Then must every word in the Constitution be interpreted so that Liberty and Equality shall not fail.

Here I know no half, no three-quarters; I know nothing but the whole.

And I say the article abolishes Slavery entirely, everywhere throughout this land,--root and branch,--in the general and the particular,--in length and breadth, and then in every detail.

Any other interpretation dwarfs the great Amendment, and permits Slavery still to linger among us in some of its insufferable pretensions.

When I voted for that article, I meant what it said,--that Slavery should cease absolutely, entirely, and completely.

Now, how can any Senator, recognizing the constitutionality of the original Civil Rights Act, doubt the present supplementary measure?

If you rally against that Amendment, your next move should be to repeal the existing Civil Rights Act as inconsistent with the Constitution.

We admit, as all must admit, that the powers of the Government are limited, and that its limits are not to be transcended.

But we think the sound construction of the Constitution must allow to the National Legislature that discretion with respect to the means by which the powers it confers are to be carried into execution which will enable that body to perform…

In other words, the Supreme Court will not undertake to sit in judgment on the means employed by Congress for carrying out a power which exists in the Constitution.

Now the power plainly exists in the Constitution; it is to abolish Slavery, and it is for Congress in its discretion to select the means.

You have already one instance of its execution, and you have the solemn decision of the Supreme Court of the United States declaring that it is in the discretion of Congress to select the means by which to enforce the powers granted.

Surely, if there were any doubt in the Thirteenth Amendment, as there is not, it would all be removed by this supplementary Amendment.

Here is the definition of Citizenship, and the right to the equal protection of the laws,--in other words, Citizenship and Equality, both placed under the safeguard of the Nation.

But if these are interpreted by the Declaration of Independence, as I insist, the conclusion is still more irresistible.

I do not speak unadvisedly, when I declare that no such end is desired by a single intelligent colored man; no such design can be gleaned from any word ever spoken by Charles Sumner; his amendment cannot by any reasonable stretch of the…

Not a Senator, not a lawyer says that; it is only one of our colored fellow-citizens whom the Senator would see shut out of the cars, shut out of the hotels, his children shut out from schools, and himself shut out from churches; and…

The amendment says that all citizens, white and black, are entitled to the equal and impartial enjoyment of any accommodation, advantage, facility, or privilege furnished by common carriers, by innkeepers, by licensed theatres, by managers…

Certainly not; a man’s private domicile is his own castle: no one, with even kingly pretensions, dare force himself over its threshold.

I conclude, that, when the supreme law says of right a thing shall not be, Congress, which has that supreme law as its guide and authority, has the power to enforce the same.

The Constitution still lives, and as long as it lives it must be interpreted by the Declaration of Independence to advance human rights.

I have spoken frankly, I hope not unkindly: but on this question I must be plain and open.

I have alluded to a new rule of interpretation; I allude now to a new force: it is the colored people of the United States counted by the million; a new force with votes; and they now insist upon their rights.

They appeal to you in the name of the Constitution, which is for them a safeguard,--in the name of that great victory over the Rebellion through which peace was sealed; and they remind you that they mean to follow up their appeal at the…

Without this measure Amnesty will be a crime, merciless to the loyal blacks of the South, and an encouragement of treason and traitors.