History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States

nsequent upon the A

introduced - Ref

the Senate - Spee

. van Winkle - Mr.

Mr. Davis - Conv

ark - Reply of Mr.

avis "wound up" - M

Reply of Mr. Lane

remarks - Yeas and

he B

urths of the several States," four millions of the inhabitants of the United States were transformed from slaves into freemen. To leave them with their shackles b

n." The Thirty-ninth Congress assembled, realizing that it devolved upon them to define the extent of the rights,

evious notice, introduced a bill "to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights, and furnish

ittee, selected from among the men of most distinguished legal ability in the Senate. Its members were chosen in consideration of their high professional ability, their long

the Civil Rights Bill, and the nation could safely tru

se, lease, 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, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding. Any person who, under cover of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State or Territory to the deprivation of any right secured or pro

h shall have jurisdiction of cases which arise under t

themselves, as judges, to pronounce in favor of the constitutionality of this ordinance. It is an admirable illustration of the progress of the age, that the very instruments which were used a few years before to rivet tighter the chains of the slave, should b

a few verbal amendments. On account of pressure of other business, it did not come up for formal consideration and discussion in

who are to be affected by them have some means of availing themselves of their benefits. Of what avail was the immortal declaration 'that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' and 'that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men,' to the millions of the African race in this country who were ground down and degraded, and subjected to a slavery more intolerable and cruel than the world ever before knew? Of what avail was i

county to another without having a pass or a certificate of his freedom, he is liable to be committed to jail, and to be dealt with as a person who is in the State without authority. Other provisions of the statute prohibit any negro or mulatto from having firearms; and one provision of the statute declares that for 'exercising the functions of a minister of the Gospel, free negroes and mulattoes, on conviction, may be punished by any number of lashes not exceeding thirty-nine, on the ba

which have assembled in the insurrectionary States have passed laws relating to the freedmen, and in nearly all the States they have discriminated against them. They deny them certain rights, subject them to severe penalties, and still impose upon them the v

es from slavery into slavery again. The act that was passed at that time for the purpose of punishing persons who should aid negroes to escape to freedom is now to be applied by the provisions of this bill to the punishment of those who shall under

to which the attention of the American people was ever invited. During the last four or five years, I have sat in this chamber and witnessed the introduction of bills into this body which I thought obnoxious

n this country. The tears which the honest white people of this country have been made to shed from the oppressive acts of this Government, in its various departments, during the last four years, call more loudly for my sympathies than those tears which have been shedding and droppin

all the acts which have been passed from the foundation of the Government to the present hour; and if we on this side of the chamber manifest anxiety and interest in reference to these bills, and the questions involved in them, it is because, having known this population all our lives, knowing them in one hour of our infancy better than you gentlemen have known them all your lives, we feel compelled, by a sense of duty, ea

considerable length t

l interference on th

e powers of the Sta

Senator from Dela

palladium of liberty, and my young heart bounded with joy in reading the burning words of lofty patriotism. I was taught in infancy to admire, as far as the infant mind could admire, our free system of government, Federal and State; and I

y the pestilence that walketh in darkness and the destruction that wasteth at noonday, how we might, in the providence of God, resume our former position among the nations of the earth, and command the respect of the whole civilized world. But, sir, to-day, in viewing and in considering this bill, the thought has

he brave who

country's w

with dewy f

eck their ha

hall dress

s feet have

ands their k

een their di

comes, a p

turf that wra

shall henc

weeping he

ate on the merits of the bill. He thought that the objects sought could o

, consequently, the authors of the Declaration of Independence could have meant nothing more than that the rights of citizens of any community are equal to the rights of all other citizens of that community. Whenever all communities are conducted in accordance with these principles, these very conditions of their prosperous existence, then all mankind will be equal, each enjoying his equality in his own community, and not till then. Therefore, I assert that there is no right that can be exercised by any community of society more perfect than that of excluding from citizenship or membership those who are objectionable. If a little society is formed for a benevolent, literary, or any other purpose, the members immediately exercise

of theirs, admitted him into a participation of that power, except so far as to tax him for the support of Government. And, Mr. President, I think it a most important question, and particularly a most important question for the Pacific coast, and those States which lie upon it, as to whether this door shall now be thrown open to the Asiatic population. If it be, there is an end to republican government there,

r has been held up and subjected to a criminal punishment for that which may have been a conscientious discharge of his duty. It is, I say, the first case that I know of,

this law is mainly to operate upon those people. I think it would be at least decent, respectful, if we desire to maintain and support this Government on the broad found

er Senator, to make remarks upon the subject of reconstruction. Many questions and remark

d that beyond this particular office the amendment does not go; that it can have no effect whatever upon the condition of the emancipated black in any other respect. In other words, they hold that it relieves him from his so-called legal obligation to render his personal service to his master without compensation, and there leaves him, totally, irretrievably, and without any power on

he right to become a husband or a father in the eye of the law; he had no child; he was not at liberty to indulge the natural affections of the human heart for children, for wife, or even for friend. He owned no property, because the law prohibited him. He could not take real or personal estate either by sale, by grant, or by descent or inheritance. He did not own the bread he earned and ate. He stood upon the face of the earth comp

industry of which he may be capable; it leaves him without friend or support, and even without the clothes to cover his nakedness. He is a waif upon the current of time; he has nothing that belongs to him on the face of the earth, except solely his naked person. And here, in this State, we are called upon to abandon the poor creature whom we have emancipated.

