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 THE UBFTARY OF f/'K-wnt^ 
 
 ONE COUNTRY, ONE CONSTITUTION, AND ONE PEOPLE. 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 HON. JOHN A. BINGHAM, OF OHIO, 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OP REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 28, 1866, 
 
 In support of the proposed amendmeiit to enforce the Bill of Rights. 
 
 Mr. BINGHAM said: 
 
 Mr. Speaker: I approach the discussion of 
 this subject, aware that it will be utterly im- 
 possible tor me, within the time allotted me by 
 the rules of the House, to do justice to the pro- 
 I^osition reported by the joint committee. 
 
 I think, sir, that the honorable gentleman 
 from Vermont [Mr. Woodbridge] has uttered 
 words that ought to be considered and accepted 
 by gentlemen of the House, when he says that 
 the action of this Congress in its effect upon the 
 future prosperity of the country will be felt by 
 generations of men after we shall all have paid 
 the debt of nature. I believe, Mr. Speaker, as 
 I have had occasion to say more than once, that 
 the peojile of the United States have intrusted 
 to the present Congress in some sense the care 
 of the Republic, not only for the present, but 
 for all the hereafter. Your committee, sir, 
 would not have sent to this House for its con- 
 sideration this proposition but for the convic- 
 tion that its adoption by Congress and its rati- 
 fication by the people of the United States is 
 essential to the safety of all the people of every 
 State. I repel the suggestion made here in the 
 heat of debate, that the committee or any of its 
 members who favor this proposition seek in any 
 ^ form to mar the Constitution of the country, or 
 teke away from any State any right that belongs 
 to it, or from any citizen of any State any right 
 that belongs to him under that Constitution. 
 The proposition pending before the House is 
 simply a proposition to arm the Congress of the 
 United States, by the consent of the people of 
 the United States, with the power to enforce the 
 bill of rights as it stands in the Constitution to- 
 day. It ''hath that extent — no more." 
 
 Gentlemen who seem to be veiy desirous 
 (although it has very recently come to them) 
 to stand well with the President of the United 
 States, if they will look narrowly into the mes- 
 sage which ire addressed to this Congress at 
 the opening of the session will find that the 
 proposition pending is approved in that mes- 
 sage. The President in the message tells this 
 House and the country that "the American sys- 
 tem rests on the assertion of the equal rigTit of 
 
 every man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
 happiness." 
 
 But, sir, that statement rests upon higher 
 authority than that of the President of the 
 United States. It rests upon the authority of 
 the whole people of the United States, speak- 
 ing through their Constitution as it has come 
 to us from the hands of the m»n ^^o fr«r vl 
 it. The words of that grei.' ■ :).-,lrumeQi. are ; 
 
 " The citizens of each State -hall be entitled to al] f 
 privileges and immunil' ''s ol' oiliiens in the sever41 
 States." 
 
 "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or 
 property, without due process of law." 
 
 What do gentlemen say u> these provisior^' *' 
 " Oh, we favor that ; we agree with the i resi- 
 dent that the basis of the American system is 
 the right of every man to life, liberty, and the 
 pursuit of happiness ; we agree that the Con- 
 stitution declares the right of every citizen of 
 the United States to the enjoyment of all priv- 
 ileges and immunities of citizens in the sev- 
 eral States, and of all persons to be protected 
 in life, liberty, and property." 
 
 Gentlemen admit the force of the provisions 
 in the bill of rights, that the citizens of the 
 United States shall be entitled to all the priv- 
 ileges and immunities of citizens of the United 
 States in the several States, and that no i^erson 
 shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property 
 without due process of law ; but they say, '"We 
 are opposed to its enforcement by act of Con- 
 gress under an amended Constitution, as i>ro- 
 posed." That is the sum and substance of all 
 the argument that we have heard on this sub- 
 ject. Why are gentlemen opposed to the en- 
 forcement of the bill of rights, as proposed? 
 Because they aver it would interfere with the 
 reserved rights of the States ! Who ever before 
 heard that any State had reserved to itself the 
 right, under the Constitution of the United 
 States, to withhold from any citizen of the Uni- 
 ted States within its limits, under any pretext 
 whatever, any of the privileges of a citizen of 
 the United States, or to impose upon him, no 
 matter from what State he may have come, any 
 burden contrary to that provision of the Consti- 
 
.134 \ 
 
 tution which declares that the citizen shall be 
 entitled in the several States to all the immu- 
 nities of a citizen of the United States? 
 
 ^Vhat does the word immunity in your Con- 
 stitution mean ? Exemption from unequal bur- 
 dens. Ah! say gentlemen who oppose this 
 amendment, we are not opjiosedto equal rights ; 
 we are not opposed to the bill of rights that all 
 shall be j^rotected alike in life, liberty, and prop- 
 erty ; we are only opposed to enforcing it by 
 national authority, even by the consent of the 
 loyal j^eople of all the States. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, we have had some most extraor- 
 dinary arguments against the adoption of the pro- 
 posed amendment. Among others we have the 
 argument of the gentleman from New Jersey, 
 [Mr. Rogers.] that he is opposed to it because 
 he says it comes from a joint committee more 
 tyrannical than an}^ tyranny which disgraced 
 the times of Louis XIV. I do not see, if the 
 amendment be good, that that is any objection 
 to its adoption. The gentleman seemed to think 
 it was an objection. He must have spoken 
 sportively ; he must have spoken ironically 
 of the committee of which the gentleman him- 
 self is a member. The gentleman unwittingly 
 echoed the speech made at the other end of the 
 avenue, and I regret to say by the President, 
 in which he denounced to a party of the gentle- 
 man's choosing this joint committee of recon- 
 struction, raised by the action of both Houses 
 of Congress, as a central dictator unconstitu- 
 tional and unauthorized by law. Why, sir, if 
 the gentleman was not speaking sportivel}'; if 
 he was not speaking ironically, one would sup- 
 pose he would make haste to withdraw himself 
 from all connection with such a committee as 
 that of which he thus speaks. Surely the gen- 
 tleman does not mean by this denunciation of 
 the committee to- boast, like certain men of 
 eighteen centuries ago, that he is better than 
 othermen, who lifted uptheirhandsandthanked 
 God that they were not like other men. If 
 that be the gentleman's opinion of himself, it 
 is time he should exclaim, " My soul, be not 
 thou united with their assembly or sit in the 
 council of the ungodly!" 
 
