Excerpt 1: John B. Henderson, U.S. Senator (Missouri), speech during a Senate debate, January 1865
Let this amendment be adopted, and let slavery agitation, with all its errors and consequent curses to the country cease. . . . I confess I see no probability of restoring the Union with the institution of slavery remaining. I wish the Union restored but I confess also do not desire the perpetuation of slavery. I will not be intimidated by the fears of negro equality. The negro may possess mental qualities entitling him to a position beyond our present belief. If so, I shall put no obstacle in the way of his elevation. There is nothing in me that despises merit or envies its rewards. Whether he shall be a citizen of any one of the States is a question for that State to determine. If New York or Massachusetts or Louisiana shall confer on him the elective franchise, it is a matter of policy with which I have nothing to do. The qualifications of voters for members of Congress is a question under the exclusive control of the respective States.
I will not be deterred from doing an act of simple justice for fear of the consequences. It is impossible that great evil should spring from such acts of justice. We may not be able now to solve the many problems that universal emancipation may present. . . . The evils of amalgamation and consequent deterioration of the race are often presented as insuperable objections to the proposed amendment. Such evils may be great, but unless it be certain that the freedom of the slave will increase these evils, no such objection can be well sustained; but if that fact were certain, it must yet be settled that these evils will be greater than those of this causeless and bloody rebellion. When the miscegen race shall bring civil war of three years duration upon the country, I for one shall be willing to prohibit amalgamation by law or constitutional amendment. Until then I shall disregard any such objections.
Excerpt 2: William M. Stone, Governor of Iowa, inaugural address, 1866
We cannot rest secure with the mere destruction of its acknowledged legal form; we must adhere to the edicts of freedom within every State, in the strictness of their letter and the fullness of their spirit. Universal Freedom and Political Equality must be defined as the cardinal principles upon which this Government shall hereafter exist. Let us have the courage to maintain that, inasmuch as these four millions of bondmen became free by the immutable fiat of the American people, so they shall be endowed with all the means necessary to practically defend that freedom against all who, under any form, pretext or subterfuge whatever, may attempt to abridge it. Place the Red Sea for all time between them and their oppressors. Let the whip and the hand-cuff remain forever broken on the field where the slave and his master fought. Animated by the spirit of justice, let us be vigilant in our efforts to correct the wrongs of the past. Record in bold letters upon the history of these times, as the deliberate judgment of this generation that “before the law” the loyal black man, the dusky defender of the flag, is at least the equal and peer of the pardoned traitor.
Excerpt 3: Frederick Douglass, “What the Black Man Wants,” speech delivered in Boston, 1865
What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. [Applause.] The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us... Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, “What shall we do with the Negro?” I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us!... All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! If you see him on his way to school, let him alone, don’t disturb him! If you see him going to the dinner-table at a hotel, let him go! If you see him going to the ballot-box, let him alone, don’t disturb him!
Excerpt 4: Garrett Davis, U.S. Senator (Kentucky), speech during a Senate debate, 1865
. . The General Government have not legitimately, and were never intended to have, any jurisdiction or authority over the subject of property. What subjects should constitute property, how it should be regulated, whether it should exist and continue in one subject or be discontinued in another subject, are questions which were never intended to be intrusted to the General Government. That is a great and fundamental feature of our Federal and State system of governments. The proposed amendment takes that principle to be true in relation to but one subject of property; but if it strikes at it in relation to one subject of property, it may in relation to all…
I think, if gentlemen are determined to abolish the property in slaves, they have as much right so to amend the Constitution as to make compensation to the owners of that property in them. If they think the abolition of slavery and the depriving of so many loyal owners of such a large amount of property is such an exercise of authority as that the permanent good of the nation requires it to be done, they ought to have the grace, the justice, the magnanimity to make provision for a reasonable compensation to the owners of that property which they take from the owners. They have as much power to make the compensation as they have to take the property from them.
Excerpt 5: Jacob Howard, U.S. Senator (Michigan), speech during a Senate debate, 1866
But the public mind has been educated in error for a century. How difficult is it to correct that error! How difficult is it to eradicate the rotten and defective opinions of the old land aristocracy, and to sink into profound contempt the doctrine of inequality, that monstrous error which declares one portion of the human race to be superior to another portion!
If it were not for the influence of this error, I am persuaded that our legislation would have been far more prompt and more enlightened, and that we should not now be debating the fundamental rights of man.
I would not for a moment intimate a lack of sincere desire on the part of any member of this body to secure the just rights of all men; but I do say that the habits of thought of the people have been perverted by long usage, and it is not strange that they should cling to old opinions…
The first section of the amendment they have submitted for the consideration of the House relates to the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, and to provide that no State shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.
Excerpt 6: James Dixon, U.S. Senator (Connecticut), speech during a Senate debate, 1869
In considering that question we ought to remember that it is utterly impossible that any State should be an independent republic which does not entirely control its own laws with regard to the right of suffrage. Nor does it make the slightest difference with regard to this that any abdication or abnegation of its power is voluntary. It may be said that it is proposed that the States shall voluntarily relinquish their power to control the subject of suffrage within their respective limits. Sir, suppose a State should voluntarily assume upon itself a foreign yoke, or declare by a majority of its own people, or even by a unanimous vote, that it would prefer a monarchy, would the fact of its being voluntary at all affect the question whether it was still an independent republic?
Excerpt 7: Thomas A. Hendricks, U.S. Senator (Indiana), speech during a Senate debate, 1866
And now, sir, in this, the most unstable period of our history, when the passions excited by recent events have subsided comparatively little, when men fight, and party strife is raging, when the public is impatient of restraint, and demagogues abound, when the country is agitated by the most violent passions, when the public treasury is exhausted, when the Government is burdened with debt, when industry is prostrate, when labor is unemployed, when credit is destroyed, when the currency is depreciated, when everything is uncertain, when society is convulsed by agitation and excitement, is this the time to amend the Constitution of the United States? I think not.
Excerpt 8: Edgar Cowan, U.S. Senator (Pennsylvania), speech during a Senate debate, 1866
It is perfectly clear that the mere fact that a man is born in the country has not heretofore entitled him to the right to exercise political power. He is not entitled to vote on that ground. An elector is one who is chosen by the people to perform that function, that he shall be an officer in the exercise of power. You cannot exercise the franchises of an office. Now, I should like to know, because really I have been puzzled for a long while and have been unable to determine exactly, either from conversation with those who ought to know, who have given this subject their attention, or from the decisions of the Supreme Court, the lines and boundaries which circumscribe that phrase, “citizen of the United States.” What is it?
So far as the courts and the administration of the laws are concerned, I have supposed that every human being within their jurisdiction was in one sense of the word a citizen, that is, a person entitled to protection; but in so far as the right to hold property, particularly the right to acquire title to real estate, was concerned, that was a subject entirely within the control of the States. It has been so considered in the State of Pennsylvania; and aliens and others who acknowledge no allegiance, either to the State or to the General Government, may be limited and circumscribed in that particular. I have supposed, further, that was essential to the existence of a free State, that it should have the power, of course of declaring who should exercise political power within its boundaries, and that if it were overrun by another and a different race, it would have the right to exclude them.