

 seem hardly to admit of misconstruction, so vigorous 

 is their expression, and so appropriate to the purpose 

 we have indicated : 



1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as 

 a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have 

 been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States 

 or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 



2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by 

 appropriate legislation. 



To withdraw the mind from the contemplation of 

 this grand yet simple declaration of the personal free- 

 dom of all the human race within the jurisdiction of 

 this Government a declaration designed to estab- 

 lish the freedom of four millions of slaves and with 

 a microscopic search endeavor to find in it a refer- 

 ence to servitudes, which may have been attached to 

 property in certain localities, requires an eifort, to 

 say the least of it. 



" You see that the court hold that slavery 

 caused the war ; that the war in fact destroyed 

 slavery ; that in order that its permanent de- 

 struction might not be questioned in after- 

 times, the thirteenth amendment was adopted ; 

 and that this is a fact so apparent, that you 

 need not, to see it, look with a microscope. 



" If the discrimination against that race for 

 whose benefit chiefly the amendments were 

 adopted is because of their having recently 

 been slaves and as the discrimination is con- 

 fined to that race, is not that the cause of it ? 

 then we are authorized to pass all laws ap- 

 propriate to efface the existence of any conse- 

 quences or residuum of slavery. 



" The fourteenth and fifteenth amendments 

 are stated by the court to have had the same 

 origin. 



" How is the United States, how are we, to 

 protect the privileges of citizens of the United 

 States in the States? "We cannot deal with 

 the States or with their officials to compel 

 proper legislation and its enforcement ; we can 

 only deal with the offenders who violate the 

 privileges and immunities of citizens of the 

 United States. 



" By so doing, so far as this bill goes, we do 

 not interfere with the States passing and en- 

 forcing just such laws as they see proper as to 

 inns, public conveyances, schools, institutions 

 of learning and benevolence, places of amuse- 

 ment, and cemeteries they may modify or 

 abolish them at pleasure ; but, as no State 

 under the old Constitution could discriminate 

 in law against a citizen of another State as to 



