The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1859-03-03

sonian statute, is enough to make the very ashes
of that apostle of the rights of the States move
in his coffin
But, sir, there is Astill more Objectionable fea-
ture than alien suffrage in this Oregon Constitu-
ton. That is the provision of the schedule
which declares that large numbers of the citizens
of the United States shall not after the admission
of the proposed State of Oregon, come or be
within said State; that they shall hold no prop
erty there; and that they shall not prosecute
any suits in any of the courts of that State; and
that the Legislature shall, by statute make it a
penal offence for any person to harbor any of the
excluded class of their fellow-citizens who may
thereafter come or be within the State This
provision seems to me, in its spirit and letter to
be injustice and oppression incarnate. This
provision, sir, excludes from the State of Oregon
eight hundred thousand of the native-born citi-
zens of the other States, who are, therefore cit
liens of the United States. / grant you that a
State may restrict the exercise of the elective
franchise to certain classes of citizens of the
United States, to the exclusion of others but /
deny that any State may exclude a law abiding
citizen of the United States from coming within
its territory, or abiding therein, or acquiring
and enjoying property therein, or from the en-
joyment therein of the privileges and immuni-
ties of citizen of the United States. What
says the Constitution:
1.-The citizens of each State shall be entitled TO all prvi-
leges and mmunties of citizens the several States. So"
Article 4, SECTION 2.
Here is no qualification, as in the clause guar
antying suffrage an elective representation to
the people; here is no room for that refined con-
struction, that each State may exclude all or any
of the citizens of the United States from its ter
ritory. The citizens of each State, all the citi-
zens of each State, being citizens of the United
States, shall be entitled to "all privileges and
immunities of citizens in the several States"
Not to the rights and immunities of the several
States; not TO those constitutional rights and
immunities which result exclusively from State
authority or State legislation but TO call privi-
leges and immunities" of citizens of the United
States in the several States. There is an ellipsis
in the language employed in the Constitution,
but its meaning is self-evident, that it is the
privileges and immunities Of citizens of the Uni
ted States in the several States that it guaran-
ties.
This guaranty of the Constitution of the Uni
ted States is senseless and a mockery, if it does
not limit State sovereignty, and restrain each
and every State from closing its territory and its
courts of justice against citizens of the United
States. Lest it may be said that have over
stated the odious provisions of this Oregon
Constitution, read the entire provisions of this
section of the schedule, and which is expressly
declared to be "a part of this Constitution
''SEc L. No free negro mulato, residing in this
State the time of the adoption of this Constitution shall
come reside or be within this State or hold any real
estate make contract maintain any suit therein
and the Legislative Assembly shall provide by penal laws
for the removal by public officers Of all such free negroes
and muattOes and for their eectual exclusion from the
state and for the punishment Of persons who shall bring
Oregon Constitution, MIS- Doc, No IS, page 20
The Constitution of Oregon, which contains
this infamous atrocity, was adopted on the 9th
of November, 1857 and we by approving it, and
giving to it the force of law, shall do if we
pass this bill declare that our legislation for this
horrid oppression shall not only operate upon
these prescribed eight hundred thousand free
men, citizens of the United States, from and after
this day, but. by relation to the time of the adop-
ton of this instrument, shall operate from the
9th of November, 1857. Since that day, doubt
less, some of this excluded class have entered
that Territory; and, if they have, you declare,
by passing this bill, that their entrance of that
Territory, after that day, was a crime; "that
they shall not reside, or be-" within that State
that they shall hold real estate there although
acquired before you passed this bill, or gave
effect to that act of exclusion that they shall
make no contract; that they shall maintain no
suit, either for the enforcement of right or the
redress of a wrong; that they shall be expelled
and " effectually excluded by penal enactments;
and that whoever harbors them within that State,
whoever shelters them in sickness or distress, in
hunger or in cold, shall be guilty of a crime be-
fore the law, and punished as criminal. Would
not this be an er post fdcto law? By what au-
thority, sir, can you enact it? 1t is forbidden by
the Constitution of the United States.
That our country might be saved the shame
and infamy and crime of such legislation, our
fathers inserted in the first article, ninth section
of the Constitution, an absolute and perpetual
prohibition in these words: "No er post fdcto law
shall be passed" This inhibition of our National
Constitution, sir, is as sacred as any other pro-
vision of that great instrument; and the official
oath ito support the Constitution" which you
in your great Office administered to all of u.s.
binds US, in my judgment to respect alike all
the specific requirements and limitations of the
Constitution, not only to save it from violation
or infringement by our own act, but by the
act of others with our consents But, sir, this
odious section is not only retroactive in its penal
and offensive provisions, but it extends the same
prohibitions over the future--al the future
" No free negro or mulatto, not residing in this
State at the adoption of this Constitution, shall
ever come, reside, or be, within this State, or
hold any real estate, make any contract, or
maintain any suit therein" and this denial to
eight hundred thousand citizens of the United
States and their descendants forever to hold real
estate in Oregon, or make contracts or maintain
any suit in vindication of their rights, or for the
redress of their wrongs, is to be enforced by the
same atrocious sanction-the enactment of penal
laws-which is especially enjoined by this nfa-
nous instrument upon the Legislative Assembly
of Oregon.
Gentlemen say that we violate the ordinance of
1887, which, by the act of 1913, was extended
over Oregon, by resisting the admission of Ore
gon upon this Constitution. | very much fear
that gentlemen who say this, have never read
the ordinance of 1887. | mean no disrespsct.
sir but say the veriest dolt cannot fail to see
that this provision of the Oregon Constitution is
in direct conflict WITH and violative Of the second
article OF that great ordinance. That article de-
cares that the inhabitants of that Territory shall
always be entitled to the benefit of the writ of
hadeas corpus and of the trial by jury This Con-
stltutlon of Oregon denies both these rights to
some of the inhabitants. That article declares
that no man shall be deprived of his liberty or
property but by the judgment of his peers or the
law of the land. This sacred provision is also
violated by this Constitution of Oregon, unless,
indeed, gentlemen say negro or mulatto is no
man. but only brute. That article further
declares:
For the just preservation of rights property IL il m
dersood and declared that law ought be made
or have force in the said Territory that shall in any man
ner whatever interfere with private contracts or engage
ments bona tide and without fraud previously ormedD
This will be the very effect of your retroactive
legislation which gives force to this Constitution
of Oregon which declares, in section three of
the schedule, that it shall take effect from its
adoption, and that no negro or mulatto not re-
siding there at the time of its adoption, 10Th No
vember, 1850 "shall ever hold any real estate,
make any contract, or maintain any suit there
in" Contracts, therefore, made by such persons
since 9th November, 1857, are to be held null
and void, and zeal estate, by them acquired. con-
fscated.
. Sir, if the persons thus excluded from the
right to maintain any suit in the courts of Ore
gon were not citizens of the United States if
they were not natives born of free parents within
the limits of the Republic, should oppose this
bill because | say that a State which in its