Speaking on the enforcement act, on which he stated first his own position and later that of the Republican Party in his State, Revels, the Senator from Mississippi, said: "I am in favor of removing the disabilities of those upon whom they are imposed in the South just as fast as they give evidence of having become loyal and of being loyal. If you can find one man in the South who gives evidence of the fact that he has ceased to renounce the laws of Congress as unconstitutional, has ceased to oppose them, and respects them and favors the carrying of them out, I am in favor of removing his disabilities; and if you can find one hundred men that the same is true of, I am in favor of removing their disabilities. If you can find a whole State that this is true of, I am in favor of removing the disabilities of all its people."[46]
Revels at that time had reasonable grounds for supporting amnesty, but conditions soon changed. Speaking in the 42nd Congress as it regarded the enforcement of the 14th Amendment, Rainey felt that too much amnesty had led to the murderous activities of the disloyal after they had reached the point of acquiescing. He said:[47] "If the Constitution which we uphold and support as the fundamental law of the United States is inadequate to afford security to life, liberty, and property—if, I say, this inadequacy is proven, then its work is done, then it should no longer be recognized as the magna charta of a great and free people; the sooner it is set aside the better for the liberties of the nation." Another member of the 42nd Congress, Robert C. De Large of South Carolina, while speaking on the bill for the removal of political disabilities, made it quite clear that he would not support the bill unless the gentlemen for it would support a measure to protect the loyal people of the South.[48]
Notable among the speeches on the question of amnesty was that made by Elliott protesting against a bill to this effect by Beck of Kentucky. Contending that the men now seeking relief were responsible for the crimes perpetrated against the loyal men of the South, Elliott maintained that the passage of the bill would be nothing less than the paying of a premium on disloyalty and treason at the expense of those who had remained loyal. Pointing out the cause of their disfranchisement, he demanded in the name of the "law-abiding people of his constituency, whites as well as Negroes," the rejection of this bill and the protection of those whose "only offense was their adherence to the principles of freedom and justice."[49] That the proposed bill was defeated[50] was perhaps in some measure due to his masterful arraignment of its purposes.
Contemporaneous with the question of amnesty, and lasting throughout the thirty years during which Negroes served in Congress, the problem of securing civil rights for the freedmen or of protecting them in the exercise of such rights demanded, to a greater extent than any other, the energy and efforts of the Negro Congressmen. Indeed, but few of the men of this group failed during their careers in Congress to register their opinions on this all-absorbing matter.
Remarking at length on the Georgia bill,[51] Senator Revels spoke out fearlessly in the defense of his race. He defended the Negroes against charges of antagonism and servile strife, lauded the conduct of Negro soldiers in the Civil War and the part they played in saving the Union. He called attention to the loyalty of the Negroes in protecting the white women and their homes, with the knowledge that the masters were engaged in the prosecution of a war the success of which would have meant permanent bondage to the blacks. He asserted that the Negroes bore toward their former masters no revengeful thoughts, no hatreds, no animosities. He recounted the iniquities of the bill then before the body, prayed the protection of those whose rights were thereby threatened, and appealed to Congress to give to the reconstructed State such direction and support as would best meet its most imperative needs.
The discussion of the civil rights bill gave rise to one of Robert Brown Elliott's greatest speeches.[52] Arising to defend the bill, he proceeded to refute the proposition advanced by Beck of Kentucky and supported by Stephens of Georgia, that Congress had no power to legislate against a plain discrimination made by State laws or customs against any person or class of persons within its limits. In reference to the decision of the Slaughter House Cases of Louisiana, which the gentlemen had advanced in support of their thesis, Elliott pointed out the difference in principle between the issues there involved and those at hand. In the former case the court held the act in question to be "a legitimate and warrantable exercise of the police power of the State in regulating the business of stock landing and slaughtering in the city of New Orleans and the territory immediately contiguous." In this case, however, the evils complained of comprehended "the exclusion of certain classes of persons from public inns, from the saloons and tables of the steamboat, from the sleeping-cars on railways, and from the right of sepulchre in public burial-grounds."
The Supreme Court, Elliott contended, has recognized two classes of citizenships, state and national, but nowhere is there denied to Congress the power to prevent a denial of equality of rights, whether those rights exist by virtue of citizenship of the United States or of a State. It followed, therefore, that it is within the authority of Congress to see that no State deny to one class of citizens or persons, rights which are common to other citizens, unless it can be shown to be for the good of all, or pursuant to the legitimate exercise of its police power. Rejecting such classification of the case at hand and pointing out from the decision of the Slaughter House Cases the express recognition of Congress to pass such a bill as the one then under discussion, he concluded that the Constitution warranted the passage of the bill, the Supreme Court sanctioned it, and justice demanded it.[53] Elliott submitted also a resolution directing the Judiciary Committee to report a civil rights bill.[54]