Mr. BINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I am for the pending amendment to the constitution of m cunntr, and the other amendments to whichI have already referred. I am for this and for the other essential amendments indicated, for the sake of the Union, and for the sake of the constitution of the Union. Beyond that, if I know my own mind or my own heart, I have no feeling on this question. It towers above all party consideration; it touches the life of the public, and not the miserable inquiry whether this or that party shall be successful in the coming contest. this for this Houseto decide whether amendments are necessary to the safet of the country and the (protection of the people. I am for the propose amendment from a sense of rightt at absolute, eternal verity which under lies our constitution. The right is the law of the e public. So it was proc aimed in your imperis able Declaration by the words, all men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with the rights of life and liberty: to secure these rights Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and by those other words, these States may do what ree and independent States may of right (not of wrong but of right) do. The constitution recognizes this limitation a on the States that they maydo, subject to the constitution of the U.S., what free States may of right do. That which is right and justlimits every sovereignty, in law, whet or it be obeyed or disobeyed. Every nationality is bound to respect the just and the right. This truth is recognized as distinctly in our constitution as it is proclaimed in your eclaration. In the 1st article, 2nd section of the constitution of your country, it is provided that Representatives in Congress “shall be chosen every 2 years by the people of the several States, ” thus affirming that the lawmaking power can only exist by the consent of the governed, as the right of the people. Who are “the people” of the several States referred to in the constitution? The term “the peole" is borrowed literall from the Articles of on federation, nd opte, as the House knows. ten years before the constitution. as articles of perpetual union between the several States then and since known as the U.S. It is a term which had a definite and clearly under stood meaning on the day that the Convention incorporated it into the constitution of the U.S. ! It meant generally the whole body of free citizens, and specially as the political power all free male citizens of full age in every State of the Union. I asked the attention of the House the other day to the fact, and I call their attention to it now, that in the Articles of Confederation it was expressly provided in words as follows: “The free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers vagabonds and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States.” Can anyone fail to perceive that the terms “the people of the several States, ” (article 4,) borrowed literally from the Confederation and embodied in your constitution must mean the free citizens of each State? Who does not know that under the Confederation the majority of male free citizens of full age held the right to the elective franchise in every State then in the Union? I appeal to every gentleman in this House to bear Witness, that in every State of the original 13, on the day that the Convention embodied in the constitution the words, ” the people of the several States, ” the majority of free male citizens of full age, by the express terms of the State constitutions and their statute laws, held the political power of the several States. The emploment of those terms in the constitution of the U.S. was therefore but the clearest declaration that under the constitution of the U.S., as it had beer. under the Confederation, the right to exercise the elective franchise, to elect lte Representatives, was the right of the majority of res male citizens over 21 ears of age, and that this right of the people should continue while the constitution of the U.S. continued and remained unchanged. The words “free persons” are also used in your constitution; therefore by the words “ free citizens” and “free persons, ” as used in our constitution and in e Articles of Confe eration, it was necessarily implied that there were citizens in the Republic not. free, but head. It was understood by the framers of the Constitution, and was expected by them and intended, that the day would come when the prefix “free” before “persons” in that instrument should cease to be operative and become meaningless. Sir, the constitution was framed with a view to that result, and to make it inevitable. It was hoped that the day of deliverance to the bond citizens of the Republic would come, not by violence, but by force of public opinion, Operating on the minds and consciences of the people and speaking finally, either by the action of each State or through an amende constitution, as the supreme law of the land. If gentlemen doubt upon this subject, they will pardon me for asking their consideration to one or 2 provisions of the constitution of the U.S. 1st, the 9th section of the 1st article provides that any the mi ration or importation of such persons as admoitf, s the Sl tnaottes henopwroheixbisitteindg bsyhathlletChionnkgrpersospperriotor to the your 1508.” This was simply a provision to the end that the constitution, as to the foreign slave trade by any of the States then existing, should not take effect until 1808. I In section 3, article 4,it is provided, as follows: this llineiwu States maybe admitted by the Congressinto The attempt was made in the Convention to add to this provision for the admission of new States the words “ on the same terms with the original States, ” thereby securing to every new State admitted before 1808the reserved power, not right, but power, to unite with the States then existing in the wild and guilty traflic in slaves both by land and sea. Thank God, the great body of the Convention rejected with scorn the proposition. What did that rejection mean? lhey struck out on the 29th of August, 1787, the words, “n on the same terms with the original States.” I bat did that mean? It meant that there should be no slave States admitted into this Union. It meant that no new States should be admitted under the constitution armed with the power to practice