Mr. DAVIS. Mr. President, the amendment that is under consideration is in these words: Abife: That upon all questions of law arising in any cause under the provisions of this act a final appeal may betaken to the SCOTUS Now, sir, I propose to debate this proposition: that all questions of law arising out decided under this act are a nullity; that the tribunals intended by this bill to decide those questions would have no power over them; and therefore that this section authorizing an appeal to the Supreme Court from cases that were coram nonjudice, from cases before tribunals that had no proper judicial authority or jurisdiction whatever to adjudge them would be a mere nullity, and therefore the amenduient ought not to be adopted by the Senate. I will proceed to enter upon the debate of that proposition. I suppose I would have been about half through by this time but for the consumption of time on this point of order. The honorable Senfrom Illinois has not responded to the question which I put directly to im, and that was, that he should read to the Senate for my information, if not for the information of the Senate, the clause of the Constitution that authorizes Congress to pass this bill. If Congress has no legal, constitutional right to pass it, of course Congress has no power to pass a section of the bill that will not orize an appeal to the Supreme Court from any of the spurious judgments that are proposed to be rendered under it. I asked the honorable Senator, and I again repeat the question, if it was now proposed by some wiseacre who wanted the constitution amended, to add this as an additional clause to the Constitution “ Congress shall have power to enact and establish for each State acivil and penafeode for such State wouldany member of the Senate vote for such a proposed amendment? I have assumed that this bill proposes that Congress shall do precisely the thing in the passage of this bill that such a proposed ame dment of the Constitution would, authorizeCongress to do; and I have appealed to gentlemen to know, if in the absence of a provision of the Constitution to that effect, up. position was made so to amend it they would vote for it; and now being made, I have as sumed that they would all vote against it. The 1st section of the bill is in these words: That all persons bornin the U.S and not subject to any foreign Power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the U.S., and such citizens of over race and color, without regard to any (prevwuse on ition of slavery or involuntary servitu 0, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall have the sameright in every State and Territory in the U.S. to make and enforce contracts. to sue.be parties and give evidence, to in herit, purchase.lease, sell. hold, and convey real and personal proper!, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and prone. lugs for the security of person and property as]: cmoyed bywhite citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other. any law, statute. ordinance, regulation or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding. Here are embodied the 2 principal features of this bill, which the honorable Senfrom Illinois said, when it was before the Senate some weeks ago, was of so much importance. It is of vast moment. It is a greater stride toward the consolidation of all power by congress than has ever before been taken or conceived. It declares that all the acts of the various State Legislatures relating to the subjects of civil rights that are specified in the bill shall be common and uniform in their application to the people of each State, without regard to race or color; and furthermore, that all laws defining crimes and misdemeanors and de claring punishments shall be the same and uniform in their application to the black and white races of each State. I again challenge the honorable Senfrom Illinois, or any advocate of this bill, to read me the provision of the Constitution which authorizes Congress to pass such a measure. We have laws in the State of Kentucky that discriminate between the punishment of the whites and blacks. Those laws we expect to continue in operation, and we expect to execute them in the future. What power hasCongiess to pass a law to harmonize the criminal and pens laws of the State of Kentucky, and command and coerce the same punishments which are inflicted upon her white citizens, and none other, shall be administered to her negro population? What authority has Congress to command the government and the people of Kentucky, or any State to confer on the negro portion of its population the same civil rights with which the laws invest white citizens? Gentlemen need not tell me that this, bill does not assume such power. It assumes the principle. the general power that would as wel enable Congress to occupy both of those vast fields of State and domestic legislation which regulate the civil rights, and the pains, penalties, and punishments inflicted upon the people of the respective States which were not delegated to the Government of the U.S., but were reserved to the States respectively and to the people, as to them the most important and interesting portion of their Original sovereignty. I will give an example that I gave afew days ago. We have a law in Kentucky that punishes rape, when committed by a negro upon a white woman, with death. This punishment for that crime is notinflicted upon a white man. Now, what does this bill propose? To abrogate the distinction between the punishment of a white and black man in the State of Kentucky for the commission of that crime. Will any senator tell me where Congress