"Now, I shall not attempt, in the ten minutes allowed me, to analyze that section. I will first state that the first part of the section, down to the end of line fourteen, is now the law of the United States, having been enacted in 1861. Therefore the provisions of this section that are new are included in the portion following the fourteenth line.

"The change which the amendment proposes to make in section two of the original bill as reported by the committee, so far as it relates to disputed grounds, so far as it is not confined to infractions of right which are clearly independent of the fourteenth amendment, referable to and sustainable by the old provisions of the Constitution, is to be found in those portions of the section which are contained in the part beginning at line twentyfive, I think; I cannot state exactly the place

"There, sir, is brought into notice that which is supposed to be the distinction between the original second section as proposed by the bill and the section as proposed in this amendment. The object of the amendment is, as interpreted by its friends who brought it before the House, so far as I understand it, to confine the authority of this law to the prevention of deprivations, which shall attack the equality of rights of American citizens; that any violation of the right, the animus and effect of which is to strike down the citizen, to the end that he may not enjoy equality of rights as contrasted with his and other citizens' rights, shall be within the scope of the remedies of this section.

"Now, there is much other detail here that I need not allude to. But, so far as I now comprehend the effect of it, I have stated it. There is force in the point of distinction that is made; and, without undertaking to enter into it, I will now state some other changes proposed by the amendment.

6

"In the third section of the bill as reported by the committee, at the end of the third line, are added the words and of the United States; so that the obstructions or combinations which effect the obstruction of the laws thereof' (meaning the State laws) shall be so extended as to include obstructions of the laws

of the United States. That is rather a verbal amendment.

"In the fourth section of the bill as originally reported by the committee is this, which is deemed an important change: As reported by the committee the section provides that the violence must be such as to set at defiance the constituted authorities of the State. To that is added by this amendment a provision that the violence must also be a defiance of the authorities of the United States that shall be present in the district, thus widening the state of violence and of danger required before the interposition provided for in the fourth section can be resorted to. It must be so very imposing as to defy both the authority of the State and the authority of the United States; that is, of the marshals of the United States present in the district.

"The amendment further strikes out that part of the section reported by the committee which authorized the declaration of martial law, and leaves no other express power granted except that express power which is found in the right of the President to suspend the privileges of the right of habeas corpus.

"These, then, are the changes made by the proposed amendment.

"I will repeat. The first section stands as tion is as reported in the proposed amendment reported by the committee. The second secof the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Cook). The third section is so changed as to require also be invaded and defied. The fourth section that the authority of the United States must is so changed that the privileges of the right of habeas corpus cannot be suspended unless the authorities of the United States, as well as of the State, are unable to cope with the violence; and it excludes also the provision in regard to the declaration of martial law.

"I wish to make this general statement in explanation of the action of the members of the committee who are friendly to this bill. The amendment is not one proposed from the committee, but is one prepared simply upon consultation of those who desire to make the bill conform to the wishes of such members as believe that some such measure should be passed."

Several amendments were offered to the amendment of Mr. Shellabarger; some were adopted, and other rejected or withdrawn, and the original amendment as amended was agreed to, and the bill passed by the following vote:

YEAS-Messrs. Ambler, Averill, Banks, Barber, Barry, Beatty, Bigby, Bingham, Austin Blair, George M. Brooks, Buckley, Buffinton, Burchard, Burdett, Benjamin F. Butler, Clarke, Cobb, Coburn, Conger, Donnan, Eames, Edwards, Elliott, Farnsworth, FarCook, Cotton, Creely, Dawes, DeLarge, Dickey, well, Finkelnburg, Charles Foster, Frye, Garfield, Goodrich, Hale, Halsey, Harmer, George E. Harris, Havens, Hawley, Hay, Gerry W. Hazleton, John W. Hazleton, Hill, Hoar, Hooper, Kelley, Ketcham, KilMcGrew, McJunkin, McKee, Mercur, Merriam, Monlinger, Lamport, Lansing, Lowe, Maynard, McCrary, roe, Moore, Morey, Leonard Myers, Negley, Orr,