 We have the argument of the gentleman 
 from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Randall,] that how- 
 ever just the amendment may be we ought 
 not to pass it in the absence of the Representa- 
 tives of the eleven States lately in insurrec- 
 tion against the country. Mr. Speaker, when 
 the gentleman comes to reflect upon that re- 
 mark of his he will see by using it he casts an 
 imputation upon the very men who fi-amed the 
 matchless Constitution of the country under 
 which we are assembled here to-day. It was 
 written in the Articles of Confederation that 
 they "should be articles of perpetual Union" 
 between the original thirteen States who were 
 parties to it. It was written in the Constitu- 
 tion that, if adopted by nine States, it should 
 become the Constitution for those nine States, 
 the covenant of the Articles of Confederation 
 to the contrary notwithstanding. It thence 
 resulted that the Constitution did become the 
 supreme law of some teti States, in the absence 
 of assent thereto on tjne part of three, and in 
 
 direct violation of the express covenant of the 
 Confederation itself. And when the question 
 was asked of one of the fathers of the Con- 
 stitution, how can you break up the Confed- 
 eration without the consent of all the States, 
 and against the protest of some of them ; how 
 can you break the covenant ''of perpetual 
 Union" under the Articles of Confederation? 
 he gave for answer, that the right of the peo- 
 ple to self-preservationjustiiies it ; it rests upon 
 the transcendent right of nature, and nature's 
 God. That right is still in the people and hfis 
 justified their action through all this trial. It 
 is the inherent right of the people. It cannot 
 be taken from them. It has survived the storms 
 and tempests of this great conflict of arms. 
 Hence, if the gentleman's logic be true, that 
 you cannot amend the Constitution without 
 the assent of Representatives in Congress of 
 the rebel States, you could not have passed 
 any bill during all these four years of war, 
 if it affected in any sense the interests of the 
 eleven rebel States. 
 
 In that objection the gentleman, like the gen- 
 tleman who preceded him, is simply following 
 the argument of the President, who has said 
 something of that kind in his veto message of 
 the Freedmen's Bureau bill. 
 
 We have, then, sir, the calmer and more de- 
 liberate utterance of the honorable gentleman 
 from New York, [Mr. Hale.] He says that 
 the Constitution does contemplate equality in 
 the protection of the rights of life, liberty, and 
 property in every State. He admits it does 
 contemplate that the citizen of each State shall 
 be entitled to all the privileges and immunities 
 of citizens in the several States. It will be 
 noticed, the gentleman takes care not to utter 
 one single word in opposition to that part of 
 the amendment which seeks the enforcement 
 of the second section of the fourth article of 
 the Constitution of the United States, but by 
 ' his silence he gives his assent to it. But the 
 gentleman reiterates the old cry of State rights, 
 and says, " You are impairing State rights. " 
 I would like to know, and when the gentleman 
 comes to make another argument on this sub- 
 ject, I respectfully as^ him to inform us whence 
 he derives the authority for supposing, if he 
 does so suppose, that any State has the right to 
 deny to a citizen of any other State any of the 
 privileges or immunities of a citizen of the Uni- 
 ted States. And if a State has riotthe right to 
 do that, how can the right of a State be im- 
 paired by giving to the people of the United 
 States by constitutional amendment the power 
 by congressional enactment to enforce this pro- 
 vision of their Constitution? 
 
 The gentleman did not utter a word against 
 the equal right of all citizens of the United 
 States in every State to all privileges and im- 
 munities of citizens, and I know any such 
 denial by any State would be condemned by 
 every sense of his nature. If a State has not 
 the right to deny equal protection to any human 
 being under the Constitution of this country in 
 the rights of life, liberty, and property, how 
 can State rights be impaired by penal prohi- 
 bitions of such denial as proposed ? 
 
 
3 
 
 But, says the gentleman, if you adopt this 
 amendment you give to Congress the power to 
 enforce all the rights of married women in the 
 several States. 1 beg the gentleman's pardon. 
 He need not be alarmed at the condition of 
 married women. Those rights which are uni- 
 versal and independent of all local State legis- 
 lation belong, by the gift of God, to every wo- 
 man, whether married or single. The rights of 
 life and liberty are theirs whatever States may 
 enact. But the gentleman's concern is as to 
 the right of property in married women. 
 
 Although this word property has been in your 
 bill of rights fi-om the year 1789 until this hour, 
 who ever heard it intimated that anybody could 
 have property protected in any State until he 
 owned or acquired property there according to 
 its local law or according to the law of some 
 other State which he may have carried thither? 
 
 As to real estate, every one knows that its 
 acquisition and transmision under every inter- 
 pretation ever given to the word property, as 
 used in the Constitution of the country, are de- 
 pendent exclusively upon the local law of the 
 States, save under a direct grant of the United 
 States. But suppose any person has acquired 
 property not contrary to the laws of the State, 
 but in accordance with its law, is he not to be 
 equally protected in the enjoyment of it, or 
 is he to be denied all protection? 
 
 The gentleman seemed to think that all per- 
 sons could have remedies for all violations of 
 their rights of " life, liberty, and property" in 
 the Federal courts. 
 
