Mr. BINGHAM. Yes, sir, in the debate. A gentleman on the other side interrupted me and wanted to know if I could cite a decision showing that the power of the Federal Govefllment to enforce in the U.S. courts the bill of rights under the articles of amendment to the Constitution had been denied. I answered thatIwas prepared to introduce such decisions; and that is exactl what makes plain the neces sit of adopting this amendment. Mr. Speaker, on this subject I refer the House and the country to a decision of the Supreme Court, to be found in 7 Peters, 247, in the case of Barron vs. The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, involving the question whether the provisions of the 5th article of the amendments to the Constitution are binding upon the State of Maryland and to be enforced in the Federal courts. The Chief Justice says: trained such a "The people of the U.S. Governmentfor the U.S. as the! suspend " If he is relating what took 1an act which would break n "W a best adapted to their situation and best calculatedto promote their interests. The powers they conferred on this Government were to be OXOIClflCbdy itself and the limitations of power, if expressed in general terms.are naturally and wojhmk necessarily mpph cable to the Government created by the instrument. They are limitations of power granted in the instrument itself, not of distinct governments, framed by dil“IeIrfent persons and for different purposes. these propositions ho correct, t c5th amendment must be understood as restraining the power of thatGencral Government. not as applicable to the cs. 1 read one further decision on this subject the case of the Lessee of Livingston vs. Moore and others, 7 Peters, page 551. The court, in delivering its opinion, says: "As to the amendments of the Constitution of the U.S., they must be put out of the case; since it is now settled that those amendments donot extend to the States; and this observation disposes of the next execptiou, which relies on the 7th article of those amendments." What have gentlemen to say to that? Sir, I stand relieve today from entering into any ektended argument in answer to these decisions of your courts, that although as ruled the existing amendments are uot applicable to anb do not bind the States, they are nevertheless to be enforced and obsgrved in States by the grand utterance of that immortal man, who, while he lived, stood alone in intellectual power among the living men of his country, an new that he is dead, sleeps alone in his honored tomb by the sounding sea. I refer to that grand argument never yet answered, and never to be answered while human language shall be spoken by living man, wherein Mr. Webster says: "There is no language in the Constitution applicable to a confederation of States. It" the States he parties, asStates.what aretheirrights and whattheir respective covenants and stiuplutions! and whercure their rights, covenants and stipulations expressed? The States engagefor nothing, they promise nothing. In the articlcs of confederation.they did make promises and did enter into engagements and did plight the faith of each State for their lullillment, but in the Constitution theroisnothingofthat kind. Ihu reason is, that in the constitution it istho people who speak, nndnot the States." "Theynddrsss themselves to the States afl to the Legislatures of States in the language ofimiinction and prohibition. lic Constitutionutters its behestsin the nameand by authority of the people and it does not one t from States any plighted publicv faith to maintain t. On the contrary it makes its own preservation the pond on individual duty and individual obligation. " "Itlayntslinnd on individiiul duty and individual conscience. It incapacitates any man to sit in the Legislature of a State who shall not 1st have taken his solemnoath to support the Constitution of the U.S. From the obligation of this no State power can dischargehim." 3 Wcbderl Works, p. 471. Why, I ask, should not the “injunctions and prohibitions, ” addressed by the people in the constitution to the States and the Legislatures of States, be enforced by the people through the proposed amendment? By the decisions read the people are Without remedy. It is admitted in the vargument of Mr. Webster, just cited, that the State Legislatures may by direct violations of their duty and oaths avoid the requirements of the Constitution, and thereby do any government. lliose oaths have been isregarded; those requirements of our Constitution have been broken; they are disregarded today in Oregon; they are disregarded today, and have been disregarded for the last 5, ten, or 20 years in every one of the 11 States recently in insurrection. Mhe question is, simply, whether you will give by this amendment to the people of the U.S. the power, by legislative enactment, to punish officials of States for violation of the oaths enjoined upon them by their Constitution? That is the question, and the whole question. The adoption of the proposed amendment will take from the States no rights that belong to the States.They elect their Legislatures; they enact their laws for the punishment of crimes against life, liberty, or property; but in the event of the adoption 01 this amendment, if they conspire together to enact laws refusmg equal protection to life, liberty, or property, the congress is thereby vested with power to hofsl them to answer before the bar of the national courts for the violation of their oaths and of the rights of their fellow men. Why ghould it not be so? That is the question. Why should it not be so? Is the bill of rights to stan din our Constitution hereafter, as in the past 5 ears within 11 States, a more dead etter? this absolutely essential to the safety of