 |
At the close of Mr. Davis' speech, much debate and conversation ensued among various Senators upon a proposed amendment by Mr. Lane, of Kansas, by which Indians "under tribal authority" should be excluded from the benefits conferred by this bill. After this question was disposed of, Mr. Davis was drawn out in another speech by what seemed to him to be the necessity of defending some positions which he had assumed. He said:
"I still reiterate the position that the negro is not a citizen here according to the essential fundamental principles of our system; but whether he be a citizen or not, he is not a foreigner, and no man, white or black, or red or mixed, can be made a citizen by naturalization unless he is a foreigner."
Mr. Clark, of New Hampshire, interposed: "I wish the Senator from Kentucky would tell us what constitutes a citizen under the Constitution."
"A foreigner is not a citizen in the fullest sense of the word at all," said Mr. Davis.
"The Senator is now telling us," said Mr. Clark, "who is not a citizen, but my question is, What constitutes a citizen?"
"I leave that to the exercise of your own ingenuity," replied Mr. Davis.
"That is it," said Mr. Clark. "Washington is dead; Marshall is dead; Story is dead; I hoped the Senator from Kentucky would have enlightened us. He says a negro is not a citizen, and a negro is not a foreigner and can not be made a citizen. He says that a person who might be and was a citizen before the Constitution, is not a citizen since the Constitution was adopted. What right was taken away from him by the Constitution that disqualifies him from being a citizen? The free negroes in my State, before the Constitution was adopted, were citizens."
Mr. Davis, having admitted that free negroes were citizens before the Constitution in New Hampshire, Mr. Clark said:
"I desired that the Senator should tell me what, in his opinion, constituted a citizen under the Constitution."
Mr. Davis replied: "I will answer the honorable Senator. We sometimes answer a positive question by declaring what a thing is not. Now, the honorable Senator asks me what a citizen is. It is easier to answer what it is not than what it is, and I say that a negro is not a citizen."
"Well, that is a lucid definition," said Mr. Clark.
"Sufficient for the subject," said Mr. Davis.
"That is begging the question," Mr. Clark replied. "I wanted to find why a negro was not a citizen, if the gentleman would tell me. If he would lay down his definition, I wanted to see whether the negro did not comply with it and conform to it, so as to be a citizen; but he insists that he is not a citizen."
"I will answer that question, if the honorable Senator will permit me," said Mr. Davis. "Government is a political partnership. No persons but the partners who formed the partnership are parties to the government. Here is a government formed by the white man alone. The negro was excluded from the formation of our political partnership; he had nothing to do with it; he had nothing to do in its formation."
"Is it a close corporation, so that new partners can not be added?" asked Mr. Stewart, of Nevada.
"Yes, sir," said Mr. Davis; "it is a close white corporation. You may bring all of Europe, but none of Asia and none of Africa into our partnership."
"Let us see," said Mr. Clark, "how that may be. Take the gentleman's own ground that government is a partnership, and those who did not enter into it and take an active part in it can not be citizens. Is a woman a citizen under our Constitution?"
"Not to vote," said Mr. Davis.
"I did not ask about voting," said Mr. Clark. "The gentleman said awhile ago that voting did not constitute citizenship. I want to know if she is a citizen. Can she not sue and be sued, contract, and exercise the rights of a citizen?"
"So can a free negro," said Mr. Davis.
"Then, if a free negro can do all that," said Mr. Clark; "why is he not a citizen?"
"Because he is no part of the governing power; that is the reason," Mr. Davis replied.
"I deny that," said Mr. Clark, "because in some of the States he is a part of the governing power. The Senator only begs the question; it only comes back to this, that a nigger is a nigger." [Laughter.]
"That is the whole of it," said Mr. Davis.
"That is the whole of the gentleman's logic," said Mr. Clark.
In answer to the statement insisted on by Mr. Davis, "You can not make a citizen of any body that is not a foreigner," Mr. Johnson said:
"That would be an extraordinary condition for the country to be in. Here are four million negroes. They are not foreigners, because they were born in the United States. They have no foreign allegiance to renounce, because they owed no foreign allegiance. Their allegiance, whatever it was, was an allegiance to the Government of the United States alone. They can not come, therefore, under the naturalizing clause; they can not come, of course, under the statutes passed in pursuance of the power conferred upon Congress by that clause; but does it follow from that that you can not make them citizens; that the Congress of the United States, vested with the whole legislative power belonging to the Government, having within the limits of the United States four million people anxious to become citizens, and when you are anxious to make them citizens, have no power to make them citizens? It seems to me that to state the question is to answer it.
"The honorable member reads the Constitution as if it said that none but white men should become citizens of the United States; but it says no such thing, and never intended, in my judgment, to say any such thing. If it had designed to exclude from all participation in the rights of citizenship certain men on account of color, and to have confined, at all times thereafter, citizenship to the white race, it is but fair to presume, looking to the character of the men who framed the Constitution, that they would have put that object beyond all possible doubt; they would have said that no man should be a citizen of the United States except a white man, or rather would have negatived the right of the negro to become a citizen by saying that Congress might pass uniform rules upon the subject of the naturalization of white immigrants and nobody else; but that they did not do. They left it to Congress. Congress, in the exercise of their discretion, have thought proper to insert the term 'white' in the naturalization act; but they may strike it out, and if it should be stricken out, I do not think any lawyer, except my friend from Kentucky, would deny that a black man could be naturalized, and by naturalization become a citizen of the United States.
"But to go back to the point from which the questions of my honorable friend from Kentucky caused me to digress, we have now within the United States four million colored people, the descendants of Africans, whose ancestors were brought into the United States as chattels. It was because of that condition that they were considered as not entitled to the rights of citizenship. We have put an end to that condition. We have said that at all times hereafter men of any color that nature may think proper to impress upon the human frame, shall, if within the United States, be free, and not property. Then, we have four million colored people who are now as free as we are; and the only question is, whether, being free, they can not be clothed with the rights of citizenship. The honorable member from Kentucky says no, because the naturalization clause does not include them. I have attempted to answer that. He says no, because the act passed in pursuance of that clause does not include them. I have answered that by saying that that act in that particular may be changed."
On the following day, February 1st, the discussion of the bill was resumed by Mr. Morrill, of Maine. He said of the bill: "It marks an epoch in the history of this country, and from this time forward the legislation takes a fresh and a new departure. Sir, to-day is the only hour since this Government began when it was possible to have enacted it. Such has been the situation of politics in this country, nay, sir, such have been the provisions of the fundamental law of this country, that such legislation hitherto has never been possible. There has been no time since the foundation of the Government when an American Congress could by possibility have enacted such a law, or with propriety have made such a declaration. What is this declaration? All persons born in this country are citizens. That never was so before. Although I have said that by the fundamental principles of American law all persons were entitled to be citizens by birth, we all know that there was an exceptional condition in the Government of the country which provided for an exception to this general rule. Here were four million slaves in this country that were not citizens, not citizens by the general policy of the country, not citizens on account of their condition of servitude; up to this hour they could not have been treated by us as citizens; so long as that provision in the Constitution which recognized this exceptional condition remained the fundamental law of the country, such a declaration as this would not have been legal, could not have been enacted by Congress. I hail it, therefore, as a declaration which typifies a grand fundamental change in the politics of the country, and which change justifies the declaration now.
"The honorable Senator from Kentucky has vexed himself somewhat, I think, with the problem of the naturalization of American citizens. As he reads it, only foreigners can be naturalized, or, in other words, can become citizens; and upon his assumption, four million men and women in this country are outside not only of naturalization, not only of citizenship, but outside of the possibility of citizenship. Sir, he has forgotten the grand principle both of nature and nations, both of law and politics, that birth gives citizenship of itself. This is the fundamental principle running through all modern politics both in this country and in Europe. Every-where, where the principles of law have been recognized at all, birth by its inherent energy and force gives citizenship. Therefore the founders of this Government made no provision—of course they made none—for the naturalization of natural-born citizens. The Constitution speaks of 'natural-born,' and speaks of them as citizens in contradistinction from those who are alien to us. Therefore, sir, this amendment, although it is a grand enunciation, although it is a lofty and sublime declaration, has no force or efficiency as an enactment. I hail it and accept it simply as a declaration.
"The honorable Senator from Kentucky, when he criticises the methods of naturalization, and rules out, for want of power, four million people, forgets this general process of nations and of nature by which every man, by his birth, is entitled to citizenship, and that upon the general principle that he owes allegiance to the country of his birth, and that country owes him protection. That is the foundation, as I understand it, of all citizenship, and these are the essential elements of citizenship: allegiance on the one side, and protection on the other."
