Mr. MARSHALL. As I am quite unwell this morning, I should not attempt to enter into any discussionof the important measure now before the House for its consideration if it were not for the fact that I deem it to be my duty as a member of the committee that reported this bill to the House, and as a Representative of a constituency interested in this. proposed 1egislation, to express briefly the objections which I have to the passage of this bill and asI have no prepared speech for the Occasion, I do not propose to enter into a full or elaborate discussion of all theimportant questions which naturally and irresistibly present themselves to the mind in considerin this bill. Its importance cannot well be magnified. It inaugurates a measure which must result in the expenditure of untold millions of money to be wrung from the toiling and already oppressed masses of the country. It involves principles, as I conceive, running antagonistic to the fundamental principles of the Government, and such being the case it is difficult to conceive of a measure involving more important consequences than the one now before the House. The professed object of the billto look after and ta e care of that race of men who have recently, by the revolution that has swept over the country, been freed from the bonds of slavery, men who are houseless and homeless may be considered in one point of view a very charitable and laudable purpose. If this Government has the power to enact such a bill as this; if we have the money which we can, without oppression of the people, appropriate to such purposes; and if we adno more laudable claims upon us that are ressing upon our attention at this time, then this measure might be deemed a laudable one. To look after the oppressed, to educate the ignorant, to raise 11 those who are bowed down by oppression, an place them upon vantage ground mm which they can work out their own destinies, and achieve such position as they have the merit within them to attain, is unuestionably a laudable purpose. It is one of those purposes which might appeal strongly to the kind offices of the wealthy and benevolent of the count. But [denyjt theyeryputsetthat. Federal Government has an authority to become the common almoner of the charities of the peolo. I deny that there is any authority in the iederal constitution to authorize us to put our hands into their pockets and take therefrom apart of their har earnin s in order to distribute them as charity. I eny that the federal Government was established for any such purpose, or that there is any authority or war rant in the constitution for the measures which are proposed in this most extraordinary bill. I do not desire to dwell too long on these general objections. Every dollar that you take roam the citizen without warrant of the constitution is nothing more than robbery. Now, what does this bill propose to do? It proposes to establish by Federaf power, to be supported by Federal bayonets in all the States of this niou, and in every county thereof, if the SecyWar sees properso to do, a separate and independent local Jurisdiction and government for the purpose of governing, eeding, clothing. educating, and providing homes for the emancilpated slaves and of interfering with and contro ling the local governmentand police of the people of those States; to estabhsh an for the passage of any such law., empire within an empire, providing one 0vernment for one race and another for another . I would like for some gentleman to explain to this House where this Congress gets authority It is a fundamental principle of American law that the regulation of the local police of all the domestic affairs of a State belon to the State itself, and not to the Federal government. This is a principle which has never been denied until recently. The Federal Government has never attempted to act upon any other principle until this system of measures was inaugurated. Whence comes the power to carry but such measures as this? If no such power is conferred upon the Gpvernment by the Federal constitution, then the attempt to thrust your hands into the pockets of the people to raise money for this purpose, is, I repeat, nothing more than robbery, and it cannot properly be designated in any other way. I want some gentleman to tell me where is the authority to go into the States and establish a distinct local jurisdiction, separating as to governmental control 2 races oF people, creating one species of government for one class of the population, while another class have another species of government. I know that in these latter days it is deemed by many of those who are overburdened by superabundant and superlative “loyalty” some what treasonable to speak of the constitution of our cpuntrg. hBW except that which E; iie tot e laws. A few TyiiiiFsingIloiat was the only test which anyone thought of requiring. The only question was, is a man true to the constitution and obedient to the laws I it is only one or 2 years ago that we were told that the President was the Government, and that every man was disloyal who did not aprove every act of his, although those acts might be deemed usurpations. but we have now gone even furtherthau that. It is now disloyal for a man to raise his voice in o position to the decrees of a revolutionary caal that has been organized here for the purpose of controlling the destinies of this country. Even the POTUS himself is not now exempt from the charge of disloyalty. He is arraigned and the