Mr. Venable did not think the House were authorized to enact such a principle into a law. If taken up at all, it ought to be considered as a proposition for amending the constitution. If it was thought necessary by gentlemen to amend the constitution in this way, he should not object to going into the subject. After foreigners were admitted as citizens, Congress had not the power of declaring what should be their rights; the constitution has done this. Foreigners must, therefore, be refused the privilege of becoming citizens altogether, or admitted to all the rights of citizens.
Mr. Otis had no idea that this proposition could be considered as a proposition to amend the constitution. If the House had the power to amend the naturalization law, and to extend the time of residence necessary to entitle an alien to citizenship, they could certainly extend it to the life of man. The idea of citizenship did not always include the power of holding offices. In Great Britain no alien was ever permitted to hold an office, he wished they might not be allowed to do it here.
The Speaker said this was not the proper time to argue whether this proposition ought to be considered as an amendment to the constitution. The Committee of the Whole would report upon it as they thought proper.
Mr. Venable did not object to the resolution being referred, but thought it ought to go rather to an ordinary Committee of the Whole than to that on the state of the Union, as he did not believe Congress had the power of saying, men who were entitled to hold offices by the constitution, shall not hold them.
The motion for reference was put and carried, there being for it 45 votes.
The House then resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, Mr. Dent in the chair; when
Mr. Otis moved to postpone the consideration of the resolution formerly under consideration, for extending the time of residence of aliens before they should be entitled to citizenship, in order to take up the resolution which he had proposed, and which had been referred to this committee.
The question was put and negatived—51 to 26.
The question then returned upon the motion made by Mr. Otis yesterday, to amend the first resolution, by adding words of the same tenor with those contained in the resolution referred this morning.