In reply to statements made by Mr. Davis, Mr. Morrill remarked: "The Senator from Kentucky denounces as a usurpation this measure, and particularly this amendment, this declaration. He says it is not within the principles of the Constitution. That it is extraordinary I admit. That the measure is not ordinary is most clear. There is no parallel, I have already said, for it in the history of this country; there is no parallel for it in the history of any country. No nation, from the foundation of government, has ever undertaken to make a legislative declaration so broad. Why? Because no nation hitherto has ever cherished a liberty so universal. The ancient republics were all exceptional in their liberty; they all had excepted classes, subjected classes, which were not the subject of government, and, therefore, they could not so legislate. That it is extraordinary and without a parallel in the history of this Government, or of any other, does not affect the character of the declaration itself.
"The Senator from Kentucky tells us that the proposition is revolutionary, and he thinks that is an objection. I freely concede that it is revolutionary. I admit that this species of legislation is absolutely revolutionary. But are we not in the midst of revolution? Is the Senator from Kentucky utterly oblivious to the grand results of four years of war? Are we not in the midst of a civil and political revolution which has changed the fundamental principles of our Government in some respects? Sir, is it no revolution that you have changed the entire system of servitude in this country? Is it no revolution that now you can no longer talk of two systems of civilization in this country? Four short years back, I remember to have listened to eloquent speeches in this chamber, in which we were told that there was a grand antagonism in our institutions; that there were two civilizations; that there was a civilization based on servitude, and that it was antagonistic to the free institutions of the country. Where is that? Gone forever. That result is a revolution grander and sublimer in its consequences than the world has witnessed hitherto.
"I accept, then, what the Senator from Kentucky thinks so obnoxious. We are in the midst of revolution. We have revolutionized this Constitution of ours to that extent; and every substantial change in the fundamental constitution of a country is a revolution. Why, sir, the Constitution even provides for revolutionizing itself. Nay, more, it contemplates it; contemplates that in the changing phases of life, civil and political, changes in the fundamental law will become necessary; and is it needful for me to advert to the facts and events of the last four or five years to justify the declaration that revolution here is not only radical and thorough, but the result of the events of the last four years? Of course, I mean to contend in all I say that the revolution of which I speak should be peaceful, as on the part of the Government here it has been peaceful. It grows out, to be sure, of an assault upon our institutions by those whose purpose it was to overthrow the Government; but, on the part of the Government, it has been peaceful, it has been within the forms of the Constitution; but it is a revolution nevertheless.
"But the honorable Senator from Kentucky insists that it is a usurpation. Not so, sir. Although it is a revolution radical, as I contend, it was not a usurpation. It was not a usurpation, because it took place within the provisions contemplated in the Constitution. More than that, it was a change precisely in harmony with the general principles of the Government. This great change which has been wrought in our institutions was in harmony with the fundamental principles of the Government. The change which has been made has destroyed that which was exceptional in our institutions; and the action of the Government in regard to it was provoked by the enemies of the Government. The opportunity was afforded, and the change which has been wrought was in harmony with the fundamental principles of the Government."
The Senator from Maine opposed the theory that this is a Government exclusively for white men. He remarked: "It is said that this amendment raises the general question of the antagonism of the races, which, we are told, is a well-established fact. It is said that no rational man, no intelligent legislator or statesman, should ever act without reference to that grand historical fact; and the Senator from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Cowan,] on a former occasion, asserted that this Government, that American society, had been established here upon the principle of the exclusion, as he termed it, of the inferior and the barbarian races. Mr. President, I deny that proposition as a historical fact. There is nothing more inaccurate. No proposition could possibly be made here or anywhere else more inaccurate than to say that American society, either civil or political, was formed in the interest of any race or class. Sir, the history of the country does not bear out the statement of the honorable Senator from Pennsylvania. Was not America said to be the land of refuge? Has it not been, since the earliest period, held up as an asylum for the oppressed of all nations? Hither, allow me to ask, have not all the peoples of the nations of the earth come for an asylum and for refuge? All the nations of the earth, and all the varieties of the races of the nations of the earth, have gathered here. In the early settlements of the country, the Irish, the French, the Swede, the Turk, the Italian, the Moor, and so I might enumerate all the races, and all the variety of races, came here; and it is a fundamental mistake to suppose that settlement was begun here in the interests of any class, or condition, or race, or interest. This Western Continent was looked to as an asylum for the oppressed of all nations and of all races. Hither all nations and all races have come. Here, sir, upon the grand plane of republican democratic liberty, they have undertaken to work out the great problem of man's capacity for self-government without stint or limit."
Mr. Davis then made another speech in opposition to the bill. When the hour for adjournment had arrived, and Mr. Johnson interrupted him with a proposition that "the bill be passed over for to-day," Mr. Davis said, "I am wound up, and am obliged to run down." The Senate, however, adjourned at a late hour, and resumed the hearing of Mr. Davis on the following day.
In alluding to Mr. Johnson's strictures on his assertion that Congress had no power to confer the right of citizenship on "the native born negro," Mr. Davis said: "The honorable Senator, [Mr. Johnson,] as I said the other day, is one of the ablest lawyers, and, I believe, the ablest living lawyer in the land. I have seen gentlemen sometimes so much the lawyer that they had to abate some of the statesman [laughter]; and I am not certain, I would not say it was so—I will not arrogate to myself to say so—but sometimes a suspicion flashes across my mind that that is precisely the predicament of my honorable friend.
"I maintain that a negro can not be made a citizen by Congress; he can not be made a citizen by any naturalization laws, because the naturalization laws apply to foreigners alone. No man can shake the legal truth of that position. They apply to foreigners alone; and a negro, an Indian, or any other person born within the United States, not being a foreigner, can not be naturalized; therefore they can not be made citizens by the uniform rule established by Congress under the Constitution, and there is no other rule. Congress has no power, as I said before, to naturalize a citizen. They could not be made citizens by treaty. If they are made so at all, it is by their birth, and the locality of their birth, and the general operation and effect of our Constitution. If they are so made citizens, that question is a judicial question, not a legislative question. Congress has no power to enlarge or extend any of the provisions of the Constitution which bear upon the birth or citizenship of negroes or Indians born in the United States.
"If there was any despot in Europe or in the world that wanted a master architect in framing and putting together a despotic and oppressive law, I would, if my slight voice could reach him, by all means say to him, Seek the laboratory of the Senator from Illinois. If he has not proved himself an adept in this kind of legislation, unconstitutional, unjust, oppressive, iniquitous, unwise, impolitic, calculated to keep forever a severance of the Union, to exclude from all their constitutional rights, privileges, and powers under the Government eleven States of the Union—if he has not devised such a measure as that, I have not reason enough to comprehend it."
Mr. Davis closed his speech by saying: "Was it for these fruits and these laws that we went into this war? Was it for these fruits and these laws and these oppressions that two million and a quarter of men were ordered into the field? Was it that the American people might enjoy these as the fruits of the triumphant close of this war, that hundreds of thousands of them have been mutilated on the battle-field and by the diseases of the camp, and that a debt of four or five thousand million dollars has been left upon the country? If these are to be the results of the war, better that not a single man had been marshaled in the field nor a single star worn by one of our officers. These military gentlemen think they have a right to command and control every-where. They do it. They think they have a right to do it here, and we are sheep in the hands of our shearers. We are dumb."
Mr. Trumbull said: "I will occupy a few moments of the attention of the Senate, after this long harangue of the Senator from Kentucky, which he closed by declaring that we are dumb in the presence of military power. If he has satisfied the Senate that he is dumb, I presume he has satisfied the Senate of all the other positions he has taken; and the others are about as absurd as that declaration. He denounces this bill as 'outrageous,' 'most monstrous,' 'abominable,' 'oppressive,' 'iniquitous,' 'unconstitutional,' 'void.'
"Now, what is this bill that is obnoxious to such terrible epithets? It is a bill providing that all people shall have equal rights. Is not that abominable? Is not that iniquitous? Is not that monstrous? Is not that terrible on white men? [Laughter.] When was such legislation as this ever thought of for white men?
"Sir, this bill applies to white men as well as black men. It declares that all men in the United States shall be entitled to the same civil rights, the right to the fruit of their own labor, the right to make contracts, the right to buy and sell, and enjoy liberty and happiness; and that is abominable and iniquitous and unconstitutional! Could any thing be more monstrous or more abominable than for a member of the Senate to rise in his place and denounce with such epithets as these a bill, the only object of which is to secure equal rights to all the citizens of the country—a bill that protects a white man just as much as a black man? With what consistency and with what face can a Senator in his place here say to the Senate and the country, that this is a bill for the benefit of the black men exclusively, when there is no such distinction in it, and when the very object of the bill is to break down all discrimination between black men and white men?"