derives the power to break down that difference? There are some other differences of punishment between white and black people there for the commission of other crimes. The language of this bill provides that all differences of punishment between the white and the black races for that or any other crime shall cease, and that the shall be subject to the same punishments for all offenses. I am not surprised that the honorable Senfrom Illinois, able lawyer though he be, has retreated from the task of answering the question, whence does Congress derive the power to pass this law? Congress has not an iota of power but what is conferred by the Constitution, and if it were invested with one so important, the provision embodying it would surely be quoted. The same general remark might apply in relation to the classes of civil rights that are set forth in this billf and which are assured by it to negroes in the same fullness that the laws of the States guaranty them to white citizens. Some of the States make a difference between the civil rights of white and black people. Here intervenes this congressional bill Sec aring that all those differences shall cease, and that all the people of every State, black and white, shall have the same civil rights so nominc. Thus this bill proposes to modify and harmonize the code oi laws of each State so faras they establishany distinctions in the civil rights, and pains, penalities, and punishments of their people of different races. Are Senators ready to concede this principle? If Congress has the power to break own this difference in the laws of Kentucky in the respects to which I have adverted, has it not the power to occupy the whole domain of local and State legislation? Some of the States deny to negroes the right to hold lauds. In relation to free negroes it is not so in my State and never has een, but such is the law in some of them. Now, sir, I hold that under our Constitution and system of government both of these subjects, the regulation of the civil rights of the people of a State, and the laws by which they are subjected to penalties and punishment, belon exc usively to the government and people of each State, and that Congress has no authority or jurisdiction whateveroveieither of these General subjects of legislation. I have called upon the honorable Senator to produce his authority, but to that call there is no response. He is voiceless, and well may he be, because there is no clause in the Constitution which confers upon congress the power to wrest any such subjects of legislation from the States. If you concede the principle for one subject, for one civil right, or for one class of punishments, it exists for all. If congress have the right to abolish the capital punisment of a slave in the State of Kentucky, they have the right to reg ulate the whole subject of the punishment of our people. There is no ese aping from that cone usion. If this congressional power exists to the extent that it is attempte to be exercised in this bill, it is without limit except by congressional discretion and forbearance. Sir, Congress oes into my State, your State, all the States, and declares by its legislation that all races of their.people shall enjoy a community of civil rights, and that they shall be subjected to the same punishment, and where there are diliereuces in those respects it proceeds by enal enactments to abolis those differences. oes not that consummate the consolidation of all legislative power in Congress? Congress may if it will go into each State and strike down the penal and criminal codes of all the States wholl and organize new bodies of laws for them. 1 few years ago there was a proll vision in the constitution of NewHampshire, and I believe it has not been changed, if it has it has ese aped my attention, that persons professing the Roman Catholic religion should not be eligible to office in that State. If the people of the State of NewHampshire have a right to introduce that provision into their constitution they have a right to subject Roman Catholics to civil as well as political disability. I admit the flagrant injustice of such an exclusion by the constitution of NewHampshire; but who from the State of NewHampshire would concede that Congress has the power by its legismlation to go into that State and to abrogmse that distinction of political rights amo citizens?, ss in on, The question I am debating is not th more and justice or policy of this bill, but what, propor. Icfonstitutional power of Congress tn um! what new in open session one senateirveys were rovocation, were to murder another“. were “0 Senate would proceed with flpproprlalepveyor to punish the criminal by expulsion; but it n were to inflict upon him the punishment fo d murder, by hanging, Senators themselves would become murderers, and be subject to be punished as such. The enactment of all laws, State and Federal, and their administration are confided to the appropriate governments, Depts, and officers; and all otherpersons who presume to do such acts are usurpers, trespassers, and wrong doers, who ought to be punished as such. Government, order, and law could not exist upon any other principles. If Congress has the power to regulate the subjects which this bill assumes to regulate, it is but the beginning of a new and most imor tant era of its legislation. There will, indee, be a development of our system of government of which the fathers never spoke or wrote, or which their sons never dreamed until the acme of the present great national frenzy. There is one other feature of this bill to which I will advert, and I will then take my sent. If it should