At the opening of the next session, Mr. Sumner renewed his efforts.
December 7, 1871, in presenting a petition from colored citizens of Albany, he remarked: “It seems to me the Senate cannot do better than proceed at once to the consideration of the supplementary bill now on our Calendar, to carry out the prayer of these petitioners”; and he wished Congress might be inspired to “make a Christmas present to their colored fellow-citizens of the rights secured by that bill.”
December 20th, the Senate having under consideration a bill, which had already passed the House, “for the removal of the legal and political disabilities imposed by the third section of the Fourteenth Article of Amendment to the Constitution of the United States,” Mr. Sumner, insisting upon justice before generosity, moved his Supplementary Civil Rights Bill as an amendment. A colloquy took place between himself and Mr. Hill, of Georgia, in which the latter opposed the amendment.
Mr. Sumner. I should like to bring home to the Senator that nearly one half of the people of Georgia are now excluded from the equal rights which my amendment proposes to secure; and yet I understand that the Senator disregards their condition, sets aside their desires, and proposes to vote down my proposition. The Senator assumes that the former Rebels are the only people of Georgia. Sir, I see the colored race in Georgia. I see that race once enslaved, for a long time deprived of all rights, and now under existing usage and practice despoiled of rights which the Senator himself is in the full enjoyment of.
Mr. Hill. … I never can agree in the proposition that, if there be a hotel for the entertainment of travellers, and two classes stop at it, and there is one dining-room for one class and one for another, served alike in all respects, with the same accommodations, the same attention to the guests, there is anything offensive, or anything that denies the civil rights of one more than the other. Nor do I hold, that, if you have public schools, and you give all the advantages of education to one class as you do to another, but keep them separate and apart, there is any denial of a civil right in that. I also contend, that, even upon the railways of the country, if cars of equal comfort, convenience, and security be provided for different classes of persons, no one has a right to complain, if it be a regulation of the companies to separate them.…
Mr. Sumner. Mr. President, we have a vindication on this floor of inequality as a principle and as a political rule.
Mr. Hill. On which race, I would inquire, does the inequality to which the Senator refers operate?
Mr. Sumner. On both. Why, the Senator would not allow a white man in the same car with a colored man.
Mr. Hill. Not unless he was invited, perhaps. [Laughter.]