Mr. Guthrie, of Kentucky, said: "My doctrine is that slavery exists no longer in this country; that it is impossible to exist in the face of that provision; and with slavery fell the laws of all the States providing for slavery, every one of them. I do not see what benefit can arise from repealing them by this bill, because, if they are not repealed by the Constitution as amended, this bill could not repeal them. I hope that all the States in which slavery formerly existed will accept that constitutional provision in good faith. I myself accept it in good faith. Believing that all the laws authorizing slavery have fallen, I have advised the people of Kentucky, and I would advise all the States, to put these Africans upon the same footing that the whites are in relation to civil rights. They have all the rights that were formerly accorded to the free colored population in all the States just as fully this day as they will have after this bill has passed, and they will continue to have them.
"Now, to the States belong the government of their own population, and those within their borders, upon all subjects. We, in Kentucky, prescribe punishment for those who violate the laws; we prescribe it for the white population; we prescribe it for the free African population, and we prescribe it for the slave population. All the laws prescribing punishment for slaves fell with slavery, and they were subject afterward only to the penalties which were inflicted upon the free colored population, they then being free. Slaves, for many offenses, were punished far less than the free colored people. No slave was sent to the penitentiary and punished for stealing, or any thing of that kind, whereas a free person was. But all these States will now, of course, remodel their laws upon the subject of offenses. I would advise that there should be but one code for all persons, black as well as white; that there shall be one general rule for the punishment of crime in the different States. But, sir, the States must have time to act on the subject; and yet we are here preparing laws and penalties, and proposing to carry them into execution by military authority, before the States have had time to legislate, and even before some of their Legislatures have had time to convene.
"Kentucky has had her share of talking here, and, sir, she has had her share of suffering during the war. At one time she was invaded by three armies of the rebellion; all but seven or eight counties of the State, at one time, were occupied by its armies, and her whole territory devastated by guerrillas. We have suffered in this war. We have borne it as best we could. We feel it intensely that now, at the end of the war, we should be subjected to a military despotism, our houses liable to be entered at any time when our families are at rest, by military men who can arrest and send to prison without warrant, and we are obliged to go, and we are obliged to pay any fines they may impose. I do not believe that you will lose any thing if you pause before passing such legislation as this, and establishing these military despotisms, for we do not know where they are to end."
Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana, had proposed to strike out the last clause of the bill, which provided that "such part of the land and naval forces of the United States, or of the militia," as should be necessary, might be employed to prevent the violation, and enforce the due execution of this act. The Senator from Indiana opposed the bill on the ground that it employed the machinery of the Fugitive Slave Law, and that it was to be enforced by the military authority of the United States. He said:
"This bill is a wasp; its sting is in its tail. Sir, what is this bill? It provides, in the first place, that the civil rights of all men, without regard to color, shall be equal; and, in the second place, that if any man shall violate that principle by his conduct, he shall be responsible to the court; that he may be prosecuted criminally and punished for the crime, or he may be sued in a civil action and damages recovered by the party wronged. Is not that broad enough? Do Senators want to go further than this? To recognize the civil rights of the colored people as equal to the civil rights of the white people, I understand to be as far as Senators desire to go; in the language of the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sumner], to place all men upon an equality before the law; and that is proposed in regard to their civil rights."
In reference to the reenactment of the odious features of the Fugitive Slave Law in this bill, Mr. Hendricks said: "I recollect how the blood of the people was made to run cold within them when it was said that the white man was required to run after the fugitive slave; that the law of 1850 made you and me, my brother Senators, slave-catchers; that the posse comitatus could be called to execute a writ of the law, for the recovery of a runaway slave, under the provisions of the Constitution of the United States; and the whole country was agitated because of it. Now slavery is gone; the negro is to be established upon a platform of civil equality with the white man. That is the proposition. But we do not stop there; we are to reenact a law that nearly all of you said was wicked and wrong; and for what purpose? Not to pursue the negro any longer; not for the purpose of catching him; not for the purpose of catching the great criminals of the land; but for the purpose of placing it in the power of any deputy marshal in any county of the country to call upon you and me, and all the body of the people, to pursue some white man who is running for his liberty, because some negro has charged him with denying to him equal civil rights with the white man. I thought, sir, that that frame-work was enough; I thought, when you placed under the command of the marshal, in every county of the land, all the body of the people, and put every one upon the track of the fleeing white man, that that was enough; but it is not. For the purpose of the enforcement of this law, the President is authorized to appoint somebody who is to have the command of the military and naval forces of the United States—for what purpose? To prevent a violation of this law, and to execute it.
"You clothe the marshals under this bill with all the powers that were given to the marshals under the Fugitive Slave Law. That was regarded as too arbitrary in its provisions, and you repealed it. You said it should not stand upon the statute-book any longer; that no man, white or black, should be pursued under the provisions of that law. Now, you reenact it, and you claim it as a merit and an ornament to the legislation of the country; and you add an army of officers and clothe them with the power to call upon any body and every body to pursue the running white man. That is not enough, but you must have the military to be called in, at the pleasure of whom? Such a person as the President may authorize to call out the military forces. Where it shall be, and to whom this power shall be given, we do not know."
Mr. Lane, of Indiana, replied to the argument of his colleague. He said: "It is true that many of the provisions of this bill, changed in their purpose and object, are almost identical with the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law, and they are denounced by my colleague in their present application; but I have not heard any denunciation from my colleague, or from any of those associated with him, of the provisions of that Fugitive Slave Law which was enacted in the interest of slavery, and for purposes of oppression, and which was an unworthy, cowardly, disgraceful concession to Southern opinion by Northern politicians. I have suffered no suitable opportunity to escape me to denounce the monstrous character of that Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. All these provisions were odious and disgraceful in my opinion, when applied in the interest of slavery, when the object was to strike down the rights of man. But here the purpose is changed. These provisions are in the interest of freemen and of freedom, and what was odious in the one case becomes highly meritorious in the other. It is an instance of poetic justice and of apt retribution that God has caused the wrath of man to praise Him. I stand by every provision of this bill, drawn as it is from that most iniquitous fountain, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.
"Then my colleague asks, Why do you invoke the power of the military to enforce these laws? And he says that constables, and sheriffs, and marshals, when they have process to serve, have a right to call upon the posse comitatus, the body of the whole people, to enforce their writs. Here is a justice of the peace in South Carolina or Georgia, or a county court, or a circuit court, that is called upon to execute this law. They appoint their own marshal, their deputy marshal, or their constable, and he calls upon the posse comitatus. Neither the judge, nor the jury, nor the officer, as we believe, is willing to execute the law. He may call upon the people, the body of the whole people, a body of rebels steeped in treason and rebellion to their lips, and they are to execute it; and the gentleman seems wonderfully astonished that we should call upon the military power. We should not legislate at all if we believed the State courts could or would honestly carry out the provisions of the constitutional amendment; but because we believe they will not do that, we give the Federal officers jurisdiction.
"But what harm is to result from it? Who is to be oppressed? What white man fleeing, in the language of my colleague, pursued by these harpies of the law, is in danger of having his rights stricken down? What does the bill provide? It places all men upon an equality, and unless the white man violates the law, he is in no danger. It takes no rights from any white man. It simply places others on the same platform upon which he stands; and if he would invoke the power of local prejudice to override the laws of the country, this is no Government unless the military may be called in to enforce the order of the civil courts and obedience to the laws of the country."
Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, said, in answer to some objections to the bill urged by Mr. Guthrie: "The Senator tells us that the emancipated men ought to have their civil rights, that the black codes fell with slavery; but the Senator forgets that at least six of the reoerganized States in their new Legislatures have passed laws wholly incompatible with the freedom of these freedmen; and so atrocious are the provisions of these laws, and so persistently are they carried into effect by the local authorities, that General Thomas, in Mississippi, General Swayne, in Alabama, General Sickles, in South Carolina, and General Terry, in Virginia, have issued positive orders, forbidding the execution of the black laws that have just been passed.
"So unjust, so wicked, so incompatible are these new black laws of the rebel States, made in defiance of the expressed will of the nation, that Lieutenant-general Grant has been forced to issue that order, which sets aside the black laws of all these rebellious States against the freedmen, and allows no law to be enforced against them that is not enforced equally against white men. This order, issued by General Grant, will be respected, obeyed, and enforced in the rebel States with the military power of the nation. Southern legislators and people must learn, if they are compelled to learn by the bayonets of the Army of the United States, that the civil rights of the freedmen must be and shall be respected; that these freedmen are as free as their late masters; that they shall live under the same laws, be tried for their violation in the same manner, and if found guilty, punished in the same manner and degree.
"This measure is called for, because these reconstructed Legislatures, in defiance of the rights of the freedmen, and the will of the nation, embodied in the amendment to the Constitution, have enacted laws nearly as iniquitous as the old slave codes that darkened the legislation of other days. The needs of more than four million colored men imperatively call for its enactment. The Constitution authorizes and the national will demands it. By a series of legislative acts, by executive proclamations, by military orders, and by the adoption of the amendment to the Constitution by the people of the United States, the gigantic system of human slavery that darkened the land, controlled the policy, and swayed the destinies of the republic has forever perished. Step by step we have marched right on from one victory to another, with the music of broken fetters ringing in our ears. None of the series of acts in this beneficent legislation of Congress, none of the proclamations of the Executive, none of these military orders, protecting rights secured by law, will ever be revoked or amended by the voice of the American people. There is now
"'No slave beneath that starry flag, The emblem of the free.'
