Mr. BINGHAM. In respect to the clause of the Constitution to which the gentleman refers, being the 8th of the amendments of the Constitution of the U.S. proposed by the 1st Congress, I beg leave to say he will look in vain for any legislation like this now proposed, either passed or attempted hitherto to be passed, by virtue of that article. The bill to which the gentleman refers, to prohibit the sale of men into slavery, does not rest upon the 8th article of amendment, but on the 13th article of amendment; neither does that bill, like this, provide for sentencing State judges to imprisonment for 6 years in the penitentiary for rendering any judgment in the premises. One word further as to the gentleman's statement that the provision of the 8th amendment has relation to personal rights. Admit it, sir; but the same is true of many others of the 1st ten articles of amendment. For example, by the 5th of the amendments it is provided that private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. Of this, as also of the other amendments for the protection of personal rights, it has always been decided that they are limitations upon the powers of Congress, but not such limitations upon the States as can be enforced by Congress and the judgments of the U.S. courts. On the contrary, the Supreme Court, when Presided over by men who never were suspected of mere partisan judgments, whose ability and integrity were acknowledged by all and challenged by none, ruled invariably as I have stated. If these limitations upon your power confer power to legislate over the States, why not enforce them all by penal enactment? When the gentleman is through I should like to be heard somewhat on this bill. So far as we can constitutionally do anything to prevent the infliction of cruel punishments by State laws I wish to see it done. I trust the day is not distant when by solemn act of the legislatures of 3/4ths of the States of the Union now rePresented in Congress the pending constitutional amendment will become part of the supreme law of the land, by which no State may deny to any person the equal protection of the laws, including all the limitations for personal protection of every article and section of the Constitution, and by which also the Congress will be empowered by law to enforce every one of those limitations so essential to justice and humanity.