Mr. SHELLABARGER. Mr. Speaker, I shall not, of course, attempt to discuss any single feature of this bill in the few minutes allowed me; it is not for this thatI have sought the favor which the Gentfrom Iowa has accorded me. I propose simply to take this opportunity to explain the vote which I shall we upon this question, as I shall vote to refer this bill to the committee without instructions, in hope that it may be changed in some of its provisions; but should it not be referred, I, as now advised, will vote for the bill. Now, sir, I have no difficulty in regard to the constitutionality of the 2nd section of this bill, provided we have the power to enact the 1st section. My mind, I frankly state, has not reached satisfactOrily the conclusion that there is not doubt as to whether we have power to enact the 1st section of this bill; an if we have not power to pass the 1st section, then we cannot enact the 2nd. My mind, however, has come to a conclusion which, although not a settled conviction in which I can say that my mind rests, yet I shall resolve the doubts which I have, if I can say I have any, in favor of the security and protection of the American citizen for which the bill is meant to provide. Icrmitme, then, to indicate to the House how Iattain the conclusion that we may pass this 1st section into law. I do not understand that there is now any serious doubt anywhere as to our power to admit by law to the rights of American citizenship entire classes or races who were born and continue to reside in our territory or in territory we acquire. I stated the other day some of the cases in which we naturalized races, tribes, and communities in mass, and by single exercises of national sovereignty. This we did by the treaty of April 30, 1800, by which we acquired Louisiana; also in the treaty of 1819, by which we acquired Florida; also in the treaty of 1848, by which we no uired part of Mexico; also by the resolution cfiMarch l, 1845, annexing Texas, and the act of December 29, same year, admitting Texas into the Union, we made all the people not slaves citizens; also, by the treaty of September 27, 1830, we admitted to citizens certain heads of families of Choc taws; also, by the treaty of December 29, 1855, we did the same as to the Cherolmcs; also, by the act of March 3, 1843, we admitted to full citizenship the Stockbridgo tribe of Indians. There can, therefore, be no doubt as to our right to enact that part of this section which confers citizenship upon all our native people. The residue of the section provides that Ihere shall ho no discrimination inIoivil rightsor immunities among citizens of the U.S. in any State or Territoriy of the U.S. on account ofrnce, color or previous conditionof slavery; and such citizens of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slaveryorinvolnn tary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right to inakc and enforce cop triwts, to sue, be parties and giva evidence to inherit. purchase, lease. scll, hold and convoy real and personal property, arid to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property as is omoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains and penalties, and to nonootheminy law. statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding. Now, sir, these provisions, 1st, prohibit its discrimination in securing the civil rights of citizens on account of race, color, or previous condition of slavery. 2nd, that these, without regard to such race or condition, shall have the same right to contract, convey, sue, testify, inherit, an to claim benefit of the laws protecting person and property as white citizens, and sha 1 be subject to the same penalties, and this notwithstanding any other laws. Now, Mr. Speaker, if this section did in fact assume to confer or define or regulate these civil rights, which are named by the words contract, sue, testify, inherit, &c., then it would, as seems to me, be an assumtion of the reserved rights of the States and the people. But, sir, except so far as it confers citizenship, it neither confers nor defines nor regulates any right whatever. Its whole effect is not to confer or regulate rights. but to require that whatever of these enumerated rights and obligations are imposed by State laws shall be for and upon all citizens alike without distinctions has on race or former condition in slavery. If it undertook, for exam le, to so. that a married woman or child under age O intelli gence should testify, that would invade the rights reserved to the State. But, sir, it does nothing like that. It permits the States to say that the wife may not testify, sue, or contract. It makes no law as to this. Its whole effect is to require that whatever rights as to each of these enumerated civil (not political) matters the States may confer upon one race or color of the citizens shall be held by all races in equality. Your State may deprive women of the right to sue or contract or testify, and children from doing the same. But if on do so, or do not. so as to one race, you sha I treat the other likewise. It does not prohibit on from discriminating between citizens of the same race, or of different races, as to what their rights to testify, to inherit, &c., shall be. But if you do discriminate, it must not be “ on account of race, color, or former condition of slavery.” That is all. If you permit a white man who is an infidel to testify, so you musta colored infidel. Self evidentl this is the whole effect of this 1st section. It secures not to all citizens, but to all races as races who are citizens: equality of protection in those enumerated civil rights wthe the States may deem proper to confer upon any races. how, air, can this Government do this? Can it prevent one race of free citizens from being by State laws de prived as a race of all the civil rights for the securement of which his Government was cre ated, and which are the only considerations the Government renders to him for the Federal allegiance which he renders? It does seem to me that that Government which has the exclusive right to confer citizenshi, and which is entitled to demand service an allegiance, which is supreme over that due to any State, may, as. must, protect those citizens in those rights which are fairly conducive and appropriate and necessary to the attainment of his "protection" as a citizen and I think those rights to contract, sue, testify, inherit, &c., which this bill says the races shall hold as races in equality, are of that class which are fairly conducive and necessai as means to the constitutional end, to wit, the protection of the rights of person and property of a citizen. It has been found impossible to settle or define what are all the indispensable rights of American citizenship. But it is perfectly well settled what are some of these, and without which there is no citizenshi., either in this or any other Government. 