 I ventured to ask him yesterday when any 
 action of that sort was ever maintained in any 
 of the Federal courts of the United States to 
 redress the great wrong which has been prac- 
 ticed, and which is being practiced now in more 
 States than one of the Union under the author- 
 ity of State laws, denying to citizens therein 
 equal protection or any protection in the rights 
 of life, liberty, and property. 
 
 *i\Ir. Speaker, on this subject I refer the 
 House and the country to a decision of the 
 Supreme Court, to be found in 7 Peters, 247, in 
 •the case of Barron vs. The Mayor and City 
 Council of Baltimore, involving the question 
 whether the provisions of the fifth article of 
 , the amendments to the Constitution are bind- 
 'ing upon the State of Maryland and to be 
 enforced in the Federal courts. The Chief 
 Justice says : 
 
 "The people of the United States framed such a 
 Government for the United States as they supposed 
 best adapted to their situation and best calcuhited to 
 promote their interests. The powers they conferred 
 on this Government were to be exereisedby itself; 
 and the limitations of power, if expressed in general 
 terms, are naturally, and we think necessarily, appli- 
 cable to the Government created by the instrument. 
 They are limitations of power granted in the instru- 
 ment itself, not of distinct governments. 
 
 "If these propositions be correct, thefifth amend- 
 ment must be understood as restraining the power of 
 the General Government, not as applicable to the 
 States." 
 
 I read one further decision, the case'of the 
 Lessee of Livingston vs. Moore and others, 7 
 Peters, page 551. The court say : 
 
 "As to the amendments of the Constitution of the 
 United States, they must be put out of the case 
 
 since it is now settled that those amendments do not 
 extend to the States; and this observe poii disposes 
 of the next exception, which relics on the seventh 
 article of those amcudmcuts." 
 
 What have gentlemen to say to that ? Sir, I 
 stand relieved to-day from entering into any 
 extended argument in answer to these decis- 
 ions of your courts, that although as ruled the 
 existing amendments arenotapplicable to and 
 do not bind the States, they are nevertheless 
 to be enforced and observed in States by the 
 grand utterance of that immortal man, who, 
 while he lived, stood alone in intellectual power 
 among the living men of his country, and now 
 that he is dead, sleeps alone in liis honored 
 tomb by the sounding sea. I refer to that argu- 
 ment never yet answered, and never to be an- 
 swered while human language shall be spoken by 
 living man, wherein Mr. Webster says: 
 
 "There is no language in the Constitution appli- 
 cable to a confederation of States. If the States bo 
 parties, as States, what are their rights, and what their 
 respectivecovenantsandstiuplations? Andwhereare 
 their rights, covenants, and stipulations expressed? 
 The States engage for nothing, thoy promise nothing. 
 In the Articles of Confederation, they did make prom- 
 ises, and did enter into engagements, and did plight 
 the faith of each State for their fulfillment, but in the 
 Constitutionthereisnothingof that kind. The reason 
 is, that in the Constitution it is the people who speak, 
 andnottheStates." * * * * "Theyaddress 
 themselves to the States and to the Legislatures of 
 States in the langu.'ige of injunction and prohibition. 
 The Constitution utters its behests in the name and 
 by authority of the r)(^nriii> o..,i;» ' cictfrom 
 
 States any plight ■ n it. * 
 
 * * * "It. . lilt',- and 
 
 individual conscien 0. ir nu . m 
 
 sit in the Legislature of a S'.^i : .,t 
 
 have taken his solemn oath to - , ; u - 
 
 tion of the United State?. Frum U;t. yLiioition of 
 this oath no State power can discharge him."— 3 We6- 
 ster's Works, p. 471. 
 
 Why, I ask, should not the "injunctions and 
 prohibitions," addressed by the people in the 
 Constitution to the States and the Legislatures 
 of States, be enforced by the people through the 
 proposed amendment? By the decisions read 
 the people are without remedy. It is admit- 
 ted in the argument of Mr. Webster, just cited, 
 that the State Legislatures may by direct vio- 
 lations of their duty and oaths avoid the re- 
 quirements of the Constitution, and thereby do 
 an act which would break up any government. 
 
 Those oaths have been disregarded ; those 
 requirements of our Constitution have been 
 broken ; they are disregarded to-day in Oregon ; 
 they are disregarded to-day, and have been dis- 
 regarded for the last five years in every one of 
 the eleven States recently in insurrection. 
 
 The question is, simply, whether you will give 
 by this amendment to the people of the United 
 States the power, by legislative enactment, to 
 punish officials of States for violation of the 
 oaths enjoined upon them by their Constitution? 
 That is the question, and the whole question. 
 The adoption of the proposed amendment will 
 take from the States no rights that belong to 
 the States. They elect their Legislatures : they 
 enact their laws for the punishment of crimes 
 against life, liberty, or property; but in the 
 event of the adoption of this amendment, if 
 they conspire together to enact laws refusing 
 equal protection to life, liberty, or property. 
 
the Congress is thereby vested with power to 
 hold themj^ to answer before the bar of the 
 national coarts for the violation of their oaths 
 and of the rights of their fellow-men. Why 
 sJiould it not be so? That is the question. 
 Why should it not be so? Is the bill of rights 
 to stand in our Constitution hereafter, as in the 
 past live years within eleven States, a mere dead 
 letter ? 
 
 Mr. Speaker, it appears to me that this very 
 provision of the bill of rights brought in ques- 
 tion this day, upon this trial before the House, 
 more than any other provision of the Constitu- 
 tion, makes that unityofgovernmentwhich con- 
 stitutes us one people, by which and through 
 which American nationality came to be, and 
 only by the enforcement of which can American 
 i.ationality continue to l>e. 
 
