In other words, the Supreme Court will not undertake to sit in judgment on the means employed by Congress for carrying out a power which exists in the Constitution. Now the power plainly exists in the Constitution; it is to abolish Slavery, and it is for Congress in its discretion to select the means. Already it has selected the Civil Rights Law as the first means for enforcing the abolition of Slavery. I ask it to select the supplementary bill now pending as other means to enforce that abolition. One of the letters that I have read to-day from a leading colored citizen of Georgia said: “When that becomes a law, the freedom of my race will then be complete.” It is not complete until then; and therefore, in securing that freedom, in other words in enforcing the Constitutional Amendment, Congress is authorized to pass the bill which I have felt it my duty to introduce, and which is now moved on the Amnesty Bill.
I might proceed with this argument. But details would take time, and I think they are entirely needless. The case is too strong. It needs no further argument. You have the positive grant of power. You have already one instance of its execution, and you have the solemn decision of the Supreme Court of the United States declaring that it is in the discretion of Congress to select the means by which to enforce the powers granted. How, Sir, can you answer this conclusion? How can my excellent friend answer it?
Were I not profoundly convinced that the conclusion founded on the Thirteenth Amendment was unanswerable, so as to make further discussion surplusage, I should take up the Fourteenth Amendment, and show how, in the first place, we have there the definition of a Citizen of the United States, and then, in the second place, an inhibition upon the States, so that they cannot make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor deny to any person within the jurisdiction of the United States the equal protection of the laws. And here again Congress is empowered to enforce these provisions by appropriate legislation. Surely, if there were any doubt in the Thirteenth Amendment, as there is not, it would all be removed by this supplementary Amendment. Here is the definition of Citizenship, and the right to the equal protection of the laws,—in other words, Citizenship and Equality, both placed under the safeguard of the Nation. Whatever will fortify these is within the power of Congress by express grant. But if these are interpreted by the Declaration of Independence, as I insist, the conclusion is still more irresistible.
Add the original text of the Constitution, declaring that “the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.” These words, already expounded by judicial interpretation,[224] are now elevated and inspired by the new spirit breathing into them the breath of a new life, and making them yet another source of Congressional power for the safeguard of equal rights.
But I have not done with my friend. I am going to hand him over to be answered by one of his colored fellow-citizens who has no privilege on this floor. I put George T. Downing face to face with my excellent friend, the Senator from Maine. The Senator will find his argument in one of the papers of the day. I shall read enough to show that he understands the question, even constitutionally:—
“But I come directly,” says he, “to ‘misconception,’—to thwarting justice. The Senator”—
Referring to the Senator from Maine—
“opposes Senator Sumner’s amendment; he says it invokes an implication of some principle or provision of the Constitution somewhere, or an implication arising from the general fitness of things possibly, to enable it to invade the domiciliary rights of the citizens of a State.”
These were the precise words of the Senator; I remember them well; I was astonished at them. I could not understand by what delusion, hallucination, or special ignis-fatuus the Senator was led into the idea that in this bill there is any suggestion of invading the domiciliary rights of the citizens of the States. Why, Sir, the Senator has misread the bill. I will not say he has not read it. He certainly has misread it. And now let our colored fellow-citizen answer him:—