Packard, Packer, Palmer, Isaac C. Parker, Peck, Pendleton, Perce, Aaron F. Perry, Platt, Poland, Porter, Prindle, Rainey, Ellis H. Roberts, Rusk, Saw yer, Scofield, Seeley, Sessions, Shanks, Sheldon, Shellabarger, Shoemaker, H. Boardman Smith, John A. Smith, Worthington C. Smith, Snyder, Sprague, Stevenson, Stoughton, Stowell, St. John, Sypher, Taffe, Thomas, Turner, Twichell, Tyner, Upson, Wakeman, Walden, Waldron, Wallace, Walls, Washburn, Wheeler, Whiteley, Willard, Williams of Indiana, Jeremiah M. Wilson, and John T. Wilson-118. NAYS-Messrs. Acker, Adams, Archer, Arthur, Beck, Bell, Biggs, Bird, Braxton, Bright, James Brooks, Caldwell, Campbell, Carroll, Comingo, Cox, Crebs, Critcher, Crossland, Davis, Dox, DuBose, Duke, Eldridge, Ely, Forker, Henry D. Foster, Gar rett, Getz, Golladay, Griffith, Haldeman, Handley, Hanks, Harper, John T. Harris, Hereford, Hibbard, Holman, Kerr, King, Kinsella, Lamison, Leach, Lewis, Manson, Marshall, McClelland, McCormick, MeHenry, McIntyre, McKinney, McNeely, Merrick, Benjamin F. Meyers, Mitchell, Morgan, Niblack, Hosea W. Parker, Eli Perry, Potter, Randall, Edward Y. Rice, John M. Rice, Ritchie, William R. Roberts, Robinson, Rogers, Roosevelt, Sherwood, Shober, Slater, Slocum, Sloss, R. Milton Speer, Stevens, Storm, Sutherland, Swann, Terry, Van Trump, Vaughan, Voorhees, Waddell, Warren, Wells, Whitthorne, Williams of New York, Winchester, Wood, and Young-91.

NOT VOTING-Messrs. Ames, James G. Blair, Roderick R. Butler, Darrall, Duell, Dunnell, Hambleton, Hays, Kendall, Lynch, Morphis, Peters, Price, Read, Thomas J. Speer, Dwight Townsend, Washington Townsend, and Tuthill-18.

In the Senate, on April 11th, the above bill from the House was considered, together with the amendments proposed by the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont, said: "I will say a word in respect to the scope of the bill as it stands, and as it will be, as to its general scope, if amended.

"The first section is one that I believe nobody objects to, as defining the rights secured by the Constitution of the United States when they are assailed by any State law or under color of any State law, and it is merely carrying out the principles of the civil rights bill, which have since become a part of the Constitution.

"The second section, it will be observed, only provides for the punishment of a conspiracy. It does not provide for the punishment of any act done in pursuance of the conspiracy, but only a conspiracy to deprive citizens of the United States, in the various ways named, of the rights which the Constitution and the laws of the United States made pursuant to it give to them; that is to say, conspiracies to overthrow the Government, conspiracies to impede the course of justice, conspiracies to deprive people of the equal protection of the laws, whatever those laws may be. It does not provide, as I say, for any punishment for any act which these conspirators shall do in furtherance of the conspiracy. It punishes the conspiracy alone, leaving the States, if they see fit, to punish the acts and crimes which may be committed in pursuance of the conspiracy. I confess that I thought myself it was desirable,

to make the bill complete, to make it completely logical and completely effective, that a section should have been added providing not only for punishing the conspiracy, but providing also in the same way for punishing any act done in pursuance of the conspiracy. This section gives a civil action to anybody who shall be injured by the conspiracy, but does not punish an act done as a crime.

"Then the third section is, as we think, one in entire conformity to precedents and in entire conformity to the principles of the Constitution and of the laws, authorizing the Presi dent, when the lawful rights of citizens of the United States shall be interfered with and overthrown by unlawful conspiracies, combinations, and insurrections, and when the State shall fail to protect the people in those rights and put down these insurrections, to bring to bear the power of the nation for the purpose of repressing such tumults and disorders, and handing the violators of the law over to justice.

"The fourth section provides that when these unlawful conspiracies and combinations shall have proceeded to that extreme extent as really to become general in a State, covering more than one combination and being so powerful as to be able to overthrow the State authorities and to set them at defiance, then it shall be treated as in the character of a local rebellion, and the President, in that case, shall be authorized, as the Constitution gives us the power to authorize him, to bring the military to bear upon it, and for the time being, within the district where the power of the courts and the power of the States are both set at defiance, to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. But even then the bill does not go so far in that direction as upon a mere reading it. would be supposed it did, because there is attached to this suspension of the habeas corpus the provision that the act of 1863 relating to habeas corpus shall apply even to a case of this kind; and that provides that in all cases in States where the habeas corpus is suspended, and the Federal judiciary is still able to hold sway at the places where it holds courts, any person arrested and seized under the suspension of the habe 8 corpus shall be reported to the Federal judiciary within a limited time, or as soon as practicable, and if the Federal judiciary shall not deal with the offenders thus reported by finding indictments or other prosecution, then, upon the order of a judge, the persons thus seized under the suspension of habeas corpus shall be set at liberty.