 The imperishable v/ords of Washington ought 
 to be in the minds of all of us touching this 
 great question whether the unity of the Gov- 
 ernment shall be enforced hereafter by just pe- 
 nal enactments when the Legislatures of States 
 refuse to do their duty or keep inviolate their 
 oath. Washington, speaking to you and to me 
 and to the millions who are to come after us, 
 says : 
 
 " The unity of Government which constitutes you 
 one people is a main pillar in the edifice of your real 
 independence, the support of your tranquillity at 
 home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your pros- 
 perity, of that very liberty which you so highly prize." 
 
 Is it not essential to the unity of the people 
 that the citizens of each State shall be entitled 
 to all the privileges and immunities of citizens 
 in the several States ? Is it not essential to the 
 unity of the Government and the unity of the 
 people that all persons, whether citizens or 
 strangers, within this land, shall have equal 
 protection in every State in this Union in the 
 rights of life and liberty and property? 
 
 Why, sir, what an anomaly is presented to- 
 day to the world ! We have the power to vindi- 
 cate 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. 
 
 I commend especially to the honorable gen- 
 tleman from New York [Mr. Hale] the paper 
 issued by his distinguished fellow-citizen, when 
 he was acting as Secretary of State for the 
 United States, the lamented Marcy, touching 
 *' the protection of the rights of Martin Koszta, 
 a citizen of the United States, whose rights 
 were invaded abroad, within the jurisdiction of 
 the empire of Austria. Commodore Ingraham 
 gave notice that he would fire upon their town 
 and their shipjiing unless they respected the 
 rights of a declared citizen of the American 
 Republic. You had the power to enforce your 
 demand. But you are power-less in time of 
 peace, in the presence of the laws of South 
 Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi, as States 
 admitted and restored to the Union, to enforce 
 
 the rights of citizens of the United States 
 
 within their limits. 
 
 Do gentlemen entertain for a moment the 
 thought that the enforcement of these provisions 
 of the Constitution was^not to be considered 
 essential? Consider the triple safeguards in- 
 terposed in the Constitution itself against their 
 denial. It is provided in the Constitution, in 
 the first place, that "this Constitution," the 
 whole of it, not a part of it, '"shall be the su- 
 preme law of the land." Supreme from the 
 Penobscot in the farthest east, to the remotest 
 west where rolls the Oregon ; supreme over 
 every hamlet, every State, and every Territory 
 of the Union. 
 
 As the whole Constitution was to be the su- 
 preme law in every State, it therefore results 
 that the citizens of each State, being citizens 
 of the United States, should be entitled to all 
 the privileges and immunities of citizens of the 
 United States in every State, and all persons, , 
 now that slavery has forever perished, should 
 be entitled to equal protection in the rights of 
 life, liberty, and property. 
 
 As a further security for the enforcement of 
 the Constitution, and especially ofthis sacred bill 
 of rights, to all the citizens and all the people 
 of the United States, it is further provided that 
 the members of the several State Legislatures 
 and all executive and judicial oflicers, both of 
 the United States and of the several States, 
 shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support 
 this Constitution. The oath, the most solemn 
 compact which man can make with his Maker, 
 was to bind the State Legislatures, executive 
 officers, and judges to sacredly respect the Con- 
 stitution and all the rights secured by it. And 
 yet there is still another provision lest a State 
 Legislature, with the approval of a State Ex- 
 ecutive, should, in disregard of their oath, invade 
 the rights of any citizen or person by unjust legis- 
 lation, violative alike of the Constitution and 
 the rights secured by it, which is very significant 
 and not to be ovei'looked, which is, • 
 
 "And the judges of every State shall be bound by 
 the Constitution of the United States, anything in the 
 constitution and laws of any State to the contrary not- 
 withstanding." 
 
 With these provisions in the Constitution 
 for the enforcement in every State of its re- 
 quirements, is it surprising that the framers of 
 the Constitution omitted to insert an express 
 grant of power in Congress to enforce by penal 
 enactment these great canons of the supreme 
 law, securing to all the citizens in every State 
 all the privileges and immunities of citizens, 
 and to all the people all the sacred rights of 
 person — those rights dear to freemen and for- 
 midable only to tyrants — and of which the 
 fathers of the Republic spoke, after God had 
 given them the victory, in that memorable ad- 
 dress in which they declared, "Let it be remem- 
 bered that the rights for which America has 
 contended Avere the rights of human nature?" 
 Is it surprising that essential as they held the 
 full security to all citizens of all* the privileges 
 and immunities of citizens, and to all the peo- 
 ple the sacred rights of person, that having 
 proclaimed them they left their lawful enforce- 
 
ment to eacli of the States, under the solemn 
 obligation resting upon every State officer to 
 regard, respect, and obey the constitutional 
 injunction ? 
 
 What more could have been added tq that 
 instrument to secure the enforcement of these 
 provisions of the bill of rights in every State, 
 othe^' than the additional grant of power which 
 we ask this day? Nothing at all. And I am 
 perfectly confident that that grant of power 
 would have been there but for the fact that its 
 insertion in the Constitution would have been 
 utterly incompatible with the existence of sla- 
 vei-y in any State ; for although slaves might 
 not have been admitted to be citizens they must 
 have been admitted to be persons. That is the 
 only reason why it was not there. There was 
 a fetter upon the conscience of tlie nation. 
 Thank God, that fetter has been broken ; it has 
 turned to dust before the breath of the people, 
 speaking as the voice of God and solemnly or- 
 daining that slavery is forever prohibited every- 
 where within the Republic except as punish- 
 ment for crime on due conviction. Even now 
 for crimes men may be made slaves in States, 
 notwithstanding the new amendment. 
 
