Mr. DAVIS. The honorable Senator is full of conceit, but I have seen less conceit with a great deal more brains than he has. If the honorable Senator will restrain himself he will have an opportunity after a while. That is not he main point that I am coming to. It is not the main buttress that I am attempting to throw up for the defense of the positions that I take. I was speaking of the manner in which the constitution is to be interpreted. I challenged the honorable Senator to deny the principles and canon upon which I proceeded to interpret the constitution. If he denies them, when he gets up to speak he can maintain his position. say nowand I made use of that argument to fortify this positionthat when the term “ naturalizntion was introduced into the Federal constitution, it was introduced with precise] the same meaning and understanding in which it had been understood and executed in the different States. By the old Articles of confederation congress had no power to nuturalize a foreigner. 9 old Articles of Confederation had no power to naturalize a foreigner. Each State naturalized foreigners for itself, and the States had various and discrepant systems. In some of the States it required a longer and in other States a shorter term of residence to authorize a foreigner to become a citizen. What was the consequence? The various systems of naturalization by the different States introduced confusion and disorder and inconven ience. It. was with a view to prevent these in conveniences, by having aunifldrm system, that in the Convention of 1787 the whole subject of naturalization was given a to congress. Each State yielded it for itsel; it yiel edit to the General Government. It yielded itin 2 forms only. The 1st form was as an incident of the treatymaking power. Whenever a foreign country or foreign subjects or citizens were annexed to the U.S. citizenship accompanied it as an incident of the treatymaking power. They yielded it in this other form by naturalization. It was to obviate a discrepant and discordant system of naturalization by the various States that this power was vested by the constitution in the General Government; and in what language was it vested? Congress shall have power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization. That is the language. Now, sir, my position is, that anything which does not amount to a uniform rule of naturalization does not fulfill the requirement of the constitution, and is invalid. oes a little, petty law, local and almost personal in its character, applying simply to the Stockbridge Indians, or any other tribe of Indians establish a Uniform rule of naturalization? at at all. Does the amendment of the gentleman establish a uniform rule of naturalization? Not at all. The naturalization spoken of here is the admission of a foreigner to the rights of citizenship. That is the subject; and under the provision of the constitution I will read some authorities presently on that subject. There are but 2 modes in which a foreigner can be admitted to become a citizen of the U.S. One is in case he shall have been an inhabitant of country acquired by the treatymaking power by the U.S.; and if he does not come a to that rule, the other is that he can only be admitted by a law of Congress establishing a uniform rule of naturalization. I therelore might say to the honorable Senatorbut I have a stronger position behind yet that his amendment not establihing a uniform rule, but being different, discrepant from the uniform rule of naturalization prescribed by the law of congress, and Congress having only power to establish a uniform rule, his amendment is unconstitutional because it does not come ii to the criterion that is furnished by the constitution. But, Mr. President, my main position is that no nativeborn person of the U.S. of any race or any color can be admitted a citizen of the U.S. by Congress under the powgr conferred in relation to naturalization y the constitution upon Congress. It is preposterous and absur to pretend tomake you, sir, orany gentleman born in the U.S., a citizen of the U.S. under the power of Congress to pass a uniform rule of naturalization. Why? Because you are not a foreigner. This is the truth about it; it is a historical truth, and it establishes the principle, too, that all the action and operation of the State governments before the constitution was form, and the provisgin of the constitution itself in relation to naturalization and investing Congress with that whole subject under the authority to establish a uniform rule of naturalization refers exclusively to foreigners. You being born here might become the subject of this naturalization law and system; but what would be necessary before you could be placed in such a condition? You would have to go to some foreign country and sever your tie of allegiance to the Government of the U.S and assume that tie toward some foreign Government or foreign potentate before you could be the subject of naturalization here. Now, sir, I will read from one or 2 authorities on this subject. Let me state the position which I want the learned and able Senator and jurist from Illinois to assail if he can. I lay down the proposition that no man but a foreigner can be admitted a citizen of the U.S. under our naturalization laws or under any power which Congress has to naturalize. I read 1st from Storys Commentaries upon the constitution, sections 1097, 1098, and 1009: “SEC. 10!”. The neigt clause is, that Congress ahnll have power to establish a uniform ruleof naturalization and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the U.S. "Site. “98. The propriety of confiding the power to establisha uniform rule of naturalization to the national Government seems not to have occasioned any doubt or controversy in the Convention. For wanit hotutthaotbajepepteioanr. soUnnth deerJo(uhrenaClso, niftewdears actioonncedtehde States possessed the sole authority to exercise the iower: and the dissimilarity of the system in different tnteswiis generally admitted as a prominent defect and laid the foundationof many delicate and intricate questions. As the free inhabitants of eachState were entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in all the other States. it followed that a single State possessed the power of forcing into every other State. With the enjoyment of every immunity and privilege, any alien whom it might choose to incorporate into its own society, however repugnant such admission