First Session, Thirty-Eighth Congress.
In Senate—1864, February 10—Mr. Sumner offered the following:
Resolved, That the Committee on the District of Columbia be directed to consider the expediency of further providing by law against the exclusion of colored persons from the equal enjoyment of all railroad privileges in the District of Columbia.
Which was agreed to—yeas 30, nays 10.
February 24—Mr. Willey, from the Committee on the District of Columbia, made this report, and the committee were discharged.
The Committee on the District of Columbia, who were required by resolution of the Senate, passed February 8, 1864, “to consider the expediency of further providing by law against the exclusion of colored persons from the equal enjoyment of all railroad privileges in the District of Columbia,” have had the matter thus referred to them under consideration, and beg leave to report:
The act entitled “An act to incorporate the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company,” approved May 17, 1862, makes no distinction as to passengers over said road on account of the color of the passengers, and that in the opinion of the committee colored persons are entitled to all the privileges of said road which other persons have, and to all remedies for any denial or breach of such privileges which belongs to any person.
The committee therefore ask to be discharged from the further consideration of the premises.
March 17—The Senate considered the bill to incorporate the Metropolitan Railroad Company, in the District of Columbia, the pending question being an amendment, offered by Mr. Sumner, to add to the fourteenth section the words:
Provided, That there shall be no regulation excluding any person from any car on account of color.
Which was agreed to—yeas 19, nays 17, as follows:
Yeas—Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Clark, Conness, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Harlan, Howe, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sumner, Wade, Wilkinson, Wilson—19.
Nays—Messrs. Buckalew, Carlile, Davis, Doolittle, Harding, Harris, Hendricks, Johnson, Lane of Indiana, Powell, Riddle, Saulsbury, Sherman, Ten Eyck, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Willey—17.
The bill then passed the Senate.
June 19—The House refused to strike out the proviso last adopted in the Senate—yeas 60, nays 76.
And the bill passed the House and was approved by the President.