 As slaves were not protected by the Consti- 
 tution, there might be some color of excuse for 
 the slave States in their disregard for the re- 
 quirement of the bill of rights as to slaves and 
 refusing them protection in life or property ; 
 though, in my judgment, there could he no pos- 
 sible apology for reducing men made like them- 
 selves, in the image of God, to a level with the 
 brutes of the field, and condemning them to 
 toil without reward, to live without knowledge, 
 and die without hope. 
 
 But, sir, there never was even colorable ex- 
 cuse, much less apology, for any man North or 
 South claiming that any State Legislature or 
 State court, or State Executive, has any right 
 to deny protection to any free citizen of the 
 United States within their limits in the rights 
 of life, liberty, and property. Gentlemen who 
 oppose this amendment oppose the grant of 
 power to enforce the bill of rights. Gentlemen 
 who oppose this amendment simply declare to 
 these rebel States, go on with your confiscation 
 statutes, your statutes of banishment, your stat- 
 utes of unjust imprisonment, your statutes of 
 murder and death against men because of their 
 loyalty to the Constitution and Government of 
 the United States. 
 
 That is the issue that is before the American 
 people ; and God helping me, without respect 
 for persons in high places who show a disposi- 
 tion to betray this great cause, I will not betray 
 it, so long as it is given me to know the right. 
 
 Pending this great issue, what utterances do 
 we hear? You have, in the first place, the 
 utterances of him whom we elected Vice Pres- 
 ident of the United States, and who is now, by 
 the work of an assassin. President of the United 
 States, and of whom I have been accustomed 
 to speak with great respect. The House and 
 the country will remember that at the opening 
 of this session I'declared in my place here that 
 if an issue v/as to be made between the Presi- 
 dent and the Representatives of the people it 
 
 must be made by him and not by us. It has 
 been made by him. . 
 
 I trust in God that for his own' !pke, for the 
 
 sake of his country, and of the friends who gave 
 him his ingii position, lie will retrace his step.-^ ; 
 but whelher he does or docs not, 1 trust that 
 the American people will not strike the word 
 "forward"' from their vocabulary, but will 
 go right on to the consummation of the great 
 work which Providence has committed to their 
 hands; that is, the enforcement of tiieir Con- 
 stitution in every State, in every 'i'errilory, 
 and upon every sea, wherever our Hag llouls, 
 whoever may oppose at home or abroad. 
 
 What, in brief, are those utterances? Why, 
 says the President in his speech — not in liis 
 message to Congress, but in his speech, which 
 is received with so many laudatitms in certain 
 quarters, and over which, it seems, the gen- 
 tleman from New Jersey [Mr. Rookks] and his 
 party held a «ort of general jubilation — " Let 
 all those lately in insurrection against the Gov- 
 ernment and laws of the United States, who 
 will now declare their allegiance and take the 
 oath, be admitted into this Union and by their 
 representatives into the councils of this nation." 
 
 Take the oath! What oath? Not the oath 
 of the Constitution which they have l)roken, 
 but the oath prescribed by the President him- 
 self, and which, except in the tribunals of mil- 
 itary justice, has no more f'^^ce or viTe'-l lL:iii 
 the paper upon '.vhich it ii printed. Ay, take 
 the oath! '"Swear -him, and let him go." It 
 would be about as reasonable, under e\' ' 
 circumstances, t:) c;w;'ar that venniaous 
 which was the sym'jol of South Caroliuu 
 son — the rattlesr:.'.k ? — f.rd let it go. 
 
 What have we uiore uouching this great issue? 
 The venerable Secretary of State, in the city of 
 New York, makes a speech, and in the course 
 of that speech gives to the country another of 
 his prophecies. I have been accustomed to sus- 
 tain, in my humble way, that gentleman in the 
 past, and I am accustomed now to speak of 
 him most gratefully for the services he has ren- 
 dered to the country, by his surpassing skill as a 
 diplomatist, and by his undoubted fidelity to the 
 interests of his country in his great office as 
 minister of foreign affairs. What I say of him 
 now I speak with regret and sorrow, not in 
 anger. What I speak of him I say from a sense 
 of duty to a cause which I think imperiled by 
 his speech. It is fit the people should not be 
 deceived. "The man who speaks the truth is 
 greater than a king. ' ' 
 
 Need the people of this country be reminded 
 of what they do know, that he is no prophet, 
 that his other memorable prophecies have 
 failed? I remember, sir, that when the foun- 
 dations of the Republic were rocking beneath 
 the mustering tread of the armed hosts who 
 were about to strike at the nation's life, that 
 gentleman in the same city of New York ut- 
 tered his oracular declai-ation that the rising 
 storm would last only sixty days. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, there is one further remark I 
 desire to make here, and I trust it will not be 
 deemed out of order. It has been announced 
 by persons in high places unofficially that no 
 
6 
 
 amendment should be made to the Constitution • 
 that there ip no danger to be apprehended from 
 the milhonlmeu hxtely in arms against the 
 Kepmjlic; t;'iat all the lately rebellious States 
 sfiould be admitted at once to representation 
 without any condition ; that the loyal people of 
 the United States who have saved their Gov- 
 ernment from overthrow by the wager of battle 
 have no right to require any security for the 
 tuture ; that nothing remains ibr them to do but 
 to kill the fatted calf and to welcome back the 
 returning prodigal traitors by the million. 
 
 in that connection, in order to show the dan- 
 ger to the peace of the country, I beg leave to 
 say further, that at no distant day 1 have no 
 doubt testimony will be adduced to satisfy every 
 houest man in this country, who wishes well to 
 the (.Tovernment and the Constitution that there 
 is now a conspiracy extending through every 
 btate lately in insurrection, and perchance be- 
 yond their limits, among these returning prod- 
 igal rebels for whom we are invited to kill the 
 latted calf, to take possession of the legislative 
 power of this country, and accomplish by cor- 
 rupt legislation what they failed to accomplish 
 by arms. In support of this statement I will 
 read the following. It is taken from the Nor- 
 lolk (Virginia) Post: 
 
 iZ o? T.1L''.>< 1c!?7 "l"^ ^"u^ SorrTH.-Since the morn- 
 ing ot J -ily 2 J 1861, when the news of the great souf h- 
 
 nn"^?vf*'''"Vf^"'^^1. by Beauregard over McDowell 
 and the awful rout ol the Federal Army on the plains 
 wL^- T.!''' was borne through <he South on the 
 wings ot the wind as it were, carrying jov and jubila- 
 tion into every loyal southern hoii^ehold and glad- 
 ..i-uin? every true southern heart, I' ere has been no 
 news received with so much rejoicing by the people 
 ot the feouth as that contained in the dispatch inform- 
 ing them the President had vetoed the Freedmen's 
 Isureau bill. 
 