that injustice in common with the then existing States for 20 years. The provision “ on the same terms with the original States” was rejected; and whatwas the result? M own noble Commonwealth, Ohio, was admitted into the Union in 1802, 6 years before the constitution could speak against the foreign slave trade carried on by the original States. Ohio was admitted as every man knows, only on the express condition that she should not then or forever after engage in either the domestic or foreign slave trade.I think, sir, I have said enough and more than enough tojustify the remark that it was intended by the framers of the constitution that the day should come when the words “free person" in the constitution would cease to be o ative, for the simple reason that all would be free and none bond in the U.S. Mr. Speaker, touching the construction which I have put upon the words of the constitution I beg to call the attention of the House to a few authorities to show that by the terms “the people of the several States" the constitution did guaranty to the majority of freecitizens in State in this Union the right to control, by evaenry frage, the future power of their States and the future power of the reiiblic, but that by the guarantee the majority did not become empow ered to take away the equal rights of the mine irty who were their peers. I read from Story, (3d Story, page 565:) “ It has always been well understood among jurists in this country that the citizens of eachState constitute the body politic of each community, called the people of the Statesf and that the citizens of each State in the Union are profacto citizens of the U.S. ” Rawle writes as follows: “The citizens of each State constituted the citizens of the U.S. when the constitution was adopted. The rights which nppertain to them as citizens of those respective CommonWeolths accompanied them in the formation of the great compound Commonwealth which ensued. They becamecitizensof the latter without ccasingto be citizens of the former: and hewho was subsequently born acitizen of a State becameat the moment of his birth a citizen of the U.S. ”Rawle on the(, brulilulton, p. 86. Chancellor Kent says: I, "If a slave born in the U. S. be mannmitted, or otherwise lawfully discharged from bondage, or if 2a black man be born within the U.S and born free. he becomes thence forward a citizen. " Kenla (, bnimenlaricnfo. urth edition, [1. 257, note. I might as well say in this connection that the majority of the SCOTUS, even in the red Scott decision, were compelled to recognize the principle for which I contend this day. I read iom that opinion:.” The words people of the U.S and “ citizens are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They bot describe the political body. who, accordingto ourrepublican institutions formthe sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives. “It is true, we "inson, and everyclan and description of persons, who were at the time. of the adoptionof this constitution recognized as citizens in the several States, becamealso citizens of thenew polifical body. "19Howard, SupremeChart Reports, p. Mr. Speaker, the constitution of our country has been amended. The day anticipated by the framers of the constitution has come, when there are none but free citizens in the Republicthe bond having become free. The day of the freedmans deliverance has come, notwithout suffering, not without sorrow, not. Without martyr dom, not without broken altars and broken hearts, not without storm and tempest, such as had not been since inanwas upon the earth; not without darkness, thick darkness that might be felt, and fire running along the ground. Though interror, though in anguish, the day has come, and all are free in the Republic by the sovereign will of the whole people. very slave the moment he is emancipated becomes a “free citizen, ” in the words of the Confed eration, becomes n “ free person, ” which embraces all citizens, in the words of our Constitution, becomes equal before the law with every other citizen of the U.S. What, then, sir, is the result? simply this, that the constitution must be amen ed! I agree, if the late rebel States would make no denial of right to the emanncipatd citizens no amendment would be ncede. But they will make denial. The question is therefore direct] before us, whether an of the States which she be reorganized and a mitted to exercise all the powers of a State in this Union today under the constitution of our country, by which it is declared that all the citizens of the epublic are free, and that bond citizens are no longer tobe found in any State or Territory in this Union, shall be permitted to have representation upon this floor, when by the fundamental law or by the statute lawof such State the minority of the citizens of the State disfrauchise the majority of its free male citizens of full age? That was not so when our constitution was adopted. There was then no State in this Union wherein any considerable portion of the free citizens of the U.S., being male persons over 20 one years of age, were disfranchised. I but state a matter of fact within the knowle of every gentleman here when I say that in at least 5 of the States of the Union there was no distinction made at all on account of color between free citizens of the U.S. in the exercise of the elective franchise. At that day no State would dare to assert any such power in a minority of the majority of free citizens. The question, then, that underlies this controversy is this, whether we will stand by the Constitution in its original intent and spirit, or like cra vens abandon it. I assert it here today, without fear of contradiction, that the amendment pending before this House is an amendment, conforming exactly to the spirit of the Constitution and according to the declared intent of its framers. If there is any gentleman whois still in doubt upon this subject, I ask him to consider the fact to which I before referred, and which is indisutable, that no State was admitted into this Union at the time of the organization of the Government, which either directly or in directly intimated that a majority of the free male citizens of the U.S. within its limits should be or lawfully could be disfranchised by the minority. The House cannot assent that any State is all do that under the constitution of the U.S.