Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, made a speech, in which he expressed himself as in favor of conferring citizenship upon the negro, and yet unable to vote for this bill from the opinion he entertained on "the question of power." He referred to the Dred Scott and other decisions, and showed their bearing upon the legislation now proposed. He said: "I have been exceedingly anxious individually that there should be some definition which will rid this class of our people from that objection. If the Supreme Court decision is a binding one, and will be followed in the future, this law which we are now about to pass will be held, of course, to be of no avail, as far as it professes to define what citizenship is, because it gives the rights of citizenship to all persons without distinction of color, and, of course, embraces Africans or descendants of Africans."
He referred to a precedent when Congress had conferred the rights of citizenship: "The citizens of Texas, who, of course, were aliens, it has never been doubted became citizens of the United States by the annexation of Texas; and that was not done by treaty, it was done by legislation. If the power was in Congress by legislation to make citizens of all the inhabitants of the State of Texas, why is it not in the power of Congress to make citizens by legislation of all who are inhabitants of the United States, and who are not citizens? That is what this bill does, or what it proposes to do. There are within the United States millions of people who are not citizens, according to the view of the Supreme Court of the United States. Ought they to be citizens? I think they ought. I think it is an anomaly that says there shall not be the rights of citizenship to any of the inhabitants of any State of the United States.
"While they were slaves, it was a very different question; but now, when slavery is terminated, and by terminating it you have got rid of the only obstacle in the way of citizenship, two questions arise: First, whether that fact itself does not make them citizens? Before they were not citizens, because of slavery, and only because of slavery. Slavery abolished, why are they not just as much citizens as they would have been if slavery had never existed? My opinion is that they become citizens, and I hold that opinion so strongly that I should consider it unnecessary to legislate on the subject at all, as far as that class is concerned, but for the ruling of the Supreme Court to which I have adverted."
Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, spoke against the propriety and constitutionality of making all negroes citizens of the United States. He said: "There never was a colony before the Declaration of Independence, and there never was a State after the Declaration of Independence, up to the time of the adoption of the Constitution, so far as I have been able to learn by the slight historical examination which I have given to the subject, that ever made or attempted to make any other person than a person who belonged to one of the nationalities of Europe a citizen. I invoke the chairman of the committee to give me an instance, to point to any history or any memento, where a negro, although that negro was born in America, was ever made a citizen of either of the States of the United States before the adoption of this Constitution. The whole material out of which citizens were made previous to the adoption of the present Constitution was from the European nationalities, from the Caucasian race, if I may use the term. I deny that a single citizen was ever made by one of the States out of the negro race. I deny that a single citizen was ever made by one of the States out of the Mongolian race. I controvert that a single citizen was ever made by one of the States out of the Chinese race, out of the Hindoos, or out of any other race of people but the Caucasian race of Europe.
"I come, then, to this position: that whenever the States, after the Declaration of Independence and before the present Constitution was adopted, legislated in relation to citizenship, or acted in their governments in relation to citizenship, the subject of that legislation or that action was the Caucasian race of Europe; that none of the inferior races of any kind were intended to be embraced or were embraced by this work of Government in manufacturing citizens."
Mr. Trumbull inquired, "Will the Senator from Kentucky allow me to ask him if he means to assert that negroes were not citizens of any of these colonies before the adoption of the Constitution?"
"I say they were not," said Mr. Davis.
"Does the Senator wish any authority to show that they were?" asked
Mr. Trumbull.
"When I get through," said Mr. Davis, "you can answer me."
Mr. Trumbull replied: "I understood the Senator to challenge me to produce any proof on that point, and I thought he would like to have it in his speech. I can assert to him that by a solemn decision of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, they were citizens before the adoption of the Constitution."