 "This i.3 the greatest victory they have achieved 
 io" 5 tlie war— greater than any of the feats of 
 iu.ns ot btoncwall Jackson or of Robert E. Lee ■ and 
 It has given them more pleasure than had General 
 Lree been elected Governor of Virginia. They have 
 tound an ally in the President worth more to them 
 than the alliance of France or England, and they 
 now begin to see, even as they saw foreshadowed at 
 Manassas, the final triumph of the great southern 
 cause. 
 
 Ithas been already intimated that the fatted 
 calf is to be killed at the North to welcome back 
 the returning prodigals— traitors whose hands 
 are red with the blood of murder and assassina- 
 tion, who for four years struck at the life of 
 your country and at the life of its defenders. 
 Whether the publisher of that paper at Nor- 
 folk who uttered the words which have been 
 read was speaking ironically as to this con- 
 spiracy at the South, or whether as the accred- 
 ited organ of the conspirators, it makes not a 
 particle of difference. It is, in my judgment, 
 according to the declared purpose of those men. 
 They are ready to kill the fatted calf if Andrew 
 Johnson will only forget his former utterances, 
 wherein he said that treason is a crime that 
 must be made odious and traitors must be pun- 
 ished ; that traitors are no longer citizens and 
 should not be permitted to participate in the 
 reconstruction and reorganization of the States ; 
 and especially if he would lend himself to that 
 black and villainous suggestion which linds a 
 place in the columns of the Chicago Times— a 
 paper which in its dav was, I believe, sup- 
 
 pressed for its treasonable utterances by order 
 of CTeneralBurnside— that the President would 
 do well to drive the Representatives of the peo- 
 ple by an armed jMSse from the Hall of Repre- 
 sentatives. '■ 
 
 Mr LATHAM. I desire to ask the gentle- 
 man from Ohio, [Mr. Bingham,] whether he 
 proposes to make the adoption of this consti- 
 tutional amendment by the constitutional ma- 
 jority ot the States a condition precedent to ' 
 admitting the Representatives of any of the 
 eleven States. 
 
 Mr. BINGHAM. I beg leave to state that 
 every endeavor has been made by that com- 
 mittee, without regard to this amendment, to 
 present the case of Tennessee;' so that by the 
 sovereign act of the American people, through 
 the joint act of Congress, the constitutional 
 relations of the State of Tennessee as a State 
 ot this Union might be restored. I am not 
 at liberty to state, even if I knew, what the 
 committee intend to do in regard to that 
 Mate. 1 do know that the matter is still be- 
 fore us; and that we have given it atten- 
 tion. 
 
 _ But that does not excuse us from the con- 
 sideration of this question. The adoption of 
 tins amendment is essential to the protection 
 of the Union men of Tennessee; those grand, 
 t™«^™en, who "unshaken, unseduced. unter- 
 rifaed, their loyalty they kept, amid the howl 
 of treason, whose infernal enginery shook the 
 continent. Every honorable man here from 
 iennessee tr.-day- and I believe they are all 
 honorable men— will bear me witness when I 
 say that the Union men of Tennessee to-day 
 have no security except from the armed pres- 
 ence of the United States Government there 
 And when the State shall be restored, and the 
 troops of the Government withdrawn, they will 
 have no security in the future except by force 
 of national laws giving them protection against 
 
 w*^!!"^ '® '^^*^" "^ ^^^^ against them. 
 
 Will any man tell me how forty thousand 
 loyal and true men in Tennessee can hold the 
 power in that State against ninetv thousand 
 who, m social position, are equal to them, and 
 who m wealth are greatly superior to them? 
 And I beg leave to say further, that it will 
 prove to be the fact that the rebels will be found 
 in a majority of three to one or four to one in 
 every one of the States that have been engaged 
 in tlie rebellion, except in Tennessee. 
 
 How will you prevent that overpowering- 
 majority from taking possession of those recon" 
 structed governments ? Do you call it a " re- 
 publican government"' within the meaning of 
 the Constitution to maintain a minority in power 
 indefinitely in a State by Federal bayonets ? I 
 do not, nor does any intelligent man. What 
 then ? Why, according to the programme be- 
 fore us, those rebels are all to be sworn in- 
 sworn in upon an oath that makes no condi- 
 tions, as announced in the President's speech, 
 save that they will hereafter support the Con- 
 stitution. They are all to be sworn in and to 
 be allowed to assume the control of their re- 
 spective States, Where is the power in Con- 
 gress, unless this or. some similar amendment 
 
be adopted, to prevent the reenactment of 
 those atrocious statutes of banishment and con- 
 fiscation and imprisonment and murder under 
 which people have suffered in those States du- 
 ring the hxst four .years ? Let some man answer. 
 Why, sir, the gentleman from New York [Mr. 
 Hale] himself yesterday gave up the argument 
 on this point. He said that the citizens must 
 rely upon the State for their protection. I ad- 
 mit that such is the rule under the Constitution 
 as it now stands. 
 