"By the will of the nation freedom and free institutions for all, chains and fetters for none, are forever incorporated in the fundamental law of regenerated and united America. Slave codes and auction blocks, chains and fetters and blood-hounds, are things of the past, and the chattel stands forth a man, with the rights and the powers of the freemen. For the better security of these new-born civil rights we are now about to pass the greatest and the grandest act in this series of acts that have emancipated a race and disinthralled a nation. It will pass, it will go upon the statute-book of the republic by the voice of the American people, and there it will remain. From the verdict of Congress in favor of this great measure, no appeal will ever be entertained by the people of the United States."
Mr. Cowan spoke again, and denounced the section of the bill which provided for its enforcement by the military. He said: "There it is; words can not make it plainer; reason can not elucidate it; no language can strengthen it or weaken it, one way or the other. There is the question whether a military man, educated in a military school, accustomed to supreme command, unaccustomed to the administration of civil law among a free people, is to be intrusted with these appellate jurisdiction over the courts of the country; whether he can in any way, whether he ought in any way, to be intrusted with such a power. I, for my part, will never agree to it; and I should feel myself recreant to every duty that I owed to myself, to my country, to my country's history, and I may say to the race which has been for hundreds and thousands of years endeavoring to attain to something like constitutional liberty, if I did not resist this and all similar projects."
Mr. Trumbull answered some objections to the bill. "The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Hendricks] objects to the bill because he says that the same provisions which were enacted in the old Fugitive Slave Law are incorporated into this, and that it has been heralded to the country that it was a great achievement to do this; and he insists that if those provisions of law were odious and wicked and wrong which provided for punishing men for aiding the slave to escape, therefore they must be wicked and wrong now when they are employed for the punishing a man who undertakes to put a person into slavery. Sir, that does not follow at all. A law may be iniquitous and unjust and wrong which undertakes to punish another for doing an innocent act, which would be righteous and just and proper to punish a man for doing a wicked act. We have upon our statute-books a law punishing a man who commits murder, because the commission of murder is a high crime, and the party who does it forfeits his right to live; but would it be just to apply the law which punishes a person for committing murder to an innocent person who had killed another accidentally, without malice? That is the difference. It is the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil. True, the features of the Fugitive Slave Law were abominable when they were used for the purpose of punishing, not negroes, as the Senator from Indiana says, but white men. The Fugitive Slave Law was enacted for the purpose of punishing white men who aided to give the natural gift of liberty to those who were enslaved. Now, sir, we propose to use the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law for the purpose of punishing those who deny freedom, not those who seek to aid persons to escape to freedom. The difference was too clearly pointed out by the colleague of the Senator [Mr. Lane] to justify me in taking further time in alluding to it.
"But the Senator objects to this bill because it authorizes the calling in of the military; and he asserts that it is the only law in which the military is brought in to enforce it. The Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cowan] follows this up with a half hour's speech, denouncing this law as obnoxious to the objection that it is a military law, that it is taking the trial of persons for offenses out of the hands of the courts and placing them under the military—a monstrous proposition, he says. Is that so? What is the law?
"It is a court bill; it is to be executed through the courts, and in no other way. But does the Senator mean to say it is a military bill because the military may be called in, in aid of the execution of the law through the courts? Does the Senator from Pennsylvania—I should like his attention, and that of the Senator from Indiana, too—deny the authority to call in the military in aid of the execution of the law through the courts?
"Let me read a clause from the Constitution, which seems to have been forgotten by the Senator from Pennsylvania and the Senator from Indiana. The Senator from Pennsylvania, who has denounced this law, has been living under just such a law for thirty years, and it seems never found it out. What says the Constitution? 'Congress shall have power to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union.'
"Then, can not the militia prevent persons from violating the law? They are authorized by the Constitution to be called out for, the purpose of executing the law, and here we have a law that is to be carried into execution, and when you find persons combined together to prevent its execution, you can not do any thing with them! Suppose that the county authorities in Muscogee County, Georgia, combine together to deny civil rights to every colored man in that county. For the purpose of preventing it, before they have done any act, I say the militia may be called out to prevent them from committing an act. We are not required to wait until the act is committed before any thing can be done. That was the doctrine which led to this rebellion, that we had no authority to do any thing till the conflict of arms came. I believed then, in 1860, that we had authority; and if it had been properly exercised, if the men who were threatening rebellion, who were in this chamber defying the authority of the Government, had been arrested for treason—of which, in my judgment, by setting on foot armed expeditions against the country, they were guilty—and if they had been tried and punished and executed for the crime, I doubt whether this great rebellion would ever have taken place.
"There is another statute to which I beg leave to call the attention of the Senator from Pennsylvania, and under which he has lived for thirty years without ever having known it; and his rights have been fully protected. I wish to call attention to a section from which the tenth section of the bill under consideration, at which the Senator from Indiana is so horrified, is copied word for word, and letter for letter. The act of March 10, 1836, 'supplementary to an act entitled "An act in addition to the act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States, and to repeal the acts therein mentioned," approved 20th of April, 1818,' contains the very section that is in this bill, word for word. It did not horrify the country; it did not destroy all the liberties of the people; it did not consolidate all the powers of the Constitution in the Federal Government; it did not overthrow the courts, and it has existed now for thirty years!"
The question was first taken on the amendment offered by Mr. Hendricks, to strike out the tenth section of the bill. The vote resulted yeas, twelve; nays, thirty-four.
At this stage of the proceedings, Mr. Saulsbury moved to amend the bill by adding in the first section of the bill after the words "civil rights," the words, "except the right to vote in the States." He desired that if the Senate did not wish to confer the right of suffrage by this bill, they should say so. The question being taken on Mr. Saulsbury's amendment, the vote resulted seven in the affirmative and thirty-nine in the negative.
The vote was finally taken on the passage of the bill, which resulted thirty-three in the affirmative and twelve in the negative. The following Senators voted in favor of the bill:
Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Chandler, Clark, Connor, Cragin, Dixon, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Harris, Henderson, Howard, Howe, Kirkwood, Henry S. Lane, James H. Lane, Morgan, Morrill, Nye, Poland, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Trumbull, Wade, Willey, Williams, Wilson, and Yates—33.
The following voted against the bill, namely:
Messrs. Buckalew, Cowan, Davis, Guthrie, Hendricks, McDougall, Nesmith, Norton, Riddle, Saulsbury, Stockton, and Van Winkle—12.
Five Senators were absent, to wit:
Messrs. Creswell, Doolittle, Grimes, Johnson, and Wright—5.
CHAPTER X.
THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
The Bill referred to the Judiciary Committee and reported back — Speech by the Chairman of the Committee — Mr. Rogers — Mr. Cook — Mr. Thayer — Mr. Eldridge — Mr. Thornton — Mr. Windom — Mr. Shellabarger — Mr. Broomall — Mr. Raymond — Mr. Delano — Mr. Kerr — Amendment by Mr. Bingham — His Speech — Reply by his Colleague — Discussion closed by Mr. Wilson — Yeas and Nays on the Passage of the Bill — Mr. Le Blond's proposed title — Amendments of the House accepted by the Senate.
On the 5th of February, four days after the passage of the Civil Rights Bill in the Senate, it came before the House of Representatives, and having been read a first and second time, was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. On the 1st of March, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Wilson, brought the bill again before the House, proposing some verbal amendments which were adopted. He then made a motion to recommit the bill, pending which, he made a speech on the merits of the measure. He referred to many definitions, judicial decisions, opinions, and precedents, under which negroes were entitled to the rights of American citizenship. In reference to the results of his researches, he said:
"Precedents, both judicial and legislative, are found in sharp conflict concerning them. The line which divides these precedents is generally found to be the same which separates the early from the later days of the republic. The further the Government drifted from the old moorings of equality and human rights, the more numerous became judicial and legislative utterances in conflict with some of the leading features of this bill."
He argued that the section of the bill providing for its enforcement by the military arm was necessary, in order "to fortify the declaratory portions of this bill with such sanctions as will render it effective." In conclusion he said:
"Can not protection be rendered to the citizen in the mode prescribed by the measure we now have under consideration? If not, a perpetual state of constructive war would be a great blessing to very many American citizens. If a suspension of martial law and a restoration of the ordinary forms of civil law are to result in a subjection of our people to the outrages under the operation of State laws and municipal ordinances which these orders now prevent, then it were better to continue the present state of affairs forever. But such is not the case; we may provide by law for the same ample protection through the civil courts that now depends on the orders of our military commanders; and I will never consent to any other construction of our Constitution, for that would be the elevation of the military above the civil power.