eir bearing upon the legislation now proposed. He said: "I have been exceedingly anxious individually that there should be some definition which will rid this class of our people from that objection. If the Supreme Court decision is a binding one, and will be followed in the future, th

ongress by legislation to make citizens of all the inhabitants of the State of Texas, why is it not in the power of Congress to make citizens by legislation of all who are inhabitants of the United States, and who are not citizens? That is what this bill does, or what it proposes to do. There are within the

does not make them citizens? Before they were not citizens, because of slavery, and only because of slavery. Slavery abolished, why are they not just as much citizens as they would have been if slavery had never existed? My opinion is t

make any other person than a person who belonged to one of the nationalities of Europe a citizen. I invoke the chairman of the committee to give me an instance, to point to any history or any memento, where a negro, although that negro was born in America, was ever made a citizen of either of the States of the United States before the adoption of this Constitution. The whole material out of which citizens were made previous to the adoption of the present

in relation to citizenship, or acted in their governments in relation to citizenship, the subject of that legislation or that action was the Caucasian race

to ask him if he means to assert that negroes were not citizens

were not," s

any authority to show

Trum

," said Mr. Davis,

and I thought he would like to have it in his speech. I can assert to him that by a solemn decision

allow me," said Mr. Davis, "I w

r," replied Mr. Trumbull, "by not

great deal more brains," said Mr. Davis, who then proceeded "to throw up" wha

id he, "is, that no na

ace or color, can be ad

ess under the power co

y the Constituti

hat is not the rule by which our Constitution is to be interpreted. It is not the rule by which it is to be administered. On the contrary, if the able, honorable, and clear-headed Senator from Illinois would do himself and his country the justice to place himself in the position of the framers of the Constitution; if he would look all around on the circumstances and connections of that day, on the purposes of those men not only in relation to forming a more perfect Union, but also in relation to sec

, by which Indians "under tribal authority" should be excluded from the benefits conferred by this bill. After this question was disposed of,

mental principles of our system; but whether he be a citizen or not, he is not a foreigner, and no ma

pshire, interposed: "

us what constitute

titu

in the fullest sense of the

. Clark, "who is not a citizen, but my q

exercise of your own

vi

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 adopt

ted that free negroes w

New Hampshire,

ll me what, in his opinion, constitut

ion by declaring what a thing is not. Now, the honorable Senator asks me what a citizen is. I

lucid definition,

the subject,"

the gentleman would tell me. If he would lay down his definition, I wanted to see whether the negro did

ons but the partners who formed the partnership are parties to the government. Here is a government formed by the white man alone. The

hat new partners can not be adde

corporation. You may bring all of Europe, but non

at government is a partnership, and those who did not enter into it and take an ac

te," said

hat voting did not constitute citizenship. I want to know if she is a citizen.

ee negro," s

do all that," said Mr. Clar

of the governing powe

vis re

a part of the governing power. The Senator only begs the question;

hole of it," s

n: Hon. Reve

f the gentleman's lo

Davis, "You can not make a citizen of any bo

overnment 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 Unit

r 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 a

hts 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 fre

e 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 c

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 pr

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 hi

o 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 republi

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 i

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

han 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 w

cal 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 t

interrupted him with a proposition that "the bill be passed over for to-day," Mr. Davis said, "I am wound up, and am obli

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 [laug

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 locali

he 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

its 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 no

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

le shall have equal rights. Is not that abominable? Is not that iniquitous? Is not that monstrous? Is not

d 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

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,

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 on

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 sen

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 t

esponsible 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 color

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 re?nact 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 n

white or black, should be pursued under the provisions of that law. Now, you re?nact 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 p

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

rcuit 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 rebellio

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

at least six of the re?rganized 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 lo

w 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

he 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.

eneath that

em of th

t, 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 disinthralle

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 ne

l. 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, th

ce 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 i

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 atten

a. The Senator from Pennsylvania, who has denounced this law, has been living under just such a law for thirty years, and it seems never fou

ights 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

n, 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

y Mr. Hendricks, to strike out the tenth section of the

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, the

resulted thirty-three in the affirmative and twelve in the

rown, Chandler, Cl

oot, Foster, Harris

enry S. Lane, Jam

nd, Pomeroy, Ramse

umbull, Wade, Wille

Yate

oted against th

Cowan, Davis, Gu

Norton, Riddle, Saul

Wink

rs were abs

oolittle, Grimes, J