an enumeration
of the rights to be enjoyed by these classes, so made
citizens, 'in every State and Territory in 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 '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 in common with
white citizens, and to none others. Thus a perfect equality
of the white and black races is attempted to be fixed by
Federal law, in every State of the Union, over the vast
field of State jurisdiction covered by these enumerated
rights. In no one of these can any State ever exercise any
power of discrimination between the 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, Northern as well as
Southern, it is enacted, for instance, that no white person
shall intermarry with a negro or mulatto. Chancellor Kent
says, speaking of the blacks, that 'marriages between them
and whites are forbidden in some of the States where slavery
does not exist, and they are prohibited in all the
slaveholding States, and when not absolutely contrary to
law, they are revolting, and regarded as an offense against
public decorum.'

"I do not say this bill repeals State laws on the subject of
marriage between the two races, for as the whites are
forbidden to intermarry with the blacks, the blacks can only
make such contracts as the whites themselves are allowed to
make, and therefore can not, under this bill, enter into the
marriage contract with the whites. I cite this
discrimination, however, as an instance of the State policy
as to discrimination, and to inquire whether, if Congress
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 two races?
Hitherto every subject embrac