"Before our Constitution was formed, the great fundamental rights which I have mentioned belonged to every person who became a member of our great national family. No one surrendered a jot or tittle of these rights by consenting to the formation of the Government. The entire machinery of Government, as organized by the Constitution, was designed, among other things, to secure a more perfect enjoyment of these rights. A legislative department was created, that laws necessary and proper to this end might be enacted; a judicial department was erected to expound and administer the laws; an executive department was formed for the purpose of enforcing and seeing to the execution of these laws; and these several departments of Government possess the power to enact, administer, and enforce the laws 'necessary and proper' to secure those rights which existed anterior to the ordination of the Constitution. Any other view of the powers of this Government dwarfs it, and renders it a failure in its most important office.
"Upon this broad principle I rest my justification of this bill. I assert that we possess the power to do those things which governments are organized to do; that we may protect a citizen of the United States against a violation of his rights by the law of a single State; that by our laws and our courts we may intervene to maintain the proud character of American citizenship; that this power permeates our whole system, is a part of it, without which the States can run riot over every fundamental right belonging to citizens of the United States; that the right to exercise this power depends upon no express delegation, but runs with the rights it is designed to protect; that we possess the same latitude in respect to the selection of means through which to exercise this power that belongs to us when a power rests upon express delegation; and that the decisions which support the latter maintain the former. And here, sir, I leave the bill to the consideration of the House."
Mr. Rogers, of New Jersey, followed with an argument against the bill, because it interfered with "States' Rights." Under its provisions, Congress would "enter the domain of a State and interfere with its internal police, statutes, and domestic regulations." He said:
"This act of legislation would destroy the foundations of the Government as they were laid and established by our fathers, who reserved to the States certain privileges and immunities which ought sacredly to be preserved to them.
"If you had attempted to do it in the days of those who were living at the time the Constitution was made, after the birth of that noble instrument, the spirit of the heroes of the Revolution and the ghosts of the departed who laid down their lives in defense of the liberty of this country and of the rights of the States, would have come forth as witnesses against the deadly infliction, and the destruction of the fundamental principle of the sovereignty of the States in violation of the Constitution, and the breaking down of the ties that bind the States, and the violation of the rights and liberties of the white men and white women of America.
"If you pass this bill, you will allow the negroes of this country to compete for the high office of President of the United States. Because if they are citizens at all, they come within the meaning and letter of the Constitution of the United States, which allows all natural-born citizens to become candidates for the Presidency, and to exercise the duties of that office if elected.
"I am afraid of degrading this Government; I am afraid of danger to constitutional liberty; I am alarmed at the stupendous strides which this Congress is trying to initiate; and I appeal in behalf of my country, in behalf of those that are to come after us, of generations yet unborn, as well as those now living, that conservative men on the other side should rally to the standard of sovereign and independent States, and blot out this idea which is inculcating itself here, that all the powers of the States must be taken away, and the power of the Czar of Russia or the Emperor of France must be lodged in the Federal Government.
"I ask you to stand by the law of the country, and to regulate these Federal and State systems upon the grand principles upon which they were intended to be regulated, that we may hand down to those who are to come after us this bright jewel of civil liberty unimpaired; and I say that the Congress or the men who will strip the people of these rights will be handed down to perdition for allowing this bright and beautiful heritage of civil liberty embodied in the powers and sovereign jurisdiction of the States to pass away from us.
"I am willing to trust brave men—men who have shown as much bravery as those who were engaged on battle-fields against the armed legions of the North; because I believe that even when they were fighting against the flag, of their country, the great mass of those people were moved by high and conscientious convictions of duty. And in the spirit of Christianity, in the spirit which Jesus Christ exercised when he gave up his own life as a propitiation for a fallen world, I would say to those Southern men, Come here in the Halls of Congress, and participate with us in passing laws which, if constitutionally carried into effect, will control the interests and destinies of four millions people, mostly living within the limits of your States."
Mr. Cook, of Illinois, replied: "Mr. Speaker, in listening to the very eloquent remarks of the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Rogers], I have been astonished to find that in his apprehension this bill is designed to deprive somebody, in some State of this Union, of some right which he has heretofore enjoyed. I am only sorry that he was not specific enough; that he did not inform us what rights are to be taken away. He has denounced this bill as dangerous to liberty, as calculated in its tendency at least to destroy the liberties of this country. I have examined this bill with some care, and, so far as I have been able to understand it, I have found nothing in any provision of it which tends in any way to take from any man, white or black, a single right he enjoys under the Constitution and laws of the United States.
"I would have been glad if he would have told us in what manner the white men of this country would have been placed in a worse condition than they are now, if this becomes the law. This general denunciation and general assault of the bill, without pointing out one single thing which is to deprive one single man of any right he enjoys under the Government, seems to me not entitled to much weight.
"When those rights which are enumerated in this bill are denied to any class of men, on account of race or color, when they are subject to a system of vagrant laws which sells them into slavery or involuntary servitude, which operates upon them as upon no other part of the community, they are not secured in the rights of freedom. If a man can be sold, the man is a slave. If he is nominally freed by the amendment to the Constitution, he has nothing in the world he can call his own; he has simply the labor of his hands on which he can depend. Any combination of men in his neighborhood can prevent him from having any chance to support himself by his labor. They can pass a law that a man not supporting himself by labor shall be deemed a vagrant, and that a vagrant shall be sold. If this is the freedom we gave the men who have been fighting for us and in defense of the Government, if this is all we have secured them, the President had far better never have issued the Proclamation of Emancipation, and the country had far better never have adopted the great ordinance of freedom.
"Does any man in this House believe that these people can be safely left in these States without the aid of Federal legislation or military power? Does any one believe that their freedom can be preserved without this aid? If any man does so believe, he is strangely blind to the history of the past year; strangely blind to the enactments passed by Legislatures touching these freedmen. And I shuddered as I heard the honorable gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Rogers] claiming that he was speaking and thinking in the spirit which animated the Savior of mankind when he made atonement for our race; that it was in that spirit he was acting when he was striving to have these people left utterly defenseless in the hands of men who were proving, day by day, month by month, that they desire to oppress them, for they had been made free against their consent. Every act of legislation, every expression of opinion on their part, proves that these people would be again enslaved if they were not protected by the military arm of the Federal Government; without that they would be slaves to-day. And I submit, with all deference, that it is any thing but the spirit which the gentleman claims to have exercised, which prompted the argument he has made.
"For myself, I trust that this bill will be passed, because I consider it the most appropriate means to secure the end desired, and that these people will be protected. I trust that we will say to them, Because upon our call you aided us to suppress this rebellion, because the honor and faith of the nation were pledged for your protection, we will maintain your freedom, and redeem that pledge."
On the following day, the House of Representatives resumed the consideration of this bill. A speech was made by Mr. Thayer, of Pennsylvania. He said:
"This bill is the just sequel to, and the proper completion of, that great measure of national redress which opened the dungeon-doors of four million human beings. Without this, in my judgment, that great act of justice will be paralyzed and made useless. With this, it will have practical effect, life, vigor, and enforcement. It has been the fashion of gentlemen, holding a certain set of opinions, in this House to characterize that great measure to which I have referred as a revolutionary measure.
"Sir, it was a revolutionary measure. It was one of the greatest, one of the most humane, one of the most beneficial revolutions which ever characterized the history of a free State; but it was a revolution which, though initiated by the conflict of arms and rendered necessary as a measure of war against the public enemy, was accomplished within and under the provisions of the Constitution of the United States. It was a revolution for the relief of human nature, a revolution which gave life, liberty, and hope to millions whose condition, until then, appeared to be one of hopeless despair. It was a revolution of which no freeman need be ashamed, of which every man who assisted in it will, I am sure, in the future be proud, and which will illumine with a great glory the history of this country.
"There is nothing in this bill in respect to the employment of military force that is not already in the Constitution of the United States. The power here conferred is expressly given by that instrument, and has been exercised upon the most stupendous scale in the suppression of the rebellion. What is this bill? I hope gentlemen, even on the opposite side of the House, will not suffer their minds to be influenced by any such vague, loose, and groundless denunciations as these which have proceeded from the gentleman from New Jersey. The bill, after extending these fundamental immunities of citizenship to all classes of people in the United States, simply provides means for the enforcement of these rights and immunities. How? Not by military force, not through the instrumentality of military commanders, not through any military machinery whatever, but through the quiet, dignified, firm, and constitutional forms of judicial procedure. The bill seeks to enforce these rights in the same manner and with the same sanctions under and by which other laws of the United States are enforced. It imposes duties upon the judicial tribunals of the country which require the enforcement of these rights. It provides for the administration of laws to protect these rights. It provides for the execution of laws to enforce them. Is there any thing appalling in that? Is that a military despotism? Sir, it is a strange abuse of language to say that a military despotism is established by wholesome and equal laws. Yet the gentleman declaimed by the hour, in vague and idle terms, against this bill, which has not a single offensive, oppressive, unjust, unusual, or tyrannical feature in it. These civil rights and immunities which are to be secured, and which no man can conscientiously say ought to be denied, are to be enforced through the ordinary instrumentalities of courts of justice.