might be to their polity, conveniences, and even prejudices.” It seems that the “prejudices” of a people were regarded in that primal and virtuous ay that are now so fiercely struck at in this bill and its twm sister. ". Ip etfect every State possessed the power of natu ralizing aliens in every other State; a power as mischiovous in its nature as it was indiscrect in its actual exercise. In oneState, residencefor a short time might and did confer the right of citizenship. In others. qualifications of greater importance were required. An nlien, thercforc, incapacitated for the possession of certain rights by the laws of the latter, might, by a DIOVIOUBresidenceand naturalization in the former. elude at pleasure all their salutary rogulations for selfprotection. Thus the laws of a single State were preposterously rendered armount to the laws of all the others, even within their own jurisdirtion and it has been femurked with equal truth and justice that it. was owmg to more casualty that the exercise of this power under the Confederation did not involve the nion in the mostsorious embarrassments. There is great Wisdom. therefore, in confidin: to the national Government the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization throughout the U U.S. It is of the deepest llliCIQSLSD the whole Union to know who are entitled to enjoy the rights of citizens in each State, since they, thereby in effect become entitled to the rights of citizens in all the States. If aliens might be admitted Wherever there is a reference to the making of a citizen by naturalization it invariably applies to aliens. It does in all the debates and proceedings of the Convention. It does in every adjudication of every court in America upon the subject of naturalization. Ithas reference all the time and exclusively to aliens. “If aliens might be admitted indiscriminately to enjoy all the rights of citizens at the will of ii single State. the Union might itself be endangered by an influx of foreigners, hostile to its institutions. ignorant of its powers, and incapable of a due estimate at its privileges. “Size. 1099. It follows. from the very nature of the power, that to be useful it must be exclusive.” I read these passages for the purpose of showing that it was the purpose and this only purpose of the framers of the constitution that this power to make citizens of people who were not cm in the country should up 1 to foreigners and to foreigners alone. pon that point I will read another authority. have a good deal of it here With which I shall not trouble the Senate. I have before me the work of Mr. Woolsey on internationahlaw, a Cop necticut writer of very great learmng and ability. I read from his work, page 150, section 60six: su“sFtoarine, ”in trheesiedoeunrtsseine fmtiomsetC, haricsltoiasenrcoorunmtroirees deaisn tant connection with the bodypolitic. They can acquire nationality, or in gatherI! become natu alized or they may remain in the territory as domi offiated strangers.” He says expressly that foreigners (not native born subjects or citizens) can become naturalized and then comes this language, to which I ask the attention of the honorable Senfrom Maryland: “Naturalization implics the rennnciation of a former nationality, and the fact of entrance into a similar relation toward a new bodypolitic.” There is the definition, and the whole of it. Naturalization, implies the renunciation of a former nationality, and the entering into a new 1866. 525 obligation of allegiance to another Power. “hy, sir, in all the civil history of naturalization by the States or by the U.S. the gentleman cannot find an instance, nor a principle, nor adictum where this change in the reIationship of a person toward his Government. was ever attemted to be may e in relation to an individual wxatever, unless that individua owed allegiance to another Government. I could read from Kent; I could read from the decisions of the various courts, State and Federal, all to the same effect, that the subject upon which alone and g exclusively the naturalization process or naturalization laws under the constitution of the U.S. can operate, is a foreigner who owes allegiance to another potentate orto another Government. The books are filled with this class of cases. We concede here the right of expatriation. England does not. England has no law that establishes a uniform rule of naturalization. When naturalization takes place in that country it is by special act of Parliament. Although she admits in that form the subjects or citizens of other countries to incorporate themselves with the subjects of the Crown of GreatBritain, she does not concede, or at least has not yet formally conceded, the right of any of her subjects to cut the bond between them and her Government. So it is, Mr. President, wherever you can trace naturalization by constitution, State or Federal, by laws, State or Federal, because even after the adoption of the present constitution some of the States still claimed the right to have a concurrent power of naturalization. It was claimed by Pennsylvania and other States, but eventually our courts settled so distinctly and so authoritatively that the power was exclusive, and was intended to be sole and exclusive on the part of the General Government, that the States abandoned it. But wherever you can trace any constitution, State or Federal, that makes a provision in relation to naturalization, wherever you can trace the enactment of a law in relation to that subject, wherever you can trace the admission of a person to the rights of citizenship, it will be found that those constitutions and those laws and those admissions applied to foreigners and never to nativeborn persons. It is not necessary to look to lexicographers for the definition of “foreigner.” We all know that a foreigner is one who owes allegiance to another Government. Can the negro here, born within the U.S., be said to be a foreigner? Does he owe any allegiance to another Government? Is he an alien and a stranger to our country and our laws and our Government? Not at all. Does the honorable Senfrom Illinois mean to assume the position that he declared with so much distinctness and emphasis a day or 2 ago, that everybody born in the U.S. is a citizen I What became of your slave negroes that were born in the U.S.? What became of your free negroes that were born in the U.S.? Sir, [Mr. FOOT in the chair] your State abolished slavery a greatmany years ago. I believe that 8 ot