most bias hemous uialedictions hurled against him for having expressed his opinions in friendly converse in regard to proposed amendments of the constitution of our country, and he is charged with having been uill. y of an act which in any other country would have cost him his head. There has been established here a despotism, adictatorship, a tribunal as lawless an revolutionary in its purposes as the organization of the Jacobins in France, when they inaugurated the proceedings which brought the unfortunate Louis XVI to the block; and this revolutionary cabal of our day is, in my judgment, animatedby similar passions and seeking similar objects. J A Representative from the cat commercial metropolis of this country ha the audacity to express on this floor a generous and liberal sentiment in regard to the brave, unfortunate, though erring, men on the other side of the Potontbe who fell during the late terrible civilWar, and whose bones are now bleachin on the soil of their desolated country: and or that: simple expression of generous feeling he is to be enounced, crushed, immolated. Maledictions, such as were never heard in a deliberative body, are hurled against him, and an attempt is made to arouse the worst passions of the mob against him for the expression of his sentiments in this body where we are all peers and have equal rights under the constitution and laws. ow, sir, I believe the honorable chairman of the committee on freedmen, Mr. ELior] who has reported this bill to the House, and is responsible for its man ement is now upon the floor; and I should ike to lrnow by what authority, by virtue of what clause of the Constitution, this bill is to be pressed upon the House and forced a on the country. Where is the authority? cos the gentleman, or any of the friends of this measure, insist that congress has power to enact any law unless that power is given by the constitution? Now, the powerto regulate their own domestic institutions and their own local police is expressly reserved to the States. Sir, the Federal Government has never had any such power. So jealous, indeed, were the colonies of this right to regulate and control their internal olice, that dur in the throes of their terrile conflict for in e endence they refused to surrender to the revolutionary Congress any such power. They did so when the DeclarIndep was made. They did so when the Articles of Confederation were adopted, and they did so when the Government was formed underwhich we are now acting, and the constitution which we are sworn to obey. These facts are trite, but seem to have been forgotten, and men seem to act in those times as if the Government had the power to pass any law whatever without regard to the limitations of the constitution; to rob the people by unjust taxation; to take the hard earnings from the white people of the West, who, unless wiser counsels prevail, will themselves soon be reduced to worse than Egyptian bondage. I demand to be informed here upon this floor by what power you put your hands into their pockets and drag from them their money to carry out the purposes of this measure. The convention of Maryland, on the 28th of Junc, 1776, before the DeclarIndep was adopted, passed the following resolution: “That the deputiesof said colony, or any 3 or more of them. be authorized and empoweredto concur with the other United Colonies or a majority of them, in declaring the United Colonies free and indopendent States. in forming such further compactan d confederation betwecn them, in making foreign alliances and in adopting such other measures as shall be adjudged necessaryfor securing the liberties of America and that said colony Will hold itself bound by the resolutions of the majority of the United colonies in the premises; lrovideil, Ihat tho solo and exclusive right of regulating the internal government and police of that colony be reserved to the people thereof.” and this resolution was laid before the continental congress some days before the Decla ration was adopted, as a limitation u n the powers of the delegates to bind the State of Maryland, and as an annunciation of the sense in which the people thereof accepted said Declaration.” Other colonies adopted similar resolutions. They were sent to the delegates and presented to the Continental Congress. It was understood at all times, and has been a part of the public law of this country, that the Continental Congress acquired no right even during the throes of the revolutionary struggle to interfere with the internal police of the people of the States. and, sir, when the Articles of Confederation were formed it was provided in article 2 “ That each State should retain its sovereignty. freedom, and independence, and every power. risdiction and right which was not, by those Articles of Confederation, delegatedtotheU. S. in congress assembled.” and when the Federal constitution was adopted, establishing the Government under which we now live, although by a fair construction of that instrument, any court would have held that the Federal Government thereby acquired no powers except such as were dele gated to it by the constitution itself, yet for earofa latitudinarian construction an amendment was adopted declaring that "All the powersnot delegatedto the U.S. by the constitution, nor pprohibitedb itto the States, as: iycservod to the States respectively or to the people. No man who has any regard for the principles of the constitution will controvert this exposition of the powers