 I beg leave to read, in confirmation of the 
 truth of what I say, an utterance made in the 
 hearing of the whole people of this country in 
 1788, when the Constitution was on trial for its 
 deliverance. I read from No. 45 of the Fed- 
 eralist, a paper written by James Madison : 
 
 "The powers reserved to the Federal States will 
 extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course 
 of aflfairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties 
 of the people, and the internal order, improvement, 
 and prosperity of the State." 
 
 I submit that this is the text of the Consti- 
 tution, except as to the new amendment pro- 
 hibiting slavery, and providing for legislation 
 to prevent it except as punishment for crime. 
 It stands as the ruling of the Supreme Court of 
 the United States in the great case of McCul- 
 lough vs. The State of Maryland, in 4 Wheaton. 
 It stands as the ruling of the same tribunal in 
 the case of Ogdeu vs. Gibbons, in 9 Peters. It 
 stands, in short, as the uniform ruling of the 
 Supreme Court of the United States, concurring 
 with the continued action of the other depart- 
 ments of the Government from the year 1789 
 till this hour, there being no law anywhere upon 
 our statute-books to punish penally any State 
 officer for denying in any State to any citizen 
 of the United States protection in the rights of 
 life, liberty, and property. It stands as the 
 very text of the Constitution itself, which de- 
 clares that — ■ 
 
 " 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 word "powers" controls the whole 
 question. The Government of the United 
 States has no legislative powers, save the ex- 
 press grants and the general grant to pass 
 all laws which shall be necessary and proper 
 to carry into execution all other powers vested 
 by the Constitution in the Government of the 
 United States, or in any department or any 
 officer thereof, and the implied powers neces- 
 sary to carry the express powers into effect. 
 A grant of power, according to all construction, 
 is a very different thing from a bill of rights. 
 In support of what I have said on this point I 
 ask attention to the following citations : 
 
 McCuUough vs. Maryland, 4 Wheaton, 405, 
 
 Marshall, C. J., says: 
 
 "The Constitution of the United States is one of 
 limited and expressly delegated powers, which can 
 only be exercised as granted, orin cases enumerated." 
 
 Speaking of the authority given to Congress 
 
 by the last clause of the first article, eighth 
 
 section, of the Constitution, Judge Story in his 
 
 Commentaries, section 1238, says : 
 
 " The plain import of this clause is, that Congress 
 
 shall have all the incidental and instrumental powers 
 necessary and pr(H)cr to carry into ex -tion iiU tho 
 express powers. It neither enlarges a power spe- 
 cifically granted, nor is it a Krant of a, / now nowcr 
 to Congress." | 
 
 In Martin I's. Hunter's Lessee, V Wheaton, 
 326, it is said : 
 
 "The Government of the United State v can claim 
 no power? which are not granted to it by the Consti- 
 tution, and the powers actually granted nro such aa 
 are expressly given or given by necessary implica- 
 tion. 
 
 In Gibbons vs. Ogden, 9 Wheaton. 187, Chief 
 Justice Marshall, speaking of the Constitution, 
 
 says : 
 
 " This instrumeiit containsan enumeration of pow- 
 ers expressly granted by the people to their aovcrn- 
 •ment." 
 
 In Kent's Commentaries, volume one, pages 
 388-390, there is this language: 
 
 "The correct principle is that whenever the terms 
 in which the power was granted to Consrcss, or the 
 nature of the power required that it should be exclu- 
 sively exercised by Congress, the subject was as com- 
 pletely taken away from the State Legislatures as if 
 they had been expressly forbidden to act upon it." 
 
 You have the express power to define the 
 punishment of treason ; the express power to 
 punish the counterfeiting of coin or securities 
 of the United States ; the express power to 
 define and punish piracies and felonies com- 
 mitted upon the high seas, and offenses against 
 the law of nations ; exclusive legislativc'power 
 within this District : -_ 
 
 all Territories: hi it , - 
 
 to define and puni;- 
 State by its ofii^irJ ...i.rs iu-f-Kyl.. 
 rights of citizens ■ ■ ■ -orsona as ' 
 the Constitution? \\n from v.'ha' c\'j...v'5>i . 
 delegated power ... the Constituiiou oau uuy 
 such power be implied? Passing- the'- aiVti 
 slavery amendment, is there any Ofie prepJuC,.^ 
 |to say that the bill of rights confers express 
 legislative power on Congress to punish State 
 officers for a willful and corrupt disregard of 
 their oaths and oppressive and flagrantly unjust 
 violations of the declared rights of every citi- 
 zen and every free man in every free State? 
 The words of Madison cited are very signifi- 
 cant : ' ' The powers reserved to the several States 
 will extend to all the objects which concern 
 the lives, liberties, and properties of the peo- 
 ple." The fact is that Congress has never by 
 penal enactment in all the past attempted to 
 enforce these rights of the people in any State 
 of the Union. 
 
 Sir, the great question is presented for the 
 consideration of the House and the country, 
 shall these States, all of them, be restored in 
 their present condition, and with no new secu- 
 rities taken by the people for the future? Shall 
 South Carolina be thus restored, for example, 
 nine tenths of her people who vote having been 
 rebels in arms or directly engaged in rebellioA 
 against the country, and her Governor having 
 been an active member of the rebel senate at 
 Richmond during the four years' trial, now act- 
 ing Governor over the loyal men of the State? 
 Is that State to be restored without the power 
 in Congress to protect the few loyal white men 
 there against State statutes of confiscation and 
 statutesoibanishment? And for the emancipated 
 
8 
 
 slaves of South Carolina are you to have no 
 power sar ,-,'"j prohibit their reduction again to 
 slave'"- I -.cPpt as punishment for crimes against 
 -tli'v,- laws (, 'jyouth Carolina? Let some geutle- 
 riian who ■'•^iposes this amendment stand up in 
 his place ' id answer to the country how, after 
 these Sta s are restored to political jDower, the 
 Governn.^nt of the United States can by law 
 interveu" - except as to slavery, under the Consti- 
 tution 0+' the United States, as it now stands, 
 to protect the loyal white minority or the loyal 
 but disf anchised colored majority in that State 
 agains"i3anishment? 
 
