and the offender punished
whenever his guilt has been satisfactorily established.

As another reason against the necessity of the legislation contemplated
by this measure, reference may be had to the "civil-rights bill," now a
law of the land, and which will be faithfully executed so long as it
shall remain unrepealed and may not be declared unconstitutional by
courts of competent jurisdiction. By that act it is enacted--

That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any
foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to
be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race
and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or
involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right in every
State and Territory in the United States 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 full and equal
benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and
property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like
punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute,
ordinance, regulation, or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.

By the provisions of the act full protection is afforded through the
district courts of the United States to all persons injured, and whose
privileges, as thus declared, are in any way impaired; and heavy
penalties are denounced against the person who willfully violates the
law. I need not state that that law did not receive my approval; yet its
remedies are far more preferable than those proposed in the present
bill--the one being civil and the other military.

By the sixth section of the bill herewith returned certain proceedings
by which the lands in the "parishes of St. Helena and St. Luke, South
Carolina," were sold and bid in, and afterwards disposed of by the tax
commissioners, are ratified and confirmed. By the seventh, eighth,
ninth, tenth, and eleventh sections provisions by law are made for the
disposal of the lands thus acquired to a particular class of citizens.
While the quieting of titles is deemed very important and desirable, the
discrimination made in the bill seems objectionable, as does also the
attempt to confer upon the commissioners judicial powers by which
citizens o