Fremont journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County [Ohio]) 1853-1866, 1865-12-22

Senator Wilson has introduced bill for
the protection of Freedmen. The bill, in
short, declares that all laws making any
inequality of civil rights, on account Of
color, between citizens of those States de-
elared, July 1st, '62, as in rebellion, are
null and void, and provides penalty for
attempting to enforce such laws,
Senator Sherman, in the course of a
brief off-hand speech, give his construction
of the last clause of the-Gonstitutionai
Amendment After expressing himself
heartily in sympathy with the purpose Of
Senator Wilson's bill, Mr.. Sherman said
Under the joint resolution proposing that
amendment, there is no doubt OF the pow
er of Congress over this subject Unjust
confess my surprise at one or two recent
dispatches issued from high officers of the
Government in regard to the constitutions
al amendment. The first section provides
that nsf Ttf
'Neither slavery nor involuntary seNi-
tude, 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 juris-
diction."
This section secures TO every man with
in the United States liberty in its broad
est terms. The Second section provides
that
Congress shall have powerto enforce this ar
ticle by appropriate legislation"
Here is not only guarantee of liberty
to every inhabitant of the United States,
but an express grant of power to Congress
to secure this liberty by appropriate legis-
lation. Now, unless man be free with
out the right to sue and be sued, to plead
and be implicated, to acquire and hold
property, and to testify in court of fjustice,
then Congress has the power, by the ex-
press terms of this amendment, to secure
all these rights. To say that man is a
freeman and yet is not able to assert and
maintain his right, in court of justice, is
a negation of terms. Therefore the pow
er is expressly given to Congress to secure
all there rights of freedom by appropriate
Legislation. The reason why this power
was given is also drawn from the history
of clause of the Constitution. BY this
clause of the Constitution, one which has
always been apart Of our fundamental law,
it is provided that ST"
"The citizens of each State shall be entitled
to all the privileges and immunitios of citizens
of the several States.
This clause gives to the citizens o
Massachusetts,, whatever may be his color,
the right of citizen of South Carolina, to
come and 90 precisely like any other citi-
zen. There never was any doubt about
the construction of this clause of the Con,
stitution-that is, that a man who was re-
cognized as citizen of one State had the
right to go anywhere within the United
States and exercise the immunity of a cit
izen of the United States; but the trouble
was in enforcing this constitutional pro
vision. In the celebrated case of Mr.
Hoar, who went to South Carolina, he
was driven out although he went there to
exercise a plain constitutional right and
although he was a white man of uudis-
puted character. This constitutional pro-
vision was in effect dead letter to him.
The reason was that there was no provis.
ion in the Constitution by which Congress
could enforce this right. Although there
was a guarantee that the citizen of one
State should have the rights of citizen
in all the States, yet there was no express
power conferred upon Congress to secure
this right, and no law has ever yet been
framed that secured the right of one citi-
zen to travel wherever he chose within the
limits of the United States.
To avoid this very difficulty, that of a
guarantee without power to enforce it,
this second section of the constitutional
amendment was adopted, which does give
to Congress in clear and express terms the
right to secure, by appropriate legislation,
to every person within the United States,
liberty. 1t seems to me, therefore, as a
question of time, it is better to postpone
oil Legislation on this subject until the
constitutional amendment is declared to be
a part of the fundamental law. a1i