BILL IN THE SENATE, TO ENFORCE THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ABOLISHING
SLAVERY, DECEMBER 4, 1865.
A Bill supplying appropriate legislation to enforce the
Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting Slavery.
_Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled_, That neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United
States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
SEC. 2. _And be it further enacted_, That, if any person shall attempt
to control, or shall by act or word claim any right to control, the
services of any other person, contrary to the provisions of the
foregoing section, the person so offending shall, upon indictment and
conviction in the District Court of the United States for the district
where the crime was committed, be punished by a fine not exceeding
ten thousand dollars, or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten
years, or by both, to be inflicted at the discretion of the court; and
it shall be no defence, nor cause of mitigation of sentence, that such
claim or attempt is sanctioned by any pretended law of a State, or any
judgment of a State court. But nothing herein contained shall be held
to impair any other remedy now existing by _Habeas Corpus_ or otherwise.
SEC. 3. _And be it further enacted_, That, in further enforcement
of the provision of the Constitution prohibiting Slavery, and in
order to remove all relics of this wrong from the States where this
Constitutional prohibition takes effect, it is hereby declared that
all laws or customs in such States, establishing any oligarchical
privileges and any distinction of rights on account of race or color,
are hereby annulled, and all persons in such States are recognized as
equal before the law; and the penalties provided in the last section
are hereby made applicable to any violation of this provision, which is
made in pursuance of the Constitution of the United States.
SEC. 4. _And be it further enacted_, That, in further enforcement of
the provision of the Constitution, the courts of the United States in
the States shall have exclusive jurisdiction of all offences committed
by persons not of African descent upon persons of African descent; also
of all offences committed by persons of African descent; and also of
all causes, suits, and demands to which any person of African descent
shall be a party; and it is hereby declared that all such cases are to
be treated as cases arising under the Constitution of the United States.
This bill was read, passed to a second reading, and ordered to
be printed.
December 21st, it was read a second time, and, on motion of Mr.
Sumner, referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
January 11, 1866, Mr. Trumbull, from this Committee, reported
the “Bill to protect all persons in the United States in their
civil rights, and furnish the means of their vindication,”
which was passed, covering in part the ground of Mr. Sumner’s
bill.[6]