"While engaged in this great work of restoration, it concerns our honor that we forget not those who are unable to help themselves; who, whatever may have been the misery and wretchedness of their former condition, were on our side in the great struggle which has closed, and whose rights we can not disregard or neglect without violating the most sacred obligations of duty and of honor. To us they look for protection against the wrongs with which they are threatened. To us alone can they appeal in their helplessness for succor and defense. To us they hold out to-day their supplicating hands, asking for protection for themselves and their posterity. We can not disregard this appeal, and stand acquitted before the country and the world of basely abandoning to a miserable fate those who have a right to demand the protection of your flag and the immunities guaranteed to every freeman by your Constitution."
Mr. Eldridge, of Wisconsin, opposed the bill, in a speech of which the following are the concluding remarks:
"I had hoped that this subject would be allowed to rest. Gentlemen refer us to individual cases of wrong perpetrated upon the freedmen of the South as an argument why we should extend the Federal authority into the different States to control the action of the citizens thereof. But, I ask, has not the South submitted to the altered state of things there, to the late amendment of the Constitution, to the loss of their slave property, with a cheerfulness and grace that we did not expect? Have they not acquiesced more willingly than we dared to hope? Then why not trust them? Why not meet them with frankness and kindness? Why not encourage them with trust and confidence?
"I deprecate all these measures because of the implication they carry upon their face, that the people who have heretofore owned slaves intend to do them wrong. I do not believe it. So far as my knowledge goes, and so far as my information extends, I believe that the people who have held the freedmen slaves will treat them with more kindness, with more leniency, than those of the North who make such loud professions of love and affection for them, and are so anxious to pass these bills. They know their nature; they know their wants; they know their habits; they have been brought up together, and have none of the prejudices and unkind feelings which many in the North would have, toward them.
"I do not credit all these stories about the general feeling of hostility in the South toward the negro. So far as I have heard opinions expressed upon that subject, and I have conversed with many persons from that section of the country, they do not blame the negro for any thing that has happened. As a general thing, he was faithful to them and their interests until the army reached the place and took him from them. He has supported their wives and children in the absence of the husbands and fathers in the armies of the South. He has done for them what no one else could have done. They recognize his general good feeling toward them, and are inclined to reciprocate that feeling toward him.
"I believe that is the general feeling of the Southern people to-day. The cases of ill-treatment are exceptional cases. They are like the cases which have occurred in the Northern States where the unfortunate have been thrown upon our charity. Take for instance the stories of the cruel treatment of the insane in the State of Massachusetts. They may have been barbarously confined in the loathsome dens, as stated in particular instances, but is that any evidence of the general ill-will of the people of the State of Massachusetts toward the insane? Is that any reason why the Federal arm should be extended to Massachusetts to control and protect the insane there?
"It has also been said that certain paupers in certain States have been badly used—paupers, too, who were whites. Is that any reason why we should extend the arm of the Federal Government to those States to protect the poor who are thrown upon the charities of the people there?
"Sir, we must yield to the altered state of things in this country. We must trust the people; it is our duty to do so; we can not do otherwise. And the sooner we place ourselves in a position where we can win the confidence of our late enemies, where our counsels will be heeded, where our advice may be regarded, the sooner will the people of the whole country be fully reconciled to each other and their changed relationship; the sooner will all the inhabitants of our country be in the possession of all the rights and immunities essential to their prosperity and happiness."
Mr. Thornton, of Illinois, feared there was "something hidden, something more than appears in the language" of the bill. He feared "a design to confer the right of suffrage upon the negro," and urged that a proviso should be accepted "restricting the meaning of the words 'civil rights and immunities.'" He remarked further: "The most serious objection that I have to this bill is, that it is an interference with the rights of the South. It was remarked by my friend from Wisconsin that it has often been intimated on this floor, and throughout the country, that whenever a man talks about either the Constitution or the rights of the States, he is either a traitor or a sympathizer with treason. I do not assume that the States are sovereign. They are subordinate to the Federal Government. Sovereignty in this country is in the people, but the States have certain rights, and those rights are absolutely necessary to the maintenance of our system of government. What are those rights? The right to determine and fix the legal status of the inhabitants of the respective States; the local powers of self-government; the power to regulate all the relations that exist between husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward; all the fireside and home rights, which are nearer and dearer to us than all others.
"Sir, this is but a stepping-stone to a centralization of the Government and the overthrow of the local powers of the States. Whenever that is consummated, then farewell to the beauty, strength, and power of this Government. There is nothing left but absolute, despotic, central power. It lives no longer but as a naked despotism. There is nothing left to admire and to cherish."
Mr. Windom, of Minnesota, next obtained the floor. Referring to the speech of Mr. Rogers, he said: "I wish to make another extract from the speech of the gentleman from New Jersey. He said, 'If you pass this bill, you will allow negroes to compete for the high office of the President of the United States.' You will actually allow them to compete for the Presidency of the United States! As for this fear which haunts the gentleman from New Jersey, if there is a negro in the country who is so far above all the white men of the country that only four millions of his own race can elect him President of the United States over twenty-six millions of white people, I think we ought to encourage such talent in the country.
"Sir, the gentleman has far less confidence in the white race than I have, if he is so timid in regard to negro competition. Does he really suppose that black men are so far superior to white men that four millions of them can elect a President of their own race against the wishes of thirty millions of ours? Ever since I knew any thing of the party to which the gentleman belongs, it has entertained this same morbid fear of negro competition; and sometimes I have thought that if we were to contemplate the subject from their stand-point we would have more charity than we do for this timidity and nervous dread which haunts them. I beg leave, however, to assure the gentleman that there is not the slightest danger of electing a black President, and that he need never vote for one, unless he thinks him better fitted for the office than a white man."
With more direct reference to the merits of the question, Mr. Windom said: "Our warrant for the passage of this bill is found in the genius and spirit of our institutions; but not in these alone. Fortunately, the great amendment which broke the shackles from every slave in the land contains an express provision that 'Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.'
"When this amendment was acted upon, it was well understood, as it is now, that although the body of slavery might be destroyed, its spirit would still live in the hearts of those who have sacrificed so much for its preservation, and that if the freedmen were left to the tender mercy of their former masters, to whose heartless selfishness has been superadded a malignant desire for vengeance upon the negro for having aided us in crushing the rebellion, his condition would be more intolerable than it was before the war. And hence the broad grant of power was made to enable Congress to enforce the spirit as well as the letter of the amendment. Now, sir, in what way is it proposed to enforce it? By denying to any one man a single right or privilege which he could otherwise constitutionally or properly enjoy? No. By conferring on any one person or class of persons a single right or immunity which every other person may not possess? By no means. Does it give to the loyal negro any preference over the recent would-be assassins of the nation? Not at all. It merely declares that hereafter there shall be no discrimination in civil rights or immunities among the citizens of any State or territory of the United States on account of race, color, or previous condition of slavery, and that every person, except such as are excluded by reason of crime, shall have the same right to enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other.
"We know, and the whole world knows, that when in the hour of our extremity we called upon the black race to did us, we promised them not liberty only, but all that that word liberty implies. All remember how unwilling we were to do any thing which would inure to the benefit of the negro. I recall with shame the fact that when, five years ago, the so-called Democracy—now Egyptians—were here in this capital, in the White House, in the Senate, and on this floor, plotting the destruction of the Government, and we were asked to appease them by sacrificing the negro, two-thirds of both houses voted to rivet his chains upon him so long as the republic should endure. A widening chasm yawned between the free and slave States, and we looked wildly around for that wherewith it might be closed. In our extremity we seized upon the negro, bound and helpless, and tried to cast him in. But an overruling Providence heard the cries of the oppressed, and hurled his oppressors into that chasm by hundreds of thousands, until the whole land was filled with mourning, yet still the chasm yawned. In our anguish and terror, we felt that the whole nation would be speedily ingulfed in one common ruin. It was then that the great emancipator and savior of his country, Abraham Lincoln, saw the danger and the remedy, and seizing four million bloody shackles, he wrenched them from their victims, and standing with these broken manacles in his hands upraised toward heaven, he invoked the blessing of the God of the oppressed, and cast them into the fiery chasm. That offering was accepted, and the chasm closed.
