History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States

by William Horatio Barnes

"'By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall henceforth repair
And dwell a weeping hermit there.'"

On the following day, Mr. Van Winkle, of West Virginia, addressed the Senate on the merits of the bill. He thought that the objects sought could only be attained through an amendment to the Constitution. He moreover said:

"We hear a great deal about the sentence from the Declaration of Independence, that 'all men are created equal.' I am willing to admit that all men are created equal; but how are they equal? Can a citizen of France, for instance, by going into England, be entitled to all the rights of a citizen of that country, or by coming into this country acquire all the rights of an American, unless he is naturalized? Can a citizen of our country, by going into any other, become entitled to the rights of a citizen there? If not, it may be said that they are not equal. I believe that the division of men into separate communities, and their living in society and association with their fellows, as they do, are both divine institutions, and that, consequently, the authors of the Declaration of Independence could have meant nothing more than that the rights of citizens of any community are equal to the rights of all other citizens of that community. Whenever all communities are conducted in accordance with these principles, these very conditions of their prosperous existence, then all mankind will be equal, each enjoying his equality in his own community, and not till then. Therefore, I assert that there is no right that can be exercised by any community of society more perfect than that of excluding from citizenship or membership those who are objectionable. If a little society is formed for a benevolent, literary, or any other purpose, the members immediately exercise, and claim the right to exercise, that right; they determine who shall come into their community. We have the right to determine who shall be members of our community; and much as has been said here about what God has done, and about our obligations to the Almighty in reference to this matter, I do not see where it comes in that we are bound to receive into our community those whose minglings with us might be detrimental to our interests. I do not believe that a superior race is bound to receive among it those of an inferior race, if the mingling of them can only tend to the detriment of the mass. I do not mean strict miscegenation, but I mean the mingling of two races in society, associating from time to time with each other."

Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, spoke against the bill. He said: "The identical question came up in my State—the question whether the negro was a citizen, and whether he possessed political power in that State—and it was there decided that he was not one of the original corporators, that he was not one of the freemen who originally possessed political power, and that they had never, by any enactment or by any act of theirs, admitted him into a participation of that power, except so far as to tax him for the support of Government. And, Mr. President, I think it a most important question, and particularly a most important question for the Pacific coast, and those States which lie upon it, as to whether this door shall now be thrown open to the Asiatic population. If it be, there is an end to republican government there, because it is very well ascertained that those people have no appreciation of that form of government; it seems to be obnoxious to their very nature; they seem to be incapable either of understanding it or of carrying it out; and I can not consent to say that California, or Oregon, or Colorado, or Nevada, or any of those States, shall be given over to an irruption of Chinese. I, for my part, protest against it.

"There is a great deal more in this bill that is exceedingly objectionable. It is the first time, I think, in the history of civilized legislation, that a judicial officer has been held up and subjected to a criminal punishment for that which may have been a conscientious discharge of his duty. It is, I say, the first case that I know of, in the legislation of modern and civilized nations, where a bill of indictment is to take the place of a writ of error, and where a mistake is to be tortured into a crime.

"I may state that I have another objection to this bill at the present time; and that is, that the people of several States in the Union are not represented here, and yet this law is mainly to operate upon those people. I think it would be at least decent, respectful, if we desire to maintain and support this Government on the broad foundation upon which it was laid—namely, the consent of the governed—that we should wait, at any rate, until the people upon whom it is to operate have a voice in these halls."

Mr. Cowan then proceeded in a somewhat "devious course," as it was characterized by another Senator, to make remarks upon the subject of reconstruction. Many questions and remarks were interposed by other Senators, giving the discussion an exceedingly colloquial style.

At length, Mr. Howard, of Michigan, having obtained the floor, spoke in favor of the bill. He said: "If I understand correctly the interpretation given by several Senators to the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, it is this: that the sole effect of it is to cut and sever the mere legal ligament by which the person and the service of the slave was attached to his master, and that beyond this particular office the amendment does not go; that it can have no effect whatever upon the condition of the emancipated black in any other respect. In other words, they hold that it relieves him from his so-called legal obligation to render his personal service to his master without compensation, and there leaves him, totally, irretrievably, and without any power on the part of Congress to look after his well-being from the moment of this mockery of emancipation. Sir, such was not the intention of the friends of this amendment at the time of its initiation here, and at the time of its adoption; and I undertake to say that it is not the construction which is given to it by the bar throughout the country, and much less by the liberty-loving people.

"But let us look more closely at this narrow construction. Where does it leave us? We are told that the amendment simply relieves the slave from the obligation to render service to his master. What is a slave in contemplation of American law, in contemplation of the laws of all the slave States? We know full well; the history of two hundred years teaches us that he had no rights, nor nothing which he could call his own. He had not the right to become a husband or a father in the eye of the law; he had no child; he was not at liberty to indulge the natural affections of the human heart for children, for wife, or even for friend. He owned no property, because the law prohibited him. He could not take real or personal estate either by sale, by grant, or by descent or inheritance. He did not own the bread he earned and ate. He stood upon the face of the earth completely isolated from the society in which he happened to be. He was nothing but a chattel, subject to the will of his owner, and unprotected in his rights by the law of the State where he happened to live. His rights, did I say? No, sir, I use inappropriate language. He had no rights; he was an animal; he was property, a chattel. The Almighty, according to the ideas of the times, had made him to be property, a Chattel, and not a man.

"Now, sir, it is not denied that this relation of servitude between the former negro slave and his master was actually severed by this amendment. But the absurd construction now forced upon it leaves him without family, without property, without the implements of husbandry, and even without the right to acquire or use any instrumentalities of carrying on the industry of which he may be capable; it leaves him without friend or support, and even without the clothes to cover his nakedness. He is a waif upon the current of time; he has nothing that belongs to him on the face of the earth, except solely his naked person. And here, in this State, we are called upon to abandon the poor creature whom we have emancipated. We are coolly told that he has no right beyond this, and we are told that under this amendment the power of the State within whose limits he happens to be is not at all restrained in respect to him, and that the State, through its Legislature, may at any time declare him to be a vagrant, and as such commit him to jail, or assign him to uncompensated service."