the people that it should be enforced. Mr. poaker, it appears to me that this very provision of the bill of rights brought in question this day, upon this trial before the House, more than any other provision of the Constitution, makes that unit of governmeutwhich constitutes us one people, by which and through which American nationalit came, to be, and only by the enforcement of which can American nationality continue to be. I The imerishable words of Washington on ht to be in the minds of all of us touching this great question whether the unit of the government shall be enforced lierca er by just penalenactments when the Legislatures of States refuse to do their duty or keep inviolate their oath. Washington, speaking to you and to me and to the millions who are to come after us, says: “The unity of the Government which constitutes you one peopleis a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, thesupport of yourtranquillity at homo.yuir peaceabroad, ofyour safetyhof your pros perity, of that veryliberty whichyou so iglrly prize." Is it not essential to the unit of the people that the citizens of each State shall be entited to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the severalStates? Is it not essential to the unity of the Government and the unity of the people that all persons, whether citizens or strangers, within this land, shall have equal protection in every State in this Union in the rights of life and liberty and property? Why, sir, what an anomaly is presented today to the world! We have the power to vindicate the personal liberty and all the personal rights of the citizen on the remotest sea, under the frowning batteries of the remotest tyranny on this earth, while we have not the power in time of peace to enforce the citizens rights to life, liberty, and property within the limits of SCarolina after her State government shall be recognized and her constitutional relations restored. I commend especially to the honorable Gentfrom NewYork [Mr. HALE] the paperissued by his distinguished fellow citizen when he was acting as SecyState or the U.S., the lamented Marcy, touching the protection of the rights of Martin Koszto, a citizen of the U.S., whose rights were invaded abroad, within the jurisdiction of the empire of Austria. Commodoreingraham gave notice that he would fire upon their town and their shiping unless they respected the rights of a doc ured citizen of the American Republic. You had the power to enforce your demand. But you are powerless in time of peace, in the presence of the laws of SCarolina, Alabama, and Mississippi, as States admitted and restored to the Union, to enforce the rights of citizens of the U.S. within their limits. Do gentlemen entertain for a moment the thought that the enforcement of these provisions of the Constitution was not to be considered essential? Consider the triple safeguards interposed in the Constitution itself against their denial. It is provided in the Constitution, in the 1st place, that “this Constitution, ” the whole of it, not a art of it, “shall be the supreme law of the and ” Supreme flibm the enobseot in the farthest east, to the remotest west where rolls the Oregon; supreme over every hamlet, every State, and every Territory of the Union. As the whole Constitution was to be the supreme law in every State, it therefore results that the citizens of each State, bein citizens of the U.S., should be entited to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the U.S. in every State, and all persons, now that slavery has forever perished, should be entitled to e iial protection in the rights of life, liberty, and property. As a further security for the enforcement of the Constitution, and especially of this sacred bill of rights, to all the citizens and all the people of the U.S., it is further provided that the members of the several State Legislatures and all executive and judicial olfieers, both of the U.S and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution. The oath, the most solemn compact which man can make with his Maker, was to bind the State Legislatures, executive officers, and judges to sacredly respect the constitution and all the rights secure by it and at there is still another provision lest a State.cgisiaturc, with the approval of a State executive, should, in disregard of their oath, invade the rightsofany citizen or person by unjust legislation, violative alike of the Constitution and the rights secured by it, which is very significant and not to be overlooked, which is, "And the judges of every State shall be bound by the Constitution of the U.S. anything in the constitution and laws of anyStateto the contrary not withstanding." With these provisions in the Constitution for the enforcement in every State of its requirements, is it surprising that the framers of the Constitution omitted to insert an express grant of power in Congress to enforce by penal enactment these out canons of the supreme law, securin to althe citizens in every State all the privileges and immunities of citizens and to all the people all the sacred rights of person those rights dear to free man and for midable only to tyrants and of which the fathers of the Republic spoke, after God had given them the victory, in that memorable adress in which they declared, “ Leuit be remembered that the rights for which America has contended were the rights of human nature?” Is it surprising that essential as they held the full security to all citizens of all the privileges and immunities of citizens, and to all the people the sacred rights of person, that having proclaimed them they left their lawful enforcement to each of the States, under the solemn obligation resting upon every State officer to regard, respect, an obey the constitutional injunction? What more could have been added to that instrument to secure the enforcement of these provisions of the bill of rights in every State, other than the additional grant of powerwhich we ask this day? Nothing at all and I am perfectly confident that that grant of iower would have been there but for the fact that its insertion in the Constitution would have been utterly incompatible with the existence of slavery in any State; for although slaves might not have been admitted to be citizens they must have been admitted to be persons. That is the only reason why it was not there. There was a fetter upon the conscience of the nation; the people could not put it there and crmit slavery in an State thereafter. Than God, that fetter has senbroken; it has turned to dust before the breath of the people, speaking as the voice of God and solemnly ordnining that slavery is forgver prohibited everywhere within the Republic except as punishment for crime on due conviction. Even now for crimes men may be enslaved in States, notwithstanding the new amendment. As slaves were not protected by the Constitution, there might be some color of excuse for the slave States in their disregard for the requirement of the bill of rights as to slaves and refusing them protection in life or reperty; though, in my judgment, there could lie no possibleapolorr for reducing men made like themselves, in the . image of God, to a level with the brutes of the field, and condemning themto toil without reward, to live without knowledge, and die without hope. But, sir there never was even colorable excuse, much less a elegy, for any man North or South claiming that any State Legislature or State court, or State Executive, has any right to deny protection to an free citizen of the U.S. within their limits in the rights of life, liberty, and property. Gentlemen who oppose this amendment o.050 the grant of power to enforce the hill of rights. Gentlemen who oppose this amendment simply declare to these rebel States, go on with your confiscation statutes, your statutes of banishment, your stat utes of unjust imprisonment, your statutes of murder and death against men because of their, loyalty to the Constitution and Government of the U.S. That is the issue that is before the American people; and God helping me, without respect or persons in high places who show a disposition to betray this great cause, Iwill not betray it, so long as it is given me to know the right. Pending this great issue, what utterances do we hear? You have, in the 1st place, the utterances of him whom we elected VEEP, and who is now, by the work of an assassin, POTUS, and of whom I have been accustomed to speak with great respect. The House and the country will remember that at. the opening of this session I declared in my place here that if an issue was to be made between the President and the Representatives of the people it musfbe made by him and not by us. ff. has been made by him. I trust in God that for his own sake, for the sake of his country, and of the friends who gave him his high position, he will retrace his ste is; but whether he does or does not, I trust that the American people will not strike the word lforward” from their vocabulary, but will go right on to the consummation of the great work Which Providence has committed to their hands; that is, the enforcement of their constitution in every State, in every Territory, and upon every sea, wherever our flag floats, whoever may op J0se at home or abroad. What, in brie, are those utterances? Why, says the President inlhis speech not in his message to Congress, but in is speech, which is received with so many laudations in certain uarters, and over which, it seems, the Gentfrom NewJersey [Mr. Romans] and his party held a sort of general jubilation “ Let all those lately in insurrection against the government and laws of the U.S., who will now declare their allegiance and take the oath, be admitted into this Union, and by their representatives into the councils of this nation. " ake the oath! What. oath? Not the oath of the Constitution which the have broken, but the oath prescribed by the resident himself, and which, except in the tribunals of military justice, has no more force or effect than the paperupon which it is printed. Ay, take the oath! “Swear him, and let him go.” It would be about as reasonable, under existing circumhtances, to swear that venomous reptile which was the symbol of SCarolinas treason the rattlesnake and let it go. What have we more touching this great issue? The venerable SecyState, in the city of NewYork, makes a speech, and in the course.l of that speech gives to the country another of his prophecies. I have been accustomed to sustain, in my humble way, that gentleman in the past, and I am ahcustomed now to {speak of immost gratefully for the services he has remdered to the country, by his surpassing skill as a diplomatist, and by his undoubted fidelity to the interests of his country in his great office as minister of foreign affairs. What I say of him now I speak with regret and sorrow, not in anger. That I speak of him I say from asense of duty to a cause which I think imperiled by. his speech. It is fit the people should not be deceived. “The man who speaks the truth is greater than a king.” Need the people of this countrybereminded of what they do know, that he is no probet, that his other memorable prohecies have failed? I remember, air, that wion the foundations of the Republic were rocking beneath the mastering trend of the armed hosts who were about to strike at the nations life, that gentleman in the same city of NewYork uttered his oracular declaration that the rising ltorm would last only 60 days.