"When the reports from Port Hudson and Fort Wagner thrilled all loyal hearts by the recital of the heroic deeds of the black soldier, we were not reminded that if the negro were permitted to enjoy the same rights under the Government his valor helped to save that are possessed by the perjured traitors who sought its destruction, it would 'lead to a war of races.' O no! Then we were in peril, and felt grateful even to the negro, who stood between us and our enemies. Then our only hope of safety was in the brave hearts and strong arms of the soldier at the front. Now, since by the combined efforts of our brave soldiers, white and black, the military power of the South has been overthrown, and her Representatives are as eager to resume their places on this floor as five years ago they were to quit them for a place in the rebel army, we are told that, having been victorious, it becomes a great nation like ours to be magnanimous. I answer, it is far more becoming to be just. I am willing to carry my magnanimity to the verge of justice, but not one step beyond. I will go with him who goes furthest in acts of generosity toward our former enemies, unless those acts will be prejudicial to our friends. But when you advise me to sacrifice those who have stood by us during the war, in order to conciliate unrepentant rebels, whose hearts still burn with ill-suppressed hatred to the Government, I scorn your counsel."
Mr. Shellabarger, of Ohio, said: "I agree with the gentleman on the other side of the House, that this bill can not be passed under that clause of the Constitution which provides that Congress may pass uniform rules of naturalization. Under that clause it is my opinion that the act of naturalization must not only be the act of the Government, but also the act of the individual alien, by which he renounces his former allegiance and accepts the new one. And that proposition and distinction will be found, I think, in all judicious arguments upon the subject.
"There is another class of persons well recognized, not only in our constitutional history, but also by the laws of nations, who are not foreigners, who occupy an intermediate position, and that intermediate position is defined by the laws of nations by the word 'subjects.' Subjects are all persons who, being born in a given country, and under a given government, do not owe an allegiance to any other government.
"To that class in this country, according to the decisions of our courts hitherto, belong American Indians and slaves, and, according to the Dred Scott decision, persons of African descent whose ancestors were slaves. All these were subjects by every principle of international as well as of settled constitutional law in this country.
"Now, then, to that class belong the persons who are naturalized by this bill. If they were not, indeed, citizens hitherto, they were at least subjects of this Government, by reason of their birth, and by reason of the fact that they owed no foreign allegiance.
"That brings me to the next remark, and it is this: that these subjects, not owing any foreign allegiance, no individual act of theirs is required in order to their naturalization, because they owe no foreign allegiance to be renounced by their individual acts, and because, moreover, being domiciled in our own country, and continuing here to reside, it is the individual election of each member of the tribe, or race, or class, to accept our nationality; therefore, no additional individual act is required in order to his citizenship.
"That being proved, it is competent for the nationality, or for the government, wherever that subject may reside, to naturalize that class of persons by treaty or by general law, as is proposed by the amendment of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Raymond]. It is the act of the sovereign alone that is requisite to the naturalization of that class of persons, and it may be done either by a single act naturalizing entire races of men, or by adopting the heads of families out of those races, or it may be done to any extent, greater or less, that may please the sovereign. For this proposition, I refer gentlemen who desire to examine this subject to the authorities that may be found collected in any judicious work on public law, and they will find them very fully collected, certainly, in the notes to Wheaton.
"Now, then, what power may do that act of naturalization, and how may it be exercised? That is also answered by these same authorities. It may be done in this country either by an act of Congress, or it may be done by treaty. It has been done again and again and again in both ways in this country. It was done once in the case of the Choctaw Indians, as you will find in the Statutes-at-Large, where, in case the heads of families desired to remain and not to remove to the West, it was provided by the treaty of September 27, 1830, that those families should be naturalized as a class.
"Then, again, it was done in the other way, by an act of Congress, in the case cited by my learned friend from Iowa [Mr. Wilson], in the case of the Stockbridge Indians.
"It was done again, as you may remember, in the case of the Cherokees, in December, 1835. There again a class was naturalized by treaty."
Some amendments having been proposed, the bill was recommitted to the Committee on the Judiciary, with the understanding that it should be returned for consideration on Thursday of the following week.
Accordingly, on that day, March 8, the consideration of the bill being resumed, Mr. Broomall, of Pennsylvania, addressed the House, He viewed the bill as beneficent in its provisions, since it made no discriminations against the Southern rebels, but granted them, as well as the negro, the rights of citizenship.
"A question might naturally arise whether we ought again to trust those who have once betrayed us; whether we ought to give them the benefits of a compact they have once repudiated. Yet the spirit of forgiveness is so inherent in the American bosom, that no party in the country proposes to withhold from these people the advantages of citizenship; and this is saying much. With a debt that may require centuries to pay; with so many living and mutilated witnesses of the horrors of war; with so many saddened homes, so many of the widowed and fatherless pleading for justice, for retribution, if not revenge, it speaks well for the cause of Christian civilization in America that no party in the country proposes to deprive the authors of such immeasurable calamity of the advantages of citizenship.
"But the election must be made. Some public legislative act is necessary to show the world that those who have forfeited all claims upon the Government are not to be held to the strict rigor of the law of their own invoking, the decision of the tribunal of their own choosing; that they are to be welcomed back as the prodigal son, whenever they are ready to return as the prodigal son.
"The act under consideration makes that election. Its terms embrace the late rebels, and it gives them the rights, privileges, and immunities of citizens of the United States, though it does not propose to exempt them from punishment for their past crimes.
"I might consent that the glorious deeds of the last five years should be blotted from the country's history; that the trophies won on a hundred battle-fields, the sublime visible evidences of the heroic devotion of America's citizen soldiery, should be burned on the altar of reconstruction. I might consent that the cemetery at Gettysburg should be razed to the ground; that its soil should be submitted to the plow, and that the lamentation of the bereaved should give place to the lowing of cattle. But there is a point beyond which I will neither be forced nor persuaded. I will never consent that the Government shall desert its allies in the South, and surrender their rights and interests to the enemy, and in this I will make no distinction of caste or color, either among friends or foes."
Mr. Raymond, of New York, was impressed with the importance of the measure. "Whether we consider it by itself, simply as a proposed statute, or in its bearings upon the general question of the restoration of peace and harmony to the Union, I regard it as one of the most important bills ever presented to this House for its action, worthy, in every respect, to enlist the coolest and the calmest judgment of every member whose vote must be recorded upon it."
He was in favor of the first part of the bill, which declares "who shall be citizens of the United States, and declares that all shall be citizens without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, who are, have been, or shall be born within the limits and jurisdiction of the United States.
"Now, sir, assuming, as I do, without any further argument, that Congress has the power of admitting to citizenship this great class of persons just set free by the amendment to the Constitution of the United States abolishing slavery, I suppose I need not dwell here on the great importance to that class of persons of having this boon conferred upon them.
"We have already conferred upon them the great, inestimable, priceless boon of personal liberty. I can not for one moment yield to what seems to be a general disposition to disparage the freedom we have given them. I think the fact that we have conferred upon four million people that personal liberty and freedom from servitude from this time forward for evermore, is one of the highest and most beneficent acts ever performed by any Government toward so large a class of its people.
"Having gone thus far, I desire to go on by successive steps still further, and to elevate them in all respects, so far as their faculties will allow and our power will permit us to do, to an equality with the other persons and races in this country. I desire, as the next step in the process of elevating that race, to give them the rights of citizenship, or to declare by solemn statute that they are citizens of the United States, and thus secure to them whatever rights, immunities, privileges, and powers belong as of right to all citizens of the United States. I hope no one will be prepared or inclined to say this is a trifling boon. If we do so estimate this great privilege, I fear we are scarcely in the frame of mind to act upon the great questions coming before us from day to day here. I, for one, am not prepared or inclined to disparage American citizenship as a personal qualification belonging to myself, or as conferred upon any of our fellow-citizens."
Mr. Raymond expressed doubts as to the constitutionality of that part of the bill "that provides for that class of persons thus made citizens protection against anticipated inequality of legislation in the several States."
In this direction he was desirous of avoiding a veto. He said: "Moreover, on grounds of expediency, upon which I will not dwell, I desire myself, and I should feel much relieved if I thought the House fully and heartily shared my anxiety, not to pass here any bill which shall be intercepted on its way to the statute-book by well-grounded complaints of unconstitutionality on the part of any other department of the Government."
Mr. Delano, of Ohio, followed, expressing doubts as to the constitutionality of the measure. He considered it a serious infringement of the rights of the States. He said: "Now, sir, should this bill be passed, that law of the State might be overthrown by the power of Congress. In my opinion, if we adopt the principle of this bill, we declare, in effect, that Congress has authority to go into the States and manage and legislate with regard to all the personal rights of the citizen—rights of life, liberty, and property. You render this Government no longer a Government of limited powers; you concentrate and consolidate here an extent of authority which will swallow up all or nearly all of the rights of the States with respect to the property, the liberties, and the lives of its citizens."
He added, near the close of his address: "I am not to be understood as denying the power of this Government, especially that great war power which, when evoked, has no limit except as it is limited by necessity and the laws of civilized warfare. But, sir, in time of peace I would not and I can not stand here and attempt the exercise of powers by this General Government, which, if carried out with all the logical consequences that follow their assumption, will, in my opinion, endanger the liberties of the country."
