It is heathenism in religion and tyranny in government.

But our recent Rebels undertake to play the part of Brahmins, and exclude citizens, with better title than themselves, from essential rights, simply on the ground of caste, which, according to its Portuguese origin (casta), is only another…

Here is a monopoly on a gigantic scale and with an unprecedented field, in a country which sets its face against all monopolies as unequal and immoral.

If any monopoly deserves unhesitating judgment, it must be that which absorbs the rights of others and engrosses political power.

How vain to condemn the petty monopoly of commerce, while allowing this vast, all-embracing monopoly of Human Rights!

Clearly, most clearly, and beyond all question, such a government is not “republican in form.” Call it oligarchy, call it aristocracy, call it caste, call it monopoly; but never call it a republic.

Of course such a government can exist only in defiance of the National Constitution, and it is the duty of Congress to interfere against it.

The guaranty is by the United States; therefore Congress must perform it; and, in the discharge of this eminent duty, it must affix the true meaning to the requirement, declaring what is a republican government, and supplying the…

In case of the usurpation of the government of a State by one man or an oligarchy, it becomes a duty of the United States to make good the guaranty to that State of a republican form of government.

One is to impose an irrepealable condition upon the unrepublican States, requiring them, before recognition, to re-form their governments to the satisfaction of Congress.

They both do violence to the true principles of the National Constitution, if not to common sense.

Even assuming that there has been no lapse of State governments, so as to bring the guaranty into operation,--assuming that we are in a condition of assured peace,--then I utterly deny that the power to determine the “qualifications” of…

A permanent or insurmountable “qualification” is equivalent to deprivation of suffrage; in other words, it is the tyranny of taxation without representation, and this tyranny, I insist, is not intrusted to any State.

It is like the slumbering statute which Cicero describes as a sword in the scabbard, tanquam gladius in vagina.

This duty is fortified by the Constitutional Amendment, which, after providing for the abolition of Slavery, empowers Congress to “enforce” it by “appropriate legislation,” thus heaping Ossa upon Pelion.

Clearly, under these words, Congress may do what in its discretion seems “appropriate” to this end, and there is no power to call its action in question.

Apply these words to the present case, and the conclusion is irresistible.

Whatever legislation seems “appropriate” to “enforce” the abolition of Slavery, whatever means seem proper to this end, must be within the powers of Congress under the Constitutional Amendment.

You cannot deny this principle without setting aside those most remarkable judgments which stand as landmarks of constitutional history.

But who can doubt that the abolition of the whole Black Code, in all its oligarchical pretensions, civil and political, is “appropriate” to “enforce” the abolition of Slavery?

Congress may “enforce” abolition, and nobody can question the “means” it thinks best to employ.

As the occasion is extraordinary, so the “means” employed must be extraordinary.

You have, Sir, decreed that blacks shall enjoy the same civil rights as whites,--in other words, that with regard to civil rights there shall be no oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, or monopoly, but that all shall be equal before the law…

Beyond all question, the protection of the colored race in civil rights is essential to complete the abolition of Slavery; but the protection of the colored race in political rights is not less essential, and the power is as ample in one…

It will be greater still, because it establishes the power of Congress, without further amendment of the National Constitution, to protect every citizen in all his rights, including of course the elective franchise.