"In substance and fact it leaves a Federal habeas corpus in effect, although not in precise form, still operating for a limited time. So that really the sharpest criticism, with this proviso, could scarcely say that in a substantial sense we authorize the President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus at all. About all that we do is to authorize him to proclaim that he has suspended it, and then, as soon as he has caught anybody, to report him and

eral Government undertook to see that the citizen of each State should have all the rights and privileges conceded to citizens of the several States; that is to say, a citizen of the United States in Germany, or France, or England, should receive the same protection that was granted to other foreigners in those countries, and the citizen of Massachusetts should be protected by the Federal Government in his rights when he went to Carolina in the same manner as the citizen of Carolina was protect ed by the laws of that State.

"This was the character of the Federal Government as originally formed. The personal rights of individuals were at the mercy of the State governments in the respective States. We all know that until 1808 the Constitution of the United States permitted the various States of the Union to bring persons from other countries into their borders and make them slaves. We know that, under the Constitution of the United States, previous to the war, every person of African descent born in certain States of the Union was a slave, deprived of all rights, and, in some, laws were passed reducing to slavery free persons of color. The Constitution in that respect has been changed by the thirteenth amendment, which declares that slavery shall no longer exist in the United States; and it is not competent now for any State to make a slave of any person within its jurisdiction, and the Federal Government is clothed with authority to prevent that being done.

"Under that authority, there was passed, shortly after its enactment, a law known as the civil rights act, which undertook to give effect to the thirteenth amendment and protect those who had been slaves in the same rights as were conceded to white citizens. The civil rights act did not undertake to protect those who had been slaves, nor whites, in particular rights; but it declared that the rights of the colored people should be the same as those conceded to the white people in certain respects, which were named in the act. The necessity for that legislation grew out of the laws in several of the then late slaveholding States, which denied to persons of color the ordinary and fundamental rights which were conceded to white citizens.

"Subsequently to the enactment of the civil rights act, the fourteenth constitutional amendment was adopted. That amendment in its first clause is but a copy of the civil rights act, declaring that all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign jurisdiction, are citizens of the United States. This had been previously declared by act of Congress, and it was so without any act of Congress. Every person born within the jurisdiction of a nation must be a citizen of that country. Such persons are called subjects of the Crown in Great Britain, in this country citizens of the United States. It is an entire mistake to suppose that there was no such

VOL. XI.-14 A

thing as an American citizen until the adoption of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States. American citizenship existed from the moment that the Government of the United States was formed. The Constitution itself prohibits any person from sitting in this body who has not been nine years a citizen of the United States, not a citizen of a particular State. By the terms of the Constitution he must have been a citizen of the United States for nine years before he could take a seat here, and seven years before he could take a seat in the other House; and, in order to be President of the United States, a person must be a native-born citizen. "It is the common law of this country, and of all countries, and it was unnecessary to incorporate it in the Constitution, that a person is a citizen of the country in which he is born. That had been frequently decided in the United States. It has been acted upon by the executive department of the Government in protecting the rights of native-born persons of this country as citizens of the United States. It has been held in the judicial tribunals of the country that persons born in the United States were citizens of the United States.

"It was because of the idea which obtained before the adoption of the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, that slaves were property and not persons, that it was thought proper to embody, in the civil rights bill, the declaration that all persons born in the United States were citizens. I did not think at that time that it was necessary. I recollect that I had a discussion on that very point with the then Senator from Maryland, Mr. Reverdy Johnson, as to the propriety of inserting in the civil rights act those words declaring that all persons born in the United States were citizens. We both agreed that after the abolition of slavery everybody born in and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States was a citizen of the United States; but we both thought that in consequence of the declaration which had been enunciated in the Dred Scott case, and also in order that there might be no cavil about it, it was better to declare it by law."

Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont: "That decision was flatly the other way, that they were not citizens, although free persons."

Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois: "Yes, sir, there is a decision, I think, that even free colored persons were not citizens. After the abolition of slavery and of the distinction in regard to colored persons, I do not think such a decision could have been maintained. It was advisable, at any rate, to put such an express declaration in the law. After that bill was passed it will be remembered that the President of the United States vetoed it, and one of the reasons that he gave for the veto was that Congress could not by law declare that these persons were citizens of the United States. I remem

ber very well the answer which I gave to that suggestion of the President, which was twofold: first, that it was competent to make persons citizens by statute; second, that the statute was but declaratory of what the law already was. I agreed that they were citizens. The President said in his veto message that, if that was true, the law was of no use, and, if it was not true, the law could not make them citizens; the answer to which was that the statute was declaratory of what the law was before, and numerous statutes were referred to to show that it had been the practice, almost from the origin of the Government, to make persons citizens of the United States by act of Congress. It had been done in reference to Indian tribes; it had been done in regard to Mexicans; and different classes of persons had been made citizens by act of Congress before, and the act was a proper one to settle the question.

"Then, when we came to the adoption of the fourteenth amendment, it was suggested by some persons that there might still be a cavil upon this question as to whether all persons born in the United States were citizens, and it was thought advisable, for the purpose of putting that question once and forever at rest, to insert the words which are in the fourteenth amendment, declaring that all persons born within the United States and subject to its jurisdiction were citizens of the United States. In my opinion, that has not changed at all the fact that, after the abolition of slavery, and after the authority of the States to deprive persons of liberty ceased, every person born in the United States was a citizen of the United States. I do not think there could have been any question that they were all citizens without the declaration in the civil rights act, or without the declaration in the fourteenth amendment. Who believes any court would ever have held that a person born in the United States was not a citizen, if slavery had never existed?"

Mr. Scott, of Pennsylvania, said: "I have felt interested in the statement which the Senator has made, but I wish, in view of the question which he suggests was made as to the necessity of incorporating this clause in the fourteenth amendment, to make a statement with reference to an opinion upon that point, which might have been held to have very considerable weight upon it, and as justifying the declaration in the fourteenth amendment.

"Very considerable attention was being directed in the year 1834 to the status of the free colored population in Pennsylvania, both under the Constitution of the United States and under the constitution of Pennsylvania, in view of the fact that the calling of a convention to reform the constitution was being agitated. At that time a pamphlet was published, by a member of the Pennsylvania bar, elaborately discussing the question, and arriving at the conclusion that the free colored man

was not a citizen of the United States, and that he was not a citizen of Pennsylvania. I have a copy of that pamphlet in my possession. It is a rare pamphlet. It was submitted to Chief-Justice Marshall, and he addressed to the author of the pamphlet a letter indorsing and approving the conclusions at which he arrived; so that there was eminent authority at least-it was not judicially delivered, but the opinion of an eminent judge that the free colored man was not a citizen of the United States."

Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont: "That was the very point in the Dred Scott case, where the Supreme Court flatly decided so."

Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois: "That has been so decided judicially; but that grew out of this same system of slavery. The Senator from Pennsylvania will see at once to what straits those who maintained slavery were driven. If the colored man in Pennsylvania was a citizen of the United States, he had a right to go to Carolina, and there to enjoy all the rights and immunities of a citizen of Carolina, under the protection of the national Government; and that was inconsistent, as was insisted, with another provision of the Constitution, which authorized, or tolerated, holding the African race in slavery; and, therefore, taking the whole Constitution together, the advocates of slavery insisted that a colored man could not be a citizen anywhere; a very illogical and unjust conclusion, in my opinion, and never warranted either by reason or by the Constitution.

"But the Senator from Pennsylvania will see that the whole force of that argument was destroyed when the authority to hold anybody in slavery was taken away. Then there was no conflict between different portions of the Constitution to be reconciled, even in the view of those who had before insisted that slavery was sustained by that instrument, a position which I do not admit at all, and never did admit; but I do not wish to go into that. I think all that the Constitution of the United States ever did in regard to slavery was simply to tolerate its existence in the States which by their laws authorized it. I think, then, the reason of the decision originally made, that a colored person could not be a citizen, fell when slavery was abolished, and I can hardly conceive that the decision would have been repeated afterward.

"The amendment further declares that they are also citizens of the States in which they reside. That was judicially decided to be so before. A person who was a citizen of the United States and resided in one of the States was a citizen of that State before the adoption of the fourteenth amendment; and so it had been judicially decided.

"I come now, Mr. President, to those clauses of the fourteenth amendment which, it is supposed, have changed the Constitution as it was originally formed. The next is: