Mr. THAYER. It would have afforded me, Mr. Speaker, much more satisfaction if my public duties had allowed me time to present what. I have to say to the House in reference to this bill in a somewhat more orderly and me thodical manner than I shall be able to do. I cannot, however, consistently with what I conceive to be the duty which I owe to the loyal constituency which I have the honor to represent upon this fioor, allow the opportunity which now presents itself to pass without expressing in such manner as I may be able the reasons which government in giving, as I do, my cordial assent to the principles and the details of this great measure. Sir, this bill is the just sequel to, and the proper comiletion of, that great measure of national reress which opened the dungeon doors of 4 million human beings. Without this, in my judgment, that great act of justice Will be paralyzed and made “1888” ith this it will havefiraetical etiect, life, vigor, and enforcement. t has been the fashion of Gentlemen holding a certain set of opinions in this House to characterize that great measure to which I have referred as a revolutionary measure. Sir, it was a revolutionary measure. It was one of the greatest, one of the most humane, one of the most beneficial revolutions which ever characterized the history of a free State; but it was a revolution which, then by initiated by the conflict ofarms and rendere necessary as a measure of war against the public enemy, was accomplished within an unt er the provisions of the Constitution of the U.S. It was a revolution for the relief of human nature, a revolution which gave life, liberty and hope to millions whose condition until then appeared to be one of hopeless despair. It was a revolution of which no free man need be ashamed, of which every man who assisted in it will, I am sure, in the future be proud, and which will illumine with a great glory the history of this country. The bill which now engages the attention of the House has for its object to carry out and guaranty the reality of that great measure. It is to give to it practical effect and force. It is to prevent that great measure from remaining a ead letter upon the constitutional page of this country. this to carry to its legitimate and just result the great humane revolution to which I have referred. The events of the last 4 years, the convulsions through which this country has passed, the fortunes of war, the progress of ideas, the triumph of republican ibertv, have changed this large class of people who well within the confines of the U.S. from a condition of slavery to that of freedom. The practical question now to be decided is whether they shall be in fact free men. It is whether they shall have the benefit of this great charter of liberty given to them by the American people. Sir. if it is competent for the new formed Legislatures of the rebel States to enact laws which oppress this large class of people who are dependent for protection upon the U.S. Government, to retain them still in a state of real servitude; if it is practicable for these Legislatures to pass laws and enforce laws which reduce this class of people to the condition of bondsmen; laws which prevent the enjoyment of the fundamental rights of citizenship; laws which declare, for example, that they shall not have the privilege of purchasing a home for themselves and their families; laws which impair their ability to make contracts for labor in such manner as virtually to deprive them of the power of making such contracts, and which then declare them vagrants because they have no homes and because they have no employment; I say, if it is competent for these Legislatures to pass and enforce such laws, then I demand to know, of what practical value is the amendment abolishing slavery in the U.S.? Tell me when you boast of the glorious character of that addition to your Constitution what benefit you have conferred upon the men who are liberated from slavery by it. if these things are to be done under the flag of the U.S and in the face of the authority of the Federal Constitution. For one, sir, I thought when I voted for the amendment to abolish slavery that I was aiding to give real freedom to the men who had so long been groaning in bondage. I did not suppose thatl was offering them a more paperguarantee and when I voted for the 2nd section of the amendment, I felt in in own mind certain thatI had placed in the oustitution and given to Congress ability to protect and guaranty the rights which the 1st section gave them. The simple principle of the bill under consideration and its whole essence is contained in its 1st section. The rest is all matter of detail. The whole life and substance of the bgll is in its 1st section. That section enacts that All personsborn in the U.S and not subjoctto any foreign Power mxcluding Indians nottaxed, areherebydeclaredto be citizens of the U.S., without distinction of colcr, and there shall beno discrimination in civil rights or immunities among the inhabitants of any State or Territory of the U.S. on account ot"race, color, or previous condition of slavery. Now, sir, what is there in that? Let me appeal to the common sense and judgment of every member of this House when put the question. What is there in that to challenge e denunciation which the House listened to yesterday from the Gentfrom NewJersey, [Mr. Rooms 7] Is any man to be injured by i7t Are any man s rights to be invaded or taken away by it? Who will pretend that such is the case? It is an enactment simply declaring that all men born u.on the soil of the U.S shall enjoy tie fundamental rights of citizenship. Vhat rights are these? Why, sir, in order to avoid any misapprehension they are stated in the bill. The same section goes on to define with greater particularity the civil rights and immunities which are to be protected by the bill. They are The right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties and give evidence, to Inherit. purchase.lease sol], hold, and conveyreal and personal iroperty, an to full and equal benefit of all laws an proceedin for the securityof personand property, and to be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other. 