of the Federal Government and as we are sworn here in the 1st place to have regard in all our acts upon this floor to this great fundamental instrument, I again call upon the advocates of the bill to tell me where they find in this constitution any authority to take uncounted millions of the peoples money to feed, clothe, educate, and buy lflndfl and house! for the emancipated negroes of the South; and where the power to usu the local jurisdiction of the States; and Iwil cheerfully give way to anyone who will undertake to furnish the information. I know that some have pretended that congress acquires the powers asserted in this bill by virtue of the 2nd clause of the amendment to the constitution recently adopted. That amendment is as follows: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude. except as a punishment. for crime whoreot the party shall be duly convicted, Nllllll exist williin the U.S., or any place subject to their jurisdiction. "Size. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this provision by appropriate lesislntion.” Congress has power to enforce what? The abolition of slavery. This is not denied. slavery is abolished throughout the entire land. If any man asserts the right to hold another in bondage as his slave, his chattel, and refuses to let him go free, Congress can by law, under this clause. provide by appropriate legislation for the punisliment of1hc offender and the protection from slavery of the freedmnn. But long gress has acquired not a particle of additional power other than this by virtue of this amendm ent. Whether it was right or wrong to abolish slavery in the mannerin which it was done, none deny that it is now abolished. Not one man in the whole land is attcm ting. by virtue of local law or otherwise to ho (lanother man in bondage as his slave, in the sense in which this term is used in American law. The power which one man claims to the service of anotherthe power to hold him in subjection to his will, and to sell him as property that was slavery as understood at the time this section was ingrafted in the constitution. Now, sir, undei this 2nd section. onquestionably if there is any attempt to reduce these men again to this kind of slavery, if any master refuses to allow his former slave to go at large, to leave his plantation, his county, or State, to have perfect right of locomotion, then it is within the power of the Federal Governmcut, under this clause, to interpose, and to provideby law for upunishment for such an attempt. But, sir, does that empower this Government to correct or interfere with legislation in regard to different classes in the same State, or different peoples in this Government? Unquestionably not. In California legislation discriminates against a class of Asiatics that have settled among them. In the State ofIllinois we do not grant to the African race all the privileges and immunities which are grantedto t ie white race. But, sir, is the black man in Illinois in come quence of that a slave? If unjust and unequal laws make all slaves who are injured thereby, then. sir, we of the West are all now reduced to slavery. Although we have the finest coun. try on earth, our people are now borne down to pay from 2 to 4 times as inucalmost to the verge of poverty by a system of class legislation. The manufacturers and capitalists Of the country, taking advantage of the po r they have acquired in the national Legislature, have im. 0sed a most unjust and outrageous tariff am financial system upon us by the combined effect of which the mass of the people in the West are now comcllfoedr any article of merchandise they buy as they have ever been required to pay at any former time, and while this is so their grain is rot ting in their granaries for want of markets and yet you have sent your taxgatherers to every mans homestead; they are in every county, North and South; they are diving into the cel lars, scrambling into the gariets, and prying everywhere to find something on which to lay their inexorable grasp. Every article that the farmer buys is doubly taxed before it reaches him. A few years ago, during those Adminis trations which the saintly patriots on this floor are so eloquent in denouncing, the poor man of the West could with one dollar buy ten yards of the heaviest brown sheetings for his family. Now it takes 5 dollars to buy the same goods. and, sir, it is no exaggeration to say that of the larger part of this additional 4 dollars you are litarally robbing him, by the jugzlury of clunlegiahcimi, meted in part to add to the swollen hoards of the manufacturers of NewEngland, and the bankers, speculators, and, bondliolders of the country. The farmer is taxed on everything he eats, drinks, or wears, on all that he owns, all that he buys, and all i that he sells; on the bed on which he lies down to die, and on the coffin in which he is buried and even then he does not escape you, for be lore the clods are settled upon his grave your Laxgathercrlnys his grasp upon the heritage c loaves to his children. All this he might endure if the burdens you impose fell equally upon all classes. But, sir, while the western farmorjs thus literally hunted down the wealthy bondholder, who counts his income by the 100,000 dollars, is by your legislation actually exempted from taxation. while the lordly manufacturer is protectedycs, that is the wordprotected in the privilege of charging for his goods double what they could he bought for if free competition with the world were allowed by your laws. The increase in wealth of these favored classes is without a parallel. "lhcir incomes are more than princely. 