the original States abolished slavery many years ago. The 5 NewEngland States (Massachusetts having abolished slaver while Maine was a part of that State) NewYork, NewJersey, and Pennsylvania are the 8 States to which I allude. They all abolished slavery, and in all of those States doubtless negroes and a good many negroes have been born of negro arents who were free. Does the honorable Senator intend to say that all the posterity of those freed negroes were citzens? A State now has no power to make a citizen. The States did have that power before the constitution was formed; and just as the process and business of making citizens by naturalization was understood an practiced and intended by the States before the constitution was formed, just in that sense, and to that extent, and with that scope of power, and no further, was the authority taken from the Slates and vested in Congress to pass naturalization laws. Now sir, to throw in selfbaek upon the prin plo of construction which I state at the start, naturalization and citizenship must be under. stood in the sense and with the same import which were attached to those phrases by the framers of the constitution; an where we can reach upon an controverted pointto a reason able degree o certainty what they did mean, that meaning we are boundto adopt in a faithtlil and just construction of the constitution. What would have been the fate of such a proposition as thisin the Convention of 1787? here were then free negroes in most of the States, and there were slaves in all the States; even slaves were held in Massachusetts. Notwithstanding Massachusetts contends that by her constitution of 1776slavery was abolished, she held slaves many years afterward. But suppose in that Convention the proposition had been made which the honorable Senator now contends for, and it had been proposed to incorporate as one of the provisions of the constitution that “ all children of free negroes born hereafter shall be citizens of the U.S., ” will the honorable Senator say that he believes such a provision as that would have been accepted by the southern men who were in that Convention? Will he say that it would have been practicable or possible to incorporate such a provision as that in the constitution P Certainly not. When gentlemen concede that such proposition could not have been incorporated in the constitution, and that sooner than have accepted it the southern members would have broken up that body, and would have dispersed without making a GOvernment at all, how can they in candor and in truth say that it comes within the scopeand operation and meaning of the constitution, asthey who framed itintended it should read and mean and operate, that the children of negroes that were free should be citizens of the U.S.?Mr. President, a grave hallucination in this day is to claim all power; and a mine r error is that everything which passion, or interest, or party power, or any sellish claims may represent to the judgment or imagination of gentlemen who belong to strong parties, to be necessary or useful for the good and the domination of such parties, is seized upon in defiance of a fair construction of language, in outrage of the plain meaning of the constitution. That is not the rule by which our constitution is to be interpreted. It is not the rule by which it is to be administered. On the contrary, if the able, honorable, and clearheaded Senfrom Illinois would do himself and his country the justice to place himself in the position of the framers otPthe constitution; if he would look all around on the circumstances and connections of that day, on the purposes of those men not only in relation to forming a more perfect Union, but also in relation to securing the blessings of life, liberty, and property to themselves and their posterity forever; if the honorable Senator would construe the constitution according to the light, the sacred and bright light which such surrounding circumstances would throw upon his intellect, it seems to me that he would at once abandon this abominable bill and would also ask to withdraw its twin sister from the other House that both might be smothered here together upon the altar of the constitution and of patriotism. Mr. President, we have had some able lexicographers in this countr, and among them was I Mr. Noah Webster. n his great and immortal vocabular will be found the words “naturalize” an “naturalization, ” and the meaning which he appends to them. How has that great philologist and that great lexicographer reached the meaning of these terms? He has read our history, civil and political; he has seen all the important transactions in which these terms have been used legislation, Constitution, judicial decision; he has seen the rendition of these terms by the men in America who best understood and “who were most competent to have them a clear, a truthful, and a just rendition. After thus preparing himself to give his immortal exposition of the huglish language, he thus defines these terms: "Naturalization to Trhte. act of inyestingan alien with the rights and privileges of a nahvo subjector citizen. "Naturaliu. 1. To conferon an alien the rights and privileges of a native subjector citizen; to adopt foreigners into a nation or State, and place them in lho condition of naturalborn subjects. To make natural; to render easy and familiar by customand habit. “3. To adopt; to make suitable; to acclimate; as to naturalizo one to a climate. “4. To receiveor adopt as native: natural or vernacular: to make our own, as to naturalizo foreign words; to accustom: to habituate, as to naturalize to vine to a cold climate.” Could anything be more precise than these definitions? If men are searching for truth and principle, do they not find it here, and in the authorities which I have already read? To naturalize is to bring in an exotic. When applied to a man, it is to bring in a foreigner who owes allegiance and obedieuceto another State or Government; and nobody else is or can be the subject of this provision of our constitution or of any legislation of Congress under it, and nobody else ever was. Then, how can the honorable Senator apply his amendment to negroes born in the U.S.? It is impossible. I will say no more 11 on the subject of this amendment. When the honorable Senators bill is before the Senate upon its merits, I intend to hit a lick at the thing generally. I only wish that I could hit it at all in proportion to its enormous demerits.