The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-10 00:00:00

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Orleans
Northern
Lyons and Mediterranean
Southern
Western
Eastern
Sardinian
Austrian
Lombard
North of Spain
Saragossa
Ditto to Barcelona
Roman

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- - ... 545 -
- 533 75
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- 88 75

PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S VETO MESSAGE

NEW YORK, March 29
The following is the text of President Johnson's
Message vetoing the Civil Rights Bill :
TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.
I regret that the bill which has passed both Houses of
Congress, entitled "An Act to protect all persons in the
United States in their civil rights, and furnish the means
of their vindication," contains provisions which I cannot
approve consistently with my sense of duty to the whole
people, and my obligations to the Constitution of the United
States. I am therefore constrained to return it to the
Senate, the house in which it originated, with my objec-
tions to it becoming a law.
By the first section of the bill, all persons born in the
United States, and not subject to any foreign Powers, ex-
cluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of
the United States. This provision comprehends the Chinese
of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people
called gipsios, as well as the entire race designated as
blacks, people of colour, negroes, mulattos, and persons of
African blood. Every individual of these races born in the
United States is by the bill made a citizen of the United
States. It does not purport to declare or confer any other
right of citizenship than Federal citizenship. It does not
propose to give these classes of persons any status as citi-
zens of States except that which may result from their
status as citizens of the United States. The power to
confer the right of State citizenship is just as exclusively
with the several States as the power to confer the right of
Federal citizenship is with Congress. The right of Federal
citizenship thus to bo conferred in the several expected
"ratio" before mentioned is now, for the first time, proposed
to be given by law. If, as is claimed by many, all persons who
are native born already are, by virtue of the Constitution,
citizens of the United States, the passage of the pending bill
cannot be necessary to make them such. If, on the other
hand, such persons are not citizens, as may be assumed
from the proposed legislation to make them such, the grave
question presents itself whether, when 11 of the 36 States
are unrepresented in Congress at this time, it is sound
policy to make our entire coloured population and all other
excepted classes citizens of the United States. Four mil-
lions have just emerged from slavery into freedom. Can
it reasonably be supposed that they possess the requisite
qualifications to entitle them to all the privileges and im-
munities of citizenship of the United States ?
Have the people of the several States expressed such a
conviction ? It may also be asked whether it is necessary
that they should be declared citizens in order that they
may be secured in the enjoyment of the civil rights pro-
posed to be conferred by the bill ? Those rights are by
Federal as well as by State laws secured to all domiciled
aliens and foreigners even before the completion of the pro-
cess of naturalisation, and it may safely be assumed that
the same enactments are sufficient to give like protection
and benefits to those for whom this bill provides special
legislation. Besides, the policy of the Government, from
its origin to the present time, soems to have been that
persons who are strangers to, and unfamiliar with, our in-
stitutions and our laws should pass through a certain pro-
bation, at the end of which, before attaining the coveted
prize, they must give evidence of their fitness to receive
and to exercise the rights of citizens as contemplated by
the Constitution of the United States.
The bill in effect proposes a discrimination against largo
numbers of intelligent, worthy, and patriotic foreigners, and
in favour of the negro, to whom, after long years of bondage,
the avenues to freedom and intelligence have just now been
suddenly opened. He must of necessity, from his previous
unfortunate condition of servitude, be loss informed as to
the nature and character of our institutions than he who,
coming from abroad, has to some extent at least familiarised
himself with the principles of a Government to which he
voluntarily entrusts life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi-
ness. Yet it is now proposed by a single legislative enact-
ment to confer the rights of citizenship upon all persons of
African descent born within the extended limits of the
United States; while persons of foreign birth who make our
land their home must undergo a probation of five years, and
can only-then become citizens upon proof that they are of
good moral character, attached to the principles of the con-
stitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good
order and happiness of the same.
The first section of the bill also contains an enumeration
of the rights to be enjoyed by those classes so made citizens
in every state and territory of the United States. These
rights are to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties
and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and
convey real and personal property, and to have the full and
equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of
persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens. So,
too, they are made subject to the same punishment, pains,
and penalties common with white citizens, and to none
others: Thus a perfect equality of the white and coloured
races is attempted to be fixed by a Federal law in every
State of the Union over the vast field of State jurisdiction
covered by these enumerated rights. In no one of them
can any State exercise any power of discrimination between
different races.
In the exercise of State policy over matters exclusively
affecting the people of each State it has frequently been
thought expedient to discriminate between the two races.
By the statutes of some of the States, North as well as
South, it is enacted, for instance, that no white person shall
intermarry with a negro or a mulatto. Chancellor Sent says,
speaking of the blacks, that marriages between them and
the whites are forbidden in some of the States where slavery
does not exist ; and they are prohibited in all the slavehold-
ing States by law, andwhen not absolutely contrary tolaw,
they are revolting, and regarded as an offence against public

decorum.
I will not say that this bill repeals State laws on the sub-
ject of marriage betweenthe two races, for as the whites are
forbidden to intermarry with the blacks, the blacks can
only make such contracts as the whites themselves aro
allowed to make ; and therefore cannot, under this bill,
enter into the marriage contract with the whites.
I cite this, however, as an instance of the State
policy as to discrimination, and to inquire whether, if Con-
gress can abrogate all State laws of discrimination between
the two races in the matter of real estate, of suits, and of
contracts generally, Congress may not also repeal the State
laws as to the contract of marriage between the races ?
Hitherto, every subject embraced in the enumeration of
rights contained in the bill has been considered as mein-
sively belonging to the States. They all relate to the inter-
nal policy and economy of the respective States. They are
matters which in each State concern the domestic condi-
tion of its people, urging in each according to its own pecu-
liar circumstances and the safety and well-being of its own
citizens. Ido not mean to say that upon these subjects
there are not Federal restraints, as, for instance, in the
State power of legislation over contracts there is a Federal
limitation that no State shall pass a law impairing the ob-
ligations of contracts ; and as to crimes, that no State Shall