1hey dazzle us with their lordly cquipages as they dash by us. Their palatial residences, whose glittering domes almost kiss the heavens, rise as if by magic before our astonished gaze and this)olitical jugglery, this legislative systom of robbery, has not only been permitted, but, sir, these laws have been enacted without so much as a protest from the Representatives)fthe West of the dominant party. llicse Igen tleinen have been so much occupied in glorifying and magnifying their own immaculate virtues and rampant patriotism that they have entirely forgotten the interests of their constituents. But. sir, the people of the West are beginning to understand t iis legislative hocuspocus by which heir money is conjured out of the ir ockets into he lethoric coffers of the money ords of the lan: and a storm is now gathering that will hurl from their seats many overrighteous patriots, who are now so completely absorbed with the contemplation of their own exalted virtues that they do not even now suspect the danger., then, unjust legislation makes slaves of those who are wronged thereby, we of the West are this day being subjected and reduced to worse than Egyptian bondage. But this is not. the sense in which the word was used in the constitution. It referred to slavery only as it was known in the southern States, the system by which one man hold another as his property. That system of slavery is abolished, and the Federal Government has the right!) see that men are not. reduced to that system of slavery, and they have no power beyond thatunder that clause of the constitution. Now, to come down tosome of the details of this bill. Section 6 gives the right to the Freedmens Bureau to go into the States, adIibghmi ct ml fliJimfum, without any limit but their own discretion, and buy u 1 the lands of the country and for what? forYhe purpose of settling thereon the freedmen of the country, and protectingand maintaining them until they become, I suppose, a selfsustaining institution. Again, I ask where they obtain the pow to dothiit. I denyit, and the duty devolve! pon those who claim that the power exists to show it. If any gentleman thinks there is any such powerin the constitution, let him name it now. I am ready tohcnr it. I deny that there is in the Federal constitution any power given to Congress to authorize the SecyWar, or anyone else. in the name of the Government, to go into the States and buy up the lands of the country and sell them out again. Congress has. power to dispose of the public lands, and it is Ionly under that provision of the constitution l that the public domain is disposed of: but conlgress has no power under the constitution to buy up lands or the purpose of speculation, or for anychuritable or other purpose whatever. I shall confine my remarks mainly to the bill, as it passed the Senate and is now before the jllousc. I am aware that some amendments l have been offered. Whether they shall be adopt led or not, theydo not in my judgment to any great extent remove the objections which I entertain to the bill now before the House. I wish to call the attention of the House 1st to the provisions of section 7. I will read it, that i the points I intend to make may be better understood by those who favor me with i heir attention: SEC. 7. Abife: That whenever in State or district in which the ordinary courseof Jbllctltheoinu, l apnrodeweehdeirnegins, hianscboenesncq interrupted by the reof any State or local law, ordinance, policc. of (lilll!l regulation, custom or prejudice, any of the civil rights or immuni ticsboloning towhite persons, including the rightto make uiu enforce contracts. to sun, be parties and, give evidence, to inherit, purchase. lrusc, scll, old, and convey real and personal property and to have full and cquiil benefit of all laws and proceedingsfor the securityof personandestate, arerclused or denied to negroes, mulnttocs, freedmen, refugccs, orauy other persons. on account of rnce, color or any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, excc n.al a punishment for crime wbercof the party shall iavo beenduly convicted or wherein they or any of them are subjected to any other or diffuren punishment pains, or penalties, tor the commission of any act or offense, t uin are prescribed for white pOlMHlrcl committing likc acts or offenses, itslmllbe the duty of the POTUS through the Commis to extend military protection und jurisdiction oavgearinasltl. Cases affecting such personsso discriminated Now, I contend that under the construction. which may and probably will be put upon this section and the subsequent sections, this bill will establish military law in every State and in every county of the U.S., and give the military arm of the Government power to go into Kentucky, into Tennessee, or "NO Illinois, and there establish military tribunals for the purpose of protecting the freedmen, and over ride the laws of the States. Now, it so happens that in the State of Illinois, in Indiana, and in man others of the northern States, a discrimination in some respectsis made a ninst those of the African race, and I contend t 111 wherever any such discrimination is made against them, under the provisions of this bill, it is within the power of the Federal Government to send its o icers there and establish military tribunals within every I State and district of the Union: