CHAPTER VIII.

RIGHTS OF CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES.

Resolution reported by Mr. Bingham to amend Constitution.-Speech of Mr. Bingham, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Higby, Mr. Randall, Mr. Kelley, Mr. Hale, Mr. Davis, Mr. Woodbridge.-Remarks of Mr. Conkling-Mr. Hotchkiss.—Mr. Conkling's motion to postpone.—Mr. Eldredge's motion.—Consideration postponed.

In the House of Representatives, February 13th, 1866, Mr. Bingham of Ohio reported from the Committee on Reconstruction a joint resolution to amend the Constitution, which was read twice and recommitted to the committee. On the 26th Mr. Bingham reported back the resolution, which provided that Congress should have power to make all laws necessary and proper to secure to the citizens of each State all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, and to all persons equal protection in the rights of life, liberty, and property. Mr. Bingham said that the amendment proposed, stood in the very words of the Constitution as it came from the hands of its illustrious framers. Every word of the amendment was in the Constitution, save the words conferring the express grant of power upon Congress. Mr. Bingham said further that it was "equally clear by every construction of the Constitution, its contemporaneous con

struction, its continued construction, legislative, executive, and judicial, that these great provisions of the Constitution, this immortal bill of rights embodied in the Constitution, rested for its execution and enforcement hitherto upon the fidelity of the States. The House knows, sir, the country knows, the civilized world knows, that the legislative, executive, and judicial offices of eleven States within this Union within the last five years, in utter disregard of these injunctions of your Constitution, in utter disregard of that official oath which the Constitution required they should severally take and faithfully keep when they entered upon the discharge of their respective duties, have violated in every sense of the word these provisions of the Constitution of the United States, the enforcement of which are absolutely essential to American nationality."

Mr. Rogers of New Jersey, a member of the committee on the judiciary, opposed the amendment. "I am for the Union," he said," the indivisible Union, the Union of our fathers, the Union made by Washington, by Jay, and by Jefferson; the Union that has given to us peace, happiness, greatness, grandeur, and glory such as never belonged to any other nation since the foundation of the civilized world. I do not want such a Union as the radicals of this country are trying to set up for me. Their Union is a Union of despotism, a Union of tyranny, a

Union not of independent fraternal States, each legislating for itself upon its own domestic affairs."

On the 27th of February the House resumed the consideration of the resolution, and Mr. Higby of California addressed the House upon the general question of reconstruction. He was followed by Mr. Randall of Pennsylvania, who opposed the resolution because the States to be affected by it were not present to participate in the action by which it was to become a part of the law of the land. Mr. Kelley of Pennsylvania would support the amendment, not because he believed it absolutely needed, but because there were those who doubted that the powers imparted by the amendment were to be found in the Constitution; he believed those powers were there from the hour of its adoption. Mr. Hale of New York maintained that the whole intended effect of the amendment, was to protect citizens of African descent in the States lately in rebellion. He thought this kind of legislation most dangerous; he believed that the tendency in this country had been from the first, too much towards the accumulation and strengthening of central federal power. He fully and cordially concurred in the desire to protect the humblest as well as the highest, the late slave as well as others, but he warned gentlemen that there were other liberties as important as the liberties of the citizen, and those were the liberties and rights of the States. Mr. Price of Iowa was among the few who did not claim to be a constitu

tional lawyer, of which the last four years had been so prolific. He understood the resolution to mean simply that if a citizen of Iowa or a citizen of Pennsylvania had any business, or if curiosity had induced him to visit South Carolina or Georgia, he should have the same protection of the laws there that he would have had had he lived there for ten years.

On the 28th of Feburary Mr. Davis of New York said: "I am unwilling, after this Constitution has been tested in peace, and in foreign war, for nearly eighty years, and when, during the last four years, it has been to us as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, pointing out a safe pathway to the nation through the Red Sea of civil war, and has led us to final triumph, and while the passions excited by the civil strife remain active and unsubdued, and wounds received are still open and bleeding, to amend or alter the organic law of the nation in any particular where a supreme necessity does not demand it."

"I have no idea that any arguments," said Mr. Woodbridge of Vermont, "that I may advance, or any views that I may submit, will alter the mind or the vote of any gentleman upon the floor. But, sir, great responsibilities rest upon the members of the present Congress. We are not writing history, which is difficult; we are making history, which is more difficult still. The footprints of this Congress will be upon the rocks of the mountains. National

and political convulsions may ensue ; republics may rise and fall; systems of government may be erected and destroyed; but never, so long as the earth rolls, will the footprints which this Congress makes be eradicated from history."

He maintained that the adoption of this amendment would be no shock upon the present well-arranged system, defining the powers of the General Government and the States, under which we have so happily lived; that the condition of the freedmen, if nothing else, demanded the adoption of this resolution; and that in his judgment the people would not have done their whole duty until they should see to it tha: the amendment was adopted.

Mr. Bingham followed in an elaborate speech in explanation and support of his amendment. "What an anomaly," said Mr. Bingham, "is presented today to the world! We have the power to vindicate the personal liberty and all the personal rights of the citizen on the remotest sea, under the frowning batteries of the remotest tyranny on this earth, while we have not the power in time of peace to enforce the citizens' rights to life, liberty, and property within the limits of South Carolina after her State government shall be recognized and her constitutional relations restored."

He closed his able speech with the following appeal to the House: "Representatives, to you I appeal, that hereafter, by your act and the approval of the loyal people of this country, every man in