2 of these are the right of petition and the right of protection in such property as it is lawfu for that particular citizen to own. In support of this proposition, I can, in these few minutes allotted, to me, cite little authority. But I cite oneor 2 from the extremest and ablest of the State rights school of American politics, and I do so because if these concede to the Federal Government the power I claim, then there ought to be no doubts about the power. I rst cite the speech of Mr. Calhoun in the Senate, 2d April, 1836. He says: “Whatever dilemma of Opinion thero may be u to what other rights appertain to a citizen, of the right to petition and also to claim the protecthioans of his government. Thesebelongto him as a member of the body politic, and the possessionof them is what separatescitizens of the owast condition from aliens and slaves.” This much as to the fact that the lowest grade of citizenship gives the right of protection in person and property and the right of, all citizens to be secured in the enjoyment of whatever privileges their citizenship does confer upon them is in its very nature equal, and therefore the highest and lowest citizen is alike entitled to his countrys rotcction. Mr. Lawrence, in his Wheatons nternational Law, says, in speaking of the right of the States to add to the qualifications of naturalization other qualifications before he shall vote, says: “It is believed that such qualifications, whatever they may he, must ii pl equally to all classesotcitizens in the State, w ct or native or naturalized.” and Vattel, in his Law of Nations, defines citizens to be “Mcmbers of civil societybound to this spoiotyby certain duties, and subject to its authority; they equally participate in its advantages.” Innumerable authorities might be produced to show a.self evident thing, that protection by his Government is the right of every citizen and that this right to protection is equal to all citizens; but that is not pmper. In that same great argument Mr. Calhoun shows that these rights of citizenship, so conferred and entitled to protection by the U.S., cannot be taken away or impaired by the action of the States. Surely no proof is necessary to show this. If the States may abridge or destroy rights of citizenship wine the U.S. confers and is bound to secure, and must even levy war to protect against the slightest outrage by a.foreign Government, then the U.S. is no nation. Then SCarolina Librnrv may do, with utter impunity, a violence to an American citizen which all the armies and navics and treasures of the Republic must be exhausted in order to prevent at the hands of a foreign State. It must here be noted that the violations of citizens rights, which are reached and punished by this bi l, are those which are inflicted under “color of law, &c. The bill does not reach more private wrongs, but only those done under colorof state authority; and that authority must be extended on account of the race or color. It is meant, therefore, not to usurp the powers of the States to punish offenses Generally against the rights of citizens in the several States, but its whole force is expended in defeating an attempt, under State laws, to de prive races and the members thereof as such of the rights enumerated in this act. This is the whole of it. Who will say that Ohio can pass a law enacting that no man of the German race, and whom the U.S. has made a citizen of the U.S., shall ever own any property in Ohio, or shall ever make a contract in Ohio, or ever inherit property in Ohio or ever come into Ohio to live, or even to work? If Ohio may pass such a law, and exclude a German citizen, not because he is a bad man or has been guilty of crime, but because he is of the German nationality or race. then may every other State do so; and you have the spectacle of an American citizen admitted to all its high grivileges, and entitled to the protection of his government in each of these rights, and bound to surrender life and property for its defense, and yet that citizen is not entitled to either contract, inherit, own property, work, or live upon a single spot of the l cpublic, nor to breathe its air. Is not a doctrine that leads us to this amazing for its defiance of the merest decencies of law or logic? and yet, sir, if we cannot pass into law the main provisions of the 1st section of this bill, it does place this government in this position of utter helplessness, and destroys the American nationality. The only doubt I have as to the constitutionality of this 1st section arises out of the question whether all these rights to testify, &c., which are enumerated in this section, can be said to come within the rule laid down by the Supreme Court in innumerable cases, that in order to entitle this Government to assume a power as an implied power of this Government it must appear thatit is appropriate and plainly adapted to the end.” (2 Story on Constitution, sec. 1255.) If each one of these rights, totes tify, &c., are thus necessary to secure that which must, as we have seen, be within the powers of the Government to wit, the securing of the “protection” of an American citizen, then the bill is constitutional. I cannot remark on the 2nd section further than to say that it is the ordinary case of providing punishment for violating a law of congress Surely there is nothing new or starting in that. I shall vote, then, sir, for the bill if it is not referred. I shall vote for its reference because I am certain that some of the matters in which equality of right in different races is provided for may be omitted from the bill without greatly impairing its value, and which will remove doubts as to constituionality. I may desire to say something fu ther about the 2nd section should this gill ome back to us hereafter.