Mr. Kerr, of Indiana, maintained the theory that the States should settle questions of citizenship as relating to those within their borders; that "the privileges and immunities of citizenship in the States are required to be attained, if at all, according to the laws or Constitutions of the States, and never in defiance of them." To sustain this theory, he read from a number of authorities, and finally remarked:
"This bill rests upon a theory utterly inconsistent with, and in direct hostility to, every one of these authorities. It asserts the right of Congress to regulate the laws which shall govern in the acquisition and ownership of property in the States, and to determine who may go there and purchase and hold property, and to protect such persons in the enjoyment of it. The right of the State to regulate its own internal and domestic affairs, to select its own local policy, and make and administer its own laws, for the protection and welfare of its own citizens, is denied. If Congress can declare what rights and privileges shall be enjoyed in the States by the people of one class, it can, by the same kind of reasoning, determine what shall be enjoyed by every class. If it can say who may go into and settle in and acquire property in a State, it can also say who shall not. If it can determine who may testify and sue in the courts of a State, it may equally determine who shall not. If it can order the transfer of suits from the State to the Federal courts, where citizens of the same State alone are parties, in such cases as may arise under this bill, it can, by parity of logic, dispense with State courts entirely. Congress, in short, may erect a great centralized, consolidated despotism in this capital. And such is the rapid tendency of such legislation as this bill proposes."
On the succeeding day, March 9th, Mr. Wilson having demanded the previous question, on the motion to recommit, was entitled to the floor, but yielded portions of his time to Mr. Bingham and Mr. Shellabarger.
The former had moved to amend the motion to recommit, by adding instructions "to strike out of the first section the words, 'and there shall be no discrimination in civil rights or immunities among citizens of the United States, in any State or Territory of the United States, on account of race, color, or previous condition of slavery,' and insert in the thirteenth line of the first section, after the word 'right,' the words, 'in every State and Territory of the United States.' Also, to strike out all parts of said bill which are penal, and which authorize criminal proceedings, and in lieu thereof to give to all citizens injured by denial or violation of any of the other rights secured or protected by said act, an action in the United States courts with double costs in all cases of recovery, without regard to the amount of damages; and also to secure to such persons the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus."
Mr. Bingham said: "And, first, I beg gentlemen to consider that I do not oppose any legislation which is authorized by the Constitution of my country to enforce in its letter and its spirit the bill of rights as embodied in that Constitution. I know that the enforcement of the bill of rights is the want of the republic. I know if it had been enforced in good faith in every State of the Union, the calamities, and conflicts, and crimes, and sacrifices of the past five years would have been impossible.
"But I feel that I am justified in saying, in view of the text of the Constitution of my country, in view of all its past interpretations, in view of the manifest and declared intent of the men who framed it, the enforcement of the Bill of Rights, touching the life, liberty, and property of every citizen of the republic, within every organized State of the Union, is of the reserved powers of the States, to be enforced by State tribunals and by State officials, acting under the solemn obligations of an oath imposed upon them by the Constitution of the United States. Who can doubt this conclusion who considers the words of the Constitution, 'the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people?' The Constitution does not delegate to the United States the power to punish offenses against the life, liberty, or property of the citizen in the States, nor does it prohibit that power to the States, but leaves it as the reserved power of the States, to be by them exercised. The prohibitions of power by the Constitution to the States are express prohibitions, as that no State shall enter into any treaty, etc., or emit bills of credit, or pass any bill of attainder, etc. The Constitution does not prohibit States from the enactment of laws for the general government of the people within their respective limits.
"The law in every State should be just; it should be no respecter of persons. It is otherwise now, and it has been otherwise for many years in many of the States of the Union. I should remedy that, not by arbitrary assumption of power, but by amending the Constitution of the United States, expressly prohibiting the States from any such abuse of power in the future. You propose to make it a penal offense for the judges of the States to obey the Constitution and laws of their States, and for their obedience thereto to punish them by fine and imprisonment as felons. I deny your power to do this. You can not make an official act, done under color of law, and without criminal intent, and from a sense of public duty, a crime."
Mr. Shellabarger of Ohio said: "I do not understand that there is now any serious doubt anywhere as to our power to admit by law to the rights of American citizenship entire classes or races who were born and continue to reside in our territory or in territory we acquire. I stated, the other day, some of the cases in which we naturalized races, tribes, and communities in mass, and by single exercises of national sovereignty. This we did by the treaty of April 30, 1800, by which we acquired Louisiana; also in the treaty of 1819, by which we acquired Florida; also in the treaty of 1848, by which we acquired part of Mexico; also by the resolution of March 1, 1845, annexing Texas, and the act of December 29, same year, admitting Texas into the Union, we made all the people not slaves citizens; also by the treaty of September 27, 1830, we admitted to citizens certain heads of families of Choctaws; also by the treaty of December 29, 1855, we did the same as to the Cherokees; also by the act of March 3, 1843, we admitted to full citizenship the Stockbridge tribe of Indians." Referring to the first section which his colleague had proposed to amend, he said: "Self-evidently this is the whole effect of this first section. It secures, not to all citizens, but to all races as races who are citizens, equality of protection in those enumerated civil rights which the States may deem proper to confer upon any races. Now, sir, can this Government do this? Can it prevent one race of free citizens from being by State laws deprived as a race of all the civil rights for the securement of which his Government was created, and which are the only considerations the Government renders to him for the Federal allegiance which he renders? It does seem to me that that Government which has the exclusive right to confer citizenship, and which is entitled to demand service and allegiance, which is supreme over that due to any State, may—nay, must—protect those citizens in those rights which are fairly conducive and appropriate and necessary to the attainment of his 'protection' as a citizen. And I think those rights to contract, sue, testify, inherit, etc., which this bill says the races shall hold as races in equality, are of that class which are fairly conducive and necessary as means to the constitutional end; to-wit, the protection of the rights of person and property of a citizen. It has been found impossible to settle or define what are all the indispensable rights of American citizenship. But it is perfectly well settled what are some of these, and without which there is no citizenship, either in this or any other Government. Two of these are the right of petition and the right of protection in such property as it is lawful for that particular citizen to own."
The debate was closed by Mr. Wilson, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He said: "This bill, sir, has met with opposition in both houses on the same ground that, in times gone by, before this land was drenched in blood by the slaveholders' rebellion, was urged by those who controlled the destinies of the southern portion of the country, and those who adhered to their fortunes in the North, for the purpose of riveting the chains of slavery and converting this republic into a great slave nation. The arguments which have been urged against this bill in both houses are but counterparts of the arguments used in opposition to the authority the Government sought to exercise in controlling and preventing the spread of slavery.
"Citizens of the United States, as such, are entitled to certain rights, and, being entitled to those rights, it is the duty of the Government to protect citizens in the perfect enjoyment of them. The citizen is entitled to life, liberty, and the right to property. The gentleman from Ohio tells us, in the protection of these rights, the citizen must depend upon the 'honest purpose of the several States,' and that the General Government can not interpose its strong right arm to defend the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and in possession of property. In other words, if the States of this Union, in their 'honest purpose,' like the honesty of purpose manifested by the Southern States in times past, should deprive the citizen, without due process of law, of life, liberty, and property, the General Government, which can draw the citizen by the strong bond of allegiance to the battle-field, has no power to intervene and set aside a State law, and give the citizen protection under the laws of Congress in the courts of the United States; that at the mercy of the States lie all the rights of the citizens of the United States; that while it was deemed necessary to constitute a great Government to render secure the rights of the people, the framers of the Government turned over to the States the power to deprive the citizen of those things for the security of which the Government was framed. In other words, the little State of Delaware has a hand stronger than the United States; that revolted South Carolina may put under lock and key the great fundamental rights belonging to the citizen, and we must be dumb; that our legislative power can not be exercised; that our courts must be closed to the appeal of our citizens. That is the doctrine this House of Representatives, representing a great free people, just emerged from a terrible war for the maintenance of American liberty, is asked to adopt.
"The gentleman from Ohio tells the House that civil rights involve all the rights that citizens have under the Government; that in the term are embraced those rights which belong to the citizen of the United States as such, and those which belong to a citizen of a State as such; and that this bill is not intended merely to enforce equality of rights, so far as they relate to citizens of the United States, but invades the States to enforce equality of rights in respect to those things which properly and rightfully depend on State regulations and laws. My friend is too sound a lawyer, is too well versed in the Constitution of his country, to indorse that proposition on calm and deliberate consideration. He knows, as every man knows, that this bill refers to those rights which belong to men as citizens of the United States and none other; and when he talks of setting aside the school laws, and jury laws, and franchise laws of the States, by the bill now under consideration, he steps beyond what he must know to be the rule of construction which must apply here, and, as the result of which this bill can only relate to matters within the control of Congress." |
|