 I call the attention of the House also to the 
 condit^'^n of Mississippi. How is it that a man 
 who fo ght in the armies against the country 
 throughout all these years of conflict — a man 
 who, 1 believe, had a rebel commission as briga- 
 dier general— is elected Governor of that State, 
 and is now Governor over that people? The 
 people who would elect Humphreys Governor 
 are doubtless the people who followed Hum- 
 phreys in the war for treason, in the war for 
 the dismemberment of the Union. Now, we 
 are told by these gentlemen to make haste to 
 restore all of those States and permit them to 
 reenact by law the crimes which they have 
 inflicted l)y force for the last four years. 
 
 I think there are exceptions among those 
 States. I think there is a greater proportion 
 of loyal men in some than in others. I think it 
 may become the accepted policy of this House, 
 and I trugt it will, to admit such States as are 
 CO ^£^ advance/l in reconstruction and reorgani-, 
 zation and an honest return to allegiance under 
 the Government as will enable them to consoli- 
 date their strength and maintain a republican 
 constitutional State government. 
 
 It seems to me equally clear if you intend to 
 have these thirty-six States one under our Consti- 
 tution, if you intend that every citizen of every 
 State shall in the hereafter have the immunities 
 and privileges of citizens in the several States, 
 you must amend the Constitution. It cannot be 
 otherwise. Restore those States with a majority 
 of rebels to political power, and they will cast 
 their ballots to exclude from the protection of 
 the laws every man who bore arms in defense of 
 the Government. The loyal minority of white 
 citizens and the disfranchised colored citizens 
 will be utterly powerless. There is no efficient 
 remedy for it without an amendment to your 
 Constitution. A civil action is no remedy for a 
 great public wrong and crime. 
 
 Nobody dreams, if we admit these States 
 unqualifiedly, but some of their officials would 
 violate their oaths as they have heretofore done 
 and clothe themselves with perjury as with a 
 garment in order to sweep away the rights of 
 loyal men, and be avenged upon them for their 
 fidelity to the sacred cause of the Constitution, 
 and the laws. 
 
 Sir, we are no longer permitted to doubt that 
 whole communities are capable of so great in- 
 famy and perfidy. They did this in eleven of 
 these States five years ago, and if they did it 
 once may they not do it again ? 
 
 We are told they will be in terror of the 
 prowess of j'our arms. Ay, they have occa- 
 
 sion to be in terror of the prowess of your arms, 
 and they will doubtless avoid any such conflict 
 again. But the point I desire to make clear 
 is, that unless you put them in terror of the 
 power of your laws, made efficient by the 
 solemn act of the whole people to punish the 
 violators of oaths, they may defy your restricted 
 legislative power when reconstructed : they may 
 dismember your Union and rend it into frag- 
 ments and drive into banishment every loyal man 
 in all those rebel States, and hold as their heri- 
 tage a territory half as large as continental 
 Europe without firing a gun or daring again to 
 commit the overt act of treason. With these 
 convictions of the power of the rebel popula- 
 tion when their States are fully restored, I urge 
 this amendment upon the Consideration of the 
 House and upon the consideration of the coun- 
 try. I pray gentlemen to consider wiell the vote 
 they may give now or at a future day when we 
 come to act finally upon this measure. 
 
 The present rejection of this measure and the 
 admission to full representation of all the rebel 
 States now, may bring your institutions into 
 peril. Whatever may be the result I shall not 
 despair of the Republic. My trust will be in 
 the people to whose decision I ask you to com- 
 mit this amendment — that great people who 
 saved their imperiled Constitution amid the 
 fire and tempest of battle. They will, I trust, 
 though it may be not without additional sacri- 
 fice, correct all errors, perfect their Constitu- 
 tion, enforce by just and eqi^al laws all its pro- 
 visions, and so fortify and strengthen the Re- 
 public that it will stand unmoved until empires 
 and nations perish. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I speak in behalf of this amend- 
 ment in no party spirit, in no spirit of resent- 
 ment toward any State or the people of any 
 State, in no spirit of innovation, but for the sake 
 of a violated Constitution and a wronged and 
 wounded country whose heart is now smitten 
 with a strange, great sorrow. I urge the amend- 
 ment for the enforcement of these essential i^ro- 
 visions of your Constitution, divine in their jus- 
 tice, sublime in their humanity, which declare 
 that all men are equal in the rights of life and 
 liberty before the majesty of American law. 
 
 Representatives, to you I appeal, that here- 
 after, by your act and the approval of the loyal 
 people of this country, every man in every State 
 of the Union, in accordance with the written 
 words of your Constitution, may, by the national 
 law, be secured in the equal protection of his per- 
 sonal rights. Your Constitution provides that 
 no man, no matter what his color, no mat- 
 ter beneath what sky he may have been born, 
 no matter in what disastrous conflict or by what 
 tyrannical hand his liberty may have been clo- 
 ven down, no matter how poor, no matter how 
 friendless, no matter how ignorant, shall be 
 deprived of life or liberty or property without 
 due process of law — law in its highest sense, 
 thatlawwhichistheperfection of human reason, 
 and which is impartial, equal, exact justice ; 
 that justice which requires that every man shall 
 have his right ; that justice which is the highest 
 duty of nations as it is the imperishable attri- 
 bute of the God of nations. 
 
 Pi in'f- 1 at the Coa^-TOES'.ona.l Glrib^ CHVc. 
 
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