7 Now, sir, I will ay so high a compliment to the intellience Oft ic gentleman who addressed us yester ay, as to say that I do not think he can believe that this bill extends or alters, or can be construed to extend or alter, the laws regulating suffrage in any of the States. Sir no lawyer who is acquainted with the use of terms and the rules which regulate the construction of laWs will, I think, seriously contend that the language of this bill can by any possibility, or by any forced construction, produce any such result. “ In the 1st place, the words themselves are civil rights and immunities, ” not political privileges; and nobody can successfully contend that a billguarantying simplycivil rights and immunities is a bill under which you could extend the right of suffrage, which is a political privilege and not a civil right. Then, again, the matter is put be end all doubt by the subsequent particular efinition of the general language which has been just used; and when those civil rights which are 1st referred to in general terms in the bill are subsequently enumerated, that enumeration precludes any possibility that the general words which have been used can be extended beyond the particulars which have been enumerated. It is well for gentlemen at the outset to dis, abuse themselves of ally such idea as that which has been suggested in regard to the pointwhich I am now considering. I tell gentlemen that no man upon this floor can successfiilly defend himself before the country for voting against this bill upon the ground that it impairs the rights of States in determining the qualitiestions of electors. It has no such effect, and I tell those gentlemen that when they vote against this bill they will have to answer to their constituents for voting, not to protect the rights of States in the regulation O suffrage but for voting a inst the protection of the fundamental rightso citizenship and nothing else. If they can stand at home upon any such platform as that, they may safely vote against this bill, but there is nothing else in the bill but this. Now, sir, why should not this be done? Why should not these fundamental rights and immunities which are common to the humblest citizen ofevery free State, be extended to these citizens? Why should they be deprived of the right to make and enforce contracts, of the right to sue, of the right to be parties and give evidence in courts of justice, of the right to in herit, purchase, lease, hold, and convey real and personal property? and why should they not have full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and proIcpoernty?ne myself now to the principle and substance of the bill. I shall resently have a few words to say in regard to the details of the bill which have given rise to animadversion on the part of those who oppose it. I speak now of the principle of the bill, and challenge any man in this House to give me, if he can, a sensible reason, a reason which he can reconcile with his own sense of justice, why the rights which are enumerated in the 1st section of this bill should not be extended to the freedmen of the South? The sole purpose of the bill is to secure to that class all] persons the fpndnmental rights of citizenship; those rights which constitute the essence of freedom, and which are common to the citizens of all civilized States; those rights which secure life, liberty, and propert, and which make all men equal before die flaw, as the are equal in the scales of eternal justice In in the eyes of God. To accomplish this great purpose, the bill declares, in the 1st place, that all persons born in the U.S., and not an ject to any foreign Power, are citizens of the U.S. Now, I do notreard thatas the enun ciation of any new prineip c. It is, in myjudgment, but declaratory of the existing law. according to my apprehension, every man born in the U.S., and not owing allegiance to a foreign Power, is a citizen of the U.S. It is a rule of universal law, adopted and maintained among all nations, that they who are born upon the soil are the citizens of the State. They owe allegiance to the State, and are entitled to the protection of the State. such is the law, whether you put it into this bill or not. So far as this declaration of the bill is concerned, it is but. reiterating an exist in and acknowledged principle of law. Vell, conceding that this general proposition is true, either by the force of existing law, or by the declaration which it is proposed to put into this bill, it is then asked, y what power, by what authority, do you propose to guaranty and protect the rights of the citizens of this Government? If the proposition which I have assumed as true be correct, that these people are citizens of the U.S., does it not seem at the 1st blush to be a very singular proposition to say that the U.S. under its constitution have no right to guaranty to its own citizens, by positive law, these greatfundamental rights of citizenship which are enu merated in this bill? Does it not strike the mind of everylman with wonder that the framers of the Constitution of the U.S. who made this great and wonderful fabric of human Government, and who evinced so much skill and foresight in making it, should have framed a Government which is iueable of protecting its citizens in these funmental rights of citizenship? Would it. not be an extraordinary circumstance if the framers of the Constitution had made a Constitution which was powerless to protect the citizens of the U.S. in their fundamental civil rights their riwbts of life, liberty, and proarty? and yet to that position are these gentllamen driven who deny the existence of any power which authorizes Congress to pass this bill. If I am asked from wence the power is de rived to pass this bill, I reply that I derive it, in the 1st place, from the 2nd section of the late amendment to the Constitution. I say, further, that so far as regards the power to declare the freedrnen citizens is concerned, it may be clearly derived itit be not inherent in the very frame of every government) from that clause of the Constitution which gives the express power to Congress to pass laws for natu ralization and I might say, also, that in my judgment sutheient power is found, by imlication at least, in that clause of the Constitution which guaranties to all the citizens of the U.S. their right to life, liberty, and property. lhere are sources of power enough from which this power can be deduced. In my judment, no man can find any ditheulty in seeing contitutional grounds upon