MR. PRESIDENT,--I should not say another word, except for the ardor
with which my friend from Indiana comes forward to throw a little blame
on me. He thinks, that, if I had consented to an earlier reference of
this bill, it would now be in order before the Senate; but he says that
in a case of strong emergency bills are not referred to committees.
Now I ask the Senator from Indiana if this is not a case of strong
emergency? The bill has been pending nearly four solid years, during
all which time a portion of our fellow-citizens, counted by the
million, have been exposed to indignity; and because I tried to speed
the result, hoping to bring the Senate to a generous conclusion of
the whole measure without a reference to the Committee, the Senator
from Indiana thus tardily seeks to rebuke me. If I erred at all, it
was because I trusted the Senate. I felt, that, with this bill on the
Calendar and within reach, it could not hesitate. I was unwilling to
see the bill in a committee-room, where the Senate, in a generous
moment, could not take it up any day, and, so far as the Senate was
concerned, make it the law of the land. I put too much faith in this
body, which I ought to know well. I did, Sir, have generous trust. I
did believe that at some early day the bill would be considered and
adopted. I have been disappointed. More than once I have tried to reach
it, I have tried to bring it before the Senate; but you know well
the impediments; you know that other important matters have occupied
attention, so that I could not, with any reasonable chance of success,
seek to press this important measure. That, Sir, is the occasion
for delay; and I do not think--I hardly like to make any question
with my friend--but I do not think he was generous in the imputation
that he sought to throw upon me. Had that Senator, on the first day
of the session, or when I made an effort at a later day to bring it
up, come forward then to aid me in pressing it on the attention of
the Senate,--had he reminded the Senate and the country how many
fellow-citizens were shut out from their rights, and that a denial of
rights does not allow delay,--had these words come from the Senator
at that time, ah! we should have been having no such debate as has
occurred to-day. The bill would have been hastened on its way, and a
people long enslaved and degraded would be at last lifted to equality.
The question being now put, the bill was referred to the Committee
on the Judiciary without objection.
March 11, 1874, Mr. Sumner died.
April 14th his bill was reported back by Mr. Frelinghuysen from the
Committee with an amendment in the form of a substitute,--being
substantially the original bill taken into a new draught, with
a few differences of machinery. In this form, after long and
exhaustive debate, it was passed in the Senate, May 22d, by Yeas
29, Nays 16.
In the House, all efforts to take it up were frustrated by the
minority, under the rule requiring a two-thirds vote for this
purpose, until the closing hours of the succeeding session, March
3, 1875, when a vote was obtained referring it to the Committee on
the Judiciary, but too late for action, and the bill fell with the
expiration of the Congress.
Meanwhile, however, February 3d, Mr. Butler, of Massachusetts,
had reported a bill from this Committee, covering the provisions
of the Senate bill, with the exception only of that relating to
cemeteries, but with the addition to that on Common Schools of the
proviso,--
“That if any State or the proper authorities in any
State, having the control of Common Schools or other public
institutions of learning aforesaid, shall establish and
maintain separate schools and institutions giving equal
educational advantages in all respects for different classes of
persons entitled to attend such schools and institutions, such
schools and institutions shall be a sufficient compliance with
the provisions of this section so far as they relate to schools
and institutions of learning.”
On proceeding to a vote, the next day, February 14th, the entire
clause, embracing Common Schools, public institutions of learning
or benevolence, and national agricultural colleges, together with
this proviso, was, on motion of Mr. Kellogg, of Connecticut, struck
out by Ayes 123, Noes 48,--a call for the Yeas and Nays, which
would have brought out the names, being refused. A previous motion
by Mr. Cessna, of Pennsylvania, to substitute the full text of the
Senate bill for that of the House Committee, now recurring, was
defeated by Yeas 114, Nays 148,--and the latter, amended as above
stated, was then passed by Yeas 162, Nays 100,--and subsequently,
February 27th, in the Senate also, by Yeas 38, Nays 26,--and March
1st received the approval of the Executive.
This bill, entitled “An Act to protect all citizens in their
civil and legal rights,”[239] has since stood on the statute
book as a finality,--these rights, in the terms of the statute,
consisting of “the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations,
advantages, facilities, and privileges of [1st] inns, [2d] public
conveyances on land or water, [3d] theatres, and other places of
public amusement”; to which another section, rising to a higher
plane, adds the declaration [4th] “That no citizen possessing all
other qualifications which are or may be prescribed by law shall
be disqualified for service as grand or petit juror in any court
of the United States, or of any State, on account of race, color,
or previous condition of servitude,”--with such security to the
colored citizens of this inestimable right as may be found in the
provision that “any officer or other person, charged with any duty
in the selection or summoning of jurors, who shall exclude or fail
to summon any citizen for the cause aforesaid, shall, on conviction
thereof, be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and be fined _not more_
than five thousand dollars.”