e enough to grant him the mercy of his silence. I shall,
sir, leave to others less charitable the unenviable and fatiguing task
of sifting out of that mass of chaff the few grains of sense that may,
perchance deserve notice. Assuring the gentleman that the Negro in this
country aims at a higher degree of intellect than that exhibited by him
in this debate, I cheerfully commend him to the commiseration of all
intelligent men the world over--black men as well as white men.

Sir, equality before the law is now the broad, universal, glorious rule
and mandate of the Republic. No State can violate that. Kentucky and
Georgia may crowd their statute-books with retrograde and barbarous
legislation; they may rejoice in the odious eminence of their consistent
hostility to all the great steps of human progress which have marked our
national history since slavery tore down the stars and stripes on Fort
Sumter; but, if Congress shall do its duty, if Congress shall enforce
the great guarantees which the Supreme Court has declared to be the one
pervading purpose of all the recent amendments, then their unwise and
unenlightened conduct will fall with the same weight upon the gentlemen
from those States who now lend their influence to defeat this bill, as
upon the poorest slave who once had no rights which the honorable
gentlemen were bound to respect.

But, sir, not only does the decision in the Slaughter-house cases
contain nothing which suggests a doubt of the power of Congress to pass
the pending bill, but it contains an express recognition and affirmance
of such power. I quote from page 81 of the volume: "Nor shall any State
deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws."

In the light of the history of these amendments, and the pervading
purpose of them which we have already discussed, it is not difficult to
give a meaning to this clause. The existence of laws in the States where
the newly emancipated Negroes resided, which discriminated with gross
injustice and hardship against them as a class, was the evil to be
remedied by this clause, and by it such laws are forbidden.

If, however, the States did not conform their views to its requirements,
then, by the fifth section of the article of amendment, Congress was
authorized to enforce it by suitable legislation. We doubt very much
whether any action of a State not directed by way of discrimination
against the Negroes as a class, or on account of the