fore constrained to return it to the Senate, the House
in which it originated, with my objections to its becoming a law.

By the first section of the bill all persons born in the United States
and not subject to any foreign power, excluding 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 gypsies, as well as the entire race designated as blacks,
people of color, negroes, mulattoes, 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
purport to give these classes of persons any status as citizens 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 be conferred on the several
excepted races 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 can not 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 eleven of the thirty-six States
are unrepresented in Congress at the present time, it is sound policy
to make our entire colored population and all other excepted classes
citizens of the United States. Four millions of them have just emerged
from slavery into freedom. Can it be reasonably supposed that they
possess the requisite qualifications to entitle them to all the
privileges and immunities of citizens 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
proposed to be conferred by the bill. Those rights are, by Federal as
well as State laws, secured to all domiciled aliens and foreigners, even
before the completion of the process of n