Before all of the Southern communities had been admitted to representation in Congress, and before any of them except Tennessee had
The Act for the
enforcement of the
new Amendments.
It is entirely clear from this language that, in the enforcement of these new provisions of the Constitution, the United States Government must direct its powers against the action of the "States," respectively, through their legislators and officials, and against that only. But in this bill which became law on the 31st of May, 1870, Congress enacted penalties not only against "State" officers and agents for the violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, but severe penalties against any person within the "States," as well as the Territories, who should undertake to deprive by unlawful means any other person of his right to qualify and vote at any election, and against any person who under color of any law, statute or ordinance, regulation or custom, should undertake to deprive any other person of his civil rights and civil equality. Congress also, in this Act, vested the jurisdiction over such cases in the United States courts and authorized the President of the United States to enforce their decisions by the aid of the United States army and navy if necessary. Now, while it may probably be rightly claimed that the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which reads: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States, or in any place subject to their jurisdiction," empowers Congress to make laws protecting the civil rights and civil equality of persons within the "States" against infringement by other persons, and to invest the officers of the United States, both judicial and executive, with the power to enforce these laws, since in this Amendment the prohibition of slavery or involuntary servitude is not directed against "State" action solely, but against any attempt made by anybody to create an involuntary servitude, it cannot on the other hand be claimed, with any show of correct interpretation, that the Fourteenth Amendment warrants the exercise of any such power by the United States Government, and it is entirely out of the question to claim that the Fifteenth Amendment protects the right of a person, within a State, to vote against the attempt of another person or of other persons to infringe the same, or even against the "State" itself to do so, except it be on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.
There is not the slightest doubt in the mind of any good constitutional lawyer, at the present time, that Congress overstepped its
Criticism
of the Act.
Meanwhile the new "State" governments had well begun their career of corruption, shame and vulgarity. They were plundering the treasury,
The corruption in the
new "State" governments.