opinions of Chief Justices Story and Marshall to show
that the right of Congress to establish federal courts could not be
denied without defeating the Constitution itself, Mr. Robinson
continued: "I say, then, that those constitutional provisions give to
the citizens of the different States their rights in the federal courts.
I say again, it is not within the constitutional power of Congress to
make discriminations as to citizens in this matter. It has been taken as
settled that the corporations of the States for purposes of jurisdiction
are citizens of the States in which they are created. Can you
discriminate? Why, in the famous Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court
did discriminate, and said that a negro was not a citizen within the
meaning of the Constitution, nor entitled to sue in the Circuit Court of
the United States. The nation paused and held its breath, and never
recovered itself until after the bloody strife of the war, when was put
into the Constitution that guaranty that no such doctrine should ever be
repeated in this country. If Congress can exclude the citizens of a
locality, or the citizens of one color, or the citizens of one
occupation, or the citizens of certain classes of wealth or industry,
surely it can exclude any other citizens. If you can, in this bill and
under our Constitution, declare that the citizens, or any portion of
them, in this country, because they act in their corporate capacity,
shall lose their rights in the federal courts, it is but the next step
to legislate that the man who is engaged in rolling iron, or in the
manufacture of cotton, or of woolen goods, or is banker, or 'bloated
bond-holder,' shall not have any rights in the federal courts. There is
no step between them. There may be a discrimination as to
subject-matter, but not as to citizens. The distinction is very broad,
and in recognition of it my argument is made." In the discussion of the
apportionment at the Forty-sixth Congress, third session, Mr. Robinson
eloquently defended the honor of Massachusetts against the aspersions
which had been cast upon the Commonwealth by General Butler in his brief
as attorney in the Boynton-Loring contest. In the course of the debate
Mr. Cox called attention to this brief and suggested that if it were
true the representation of Massachusetts should be curtailed. Mr.
Robinson entered into an explanation of the reading and writing
qualification for suffrage in Massachusetts. As General