which to place his justification for supporting this bill. The object of the late amendment to the Constitution was to abolish slavery. It was the purpose of that amendment to relieve these who were slaves from all the oppressive incidents of slavery. It would have been idle on the part of the peable of the U.S. to say that they would abolish slavery, and at the same time to say that they would permit any section of the country to impose upon that class of persons who were liberated by that great not of justice all the coneornitants, all the dischil ities, and all the tyrannical restrictions which grow out of and were a part of their condition of slavery. Sir, that cannot be said. The amendment to the Constitution gave liberty to all; and in giving liberty it gave also a complete exemption mm the tyrannical acts the tyrannical restrictions, and the tyrannical laws which belong to the condition of slavery, and which it is the object of this bill forever to remove. 1 he bill under consideration is intended only to carry into practical effect the amendment of the Constitution. Its objectis to declarenot only that slavery shall be abolished upon the pages of your Constitution, but that it shall be abolished in fact and in deed; not only that that feature of slave shall be abolishe which permitted the pure ase and sale of men, of women and of little children as slaves, but that all feat ures of slavery which are oppressive in their character, which extinguish the rights of free citizens, and which unlawfull control their liberty, shall be abolished an destroyed for ever. to at any other construction upon this great amendment of the Constitution is to deprive it of its vital force, of its effective value. It is to cheat the world by sounding phrases; and while you pretend to give liberty to those who were in bondage, to leave them in reality in a condition of modified slavery, subject to the old injustice and the old tyranny which characterized their former unhappy condition. Sir, what kind of freedom is that which is given by the amendment of the Constitution, if it is confined simplyto the examtion of the freedmen from sale and barter? O you give freedom to a man when you allow him to be deprived of those great natural rights to which every man is entitled by nature? I ask the Democratic members of this House, what kind of freedom is that by which the man placed in a state of freedom is subject to the tyranny of laws which deprive him of rights which the humblest citizen in every State in Christendom enjoys? What kind of freedom is that under which a man may be deprived of the right of going athis own volition from one place to another; may be deprived of the ability to make a contract; may be deprived of the ability to sell or convey real or personal estate; may be deprived of the liberty to engage in the ordinary dpursuits of civilized litc; may be de prive of the right to be a party or a witness HI a court of justice, or may be subjected to pains and penalties which are not inflicted upon other citizens? N o, sir, it is in vain that any such restrictive interpretation is soughtto be aced upon this great charter of freedom, which has recently been given by the people of the U.S. to this class of its people. It is contradictory of the whole scope and object of this great grant and you cannot maintain it without can celing and rendering nugatory the grant itself. I say, therefore, that by virtue of the 2nd section of the amendment of the Constitution Congress has exress power to pass laws which will guaranty and insure these great rights and immunities of citizenship to those who, by the act of emancipation and the amendment of the Constitution, were made free men, and who in becoming free man became citizens. Now, if any doubt exists in the mind of any man in regard to the position that this class of persons having become free have by law become also citizens, in the strict and legal meaning of that word, then I say that by that provision of the Constitution which gives to Congress an express power to naturalize Congress as ample authority to confer the rights of citizenship I upon this cass of persons. Therefore these who do not assent to the correctness of what I have expressed as my own opinion in regard to the legal status of these people, independent of the declaration contained in the 1st section of the bill, ought, it seems to me, in their search for power to the bill, to have their doubts removed by a consideration that the bill it self in conferring citizenship upon the freedmen confers it in pursuance of and by virtue of an express power delegated by the Constitution to Congress. The Constitution, as we all know, has given to Congress this express wer to naturalize. It is capable of beine established by numerous precedents that that does not meant iat the Government of the U.S., acting through Congress, can confer the right of citizenship upon foreigners only. The word “ naturalize" conveys no such exclusive idea. It simply means to give to a man, or an class of men, the same rights of citizeuship which belong to a natural born citizen of the country. It does not mean that we can only do that in the case of foreigners; it means that weean do it in respect to anyone, or in respect to any class, the only restriction being the uniformity of the law which may be adopted on that subject. There are, as the House well knows, numer house.recedents for the exercise of such power by congress. We are all familiar with that provision of the naturalization law which not uralizes the mine r children of foreigners who have been naturalized. We all know that there have been instances in the history of this Gov"ernment in which the right of citizenship has been given under this clause of the Constitution to whole tribes of Indians existing among us, and who have been gradually reclaimed by time and civilization from their barbarous condition. All these precedents are against any argument which can be made to restrict the power of naturalization to the case of foreigners. If that be admitted, or if nothing of counter vailing force can be urged against it, then why have we not the power underthis express clause of the Constitution to confer the rights of citizenship upon this class of persons? I do not know what answer can be given to that qnestion. I do not know, sir, how that position can be denied.