become a law the people of the States will be subject to 2 codes of laws: the black man being governed by one, and the white man being subject to the other. Here are the State constitution and laws which every State officer takes an oath to enforce. The judges, marshals, and executive officers of a State all take an oath to execute the State laws. What does this bill make the consequence of the attempt of these State officers to execute these State laws? It declares that they become guilty of a high misdemeanor, and that they shall be subject to a fine not exceeding $1,000, or 12 months imprisonment, or both, at the discretion of the court. What kind of as ectaele is it which the Senate oil the U.S. now exhibits in seeing a bill of this character. de nouncing the observance of the laws of the States by their different officers, whose official oaths require them to carry those laws into execution, as a crime against the U.S., and providing for the punishment of the commission of such a crime by these high penal ties? Is not the very proposition monstrous and absurd? Suppose that a Roman Catholic is a candidate for the Legislature or for congress in the State of NewHampshire. In obe ience to the constitution of that State, if it still reads as it did formerly, the officers of the election refuse to open a poll for him, on the round that he is by the constitution of the State ineligible to the office. Congress passes a law declarina that amen the citizens of the State of NewHampshire a shall beequally eligible to office. The constitution and laws of that State remain unchanged, and the officers of their election conform to them and disregard the law of Congress. according to the principle in this bill, they would commit acrime against the Government of the U.S. for which they would be subject to be indicted in the U.S. courts, and to be fined $1,000 each, and imprisoped for 12 months or both. The constitution and laws of NewHampshire would be an “at and absurd; but Congress would not have a Power to apply that or any other correctiveIt would tended to pacify the country, to give peace to be a matter with which Congress had nothing to do. Mr. President, I think this bill originates in I mistaken policy. to use the mildest phrase with which it can be characterized. If it is in it and to reconcile the different races of which that country is constituted to each other. it is a most mistaken policy to enact a “y such law as this. 4 There are in all the old slave States men whose business and whose ownership of lands will require them to employ the negroes "ho were lately slaves as laborers; but much larger proportion of the white people will Wsiicii demand for negro labor. A great of the white people who do not own he competitors with the negroes for.it in the service of those men who the labor of both or of either. What.iiings will this bill introduce among;. ilationf We all know, you know, sir, every man knows, that there will be a condition between the white and the black laborers or employment, for wages; and this competition on the part of the white men will be limited to the poorer classes, who do not wish to employ labor themselves, and whose vocation an living is to be employed asd laborers. The passage of such a bill as this is calculated to produce interference between and a disturbance of, the relations of the black laborer and his white employer, to get u feuds and quarrels and contentions between them by interested and sinister persons. to alienate the white employer from the black laborer, and consequently by such vexations, to induce the employerto resortto the white instead of the black aborer to cultivate his fields, and perform his other work. If this bill is passed, it will promote feud and enmity between the white employer and the black laborer. It is inevitable. he way to avoid that feud, at least to as large a degree as is practicable, is to leave the relation to itself and the parties to it, and to the laws and policy of t it: States. The people there and the governments of the States are most interested in harmonizing the relations between the black laborer and the white employer; and it is their interest that perfectl riendly, confidential, and just relations shal exist between those classes of their population. This result will be promoted by iieaving the entire matter to the parties interested, and to State legislation and policy, by keeping the officious and interested and corrupt agents of the General Government entire] out of the field of relations and regulations between the 2 classes of society. I had intended to show that the appeal held out in the last amendment of the House is de lusive, but a false pretense; that on questions oflaw it could be never taken unless there was a certificate of a division of opinion of the district and circuit judges. Upon the facts and merits of a case an appeal would no the unless the amount was $2,000, and that it was wholly unavailable because of the vague povert of that section in providing for and to regulate the appeal. But I forbear. I therefore, on the grounds that I have stated, oppose this bill. I know that they wei h nothing with the dominant power here. what care I for that? What care I for the manner in which my suggestions may be received by the majority? Nothing; less than nothing, it possible. I am performing my duty according to my sense of that duty; and in des ite of all opposition, of frowns or scoffs or of any other Opposition, come in what form it may, Iwill Stand up to the last hour of my service in this Chamber, and will endeavor, as best I can, to perform my duty whatever may betide me.