202 Fourteenth Amendment (1866)
This proposition is not all that the committee desired. It falls far short of my wishes but it fulfills my hopes. I believe it is all that can be obtained in the present state of public opinion. Not only Congress but the several States are to be consulted. Upon a careful survey of the whole ground, we did not believe that nineteen of the loyal States could be induced to ratify any proposition more stringent than this. I say nineteen for I utterly repudiate and scorn the idea that any State not acting in the Union is to be counted on the question of ratification. It is absurd to suppose that any more than three fourths of the States that propose the amendment are required to make it valid; that States not here are to be counted as present. Believing then that this is the best proposition that can be made effectual, I accept it.
The first section prohibits the States from abridging the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States or unlawfully depriving them of life, liberty, or property, or of denying to any person within their jurisdiction the “equal” protection of the laws.
I can hardly believe that any person can be found who will not admit that every one of these provisions is just. They are all asserted in some form or other in our DECLARATION or organic law. But the Constitution limits only the action of Congress and is not a limitation on the States. This amendment supplies that defect and allows Congress to correct the unjust legislation of the States so far that the law which operates upon one man shall operate equally upon all. Whatever law punishes a white man for a crime shall punish the black man precisely in the same way and to the same degree. Whatever law protects the white man shall afford “equal” protection to the black man. Whatever means of redress is afforded to one shall be afforded to all. Whatever law allows the white man to testify in court shall allow the man of color to do the same. These are great advantages over their present codes. Now different degrees of punishment are inflicted not on account of the magnitude of the crime but according to the color of the skin. Now color disqualifies a man from testifying in courts or being tried in the same way as white men. I need not enumerate these partial and oppressive laws. Unless the Constitution should restrain them those States will all, I fear, keep up this discrimination and crush to death the hated freedmen. Some answer, “Your civil rights bill secures the same things”. That is partly true, but a law is repealable by a majority. And I need hardly say that the first time that the South with their copperhead allies obtain the command of Congress it will be repealed. The veto of the President and their votes on the bill are conclusive evidence of that. And yet I am amazed and alarmed at the impatience of certain well-meaning Republicans at the exclusion of the rebel States until the Constitution shall be so amended as to restrain their despotic desires. This amendment once adopted cannot be annulled without two thirds of Congress. That they will hardly get. And yet certain of our distinguished friends propose to admit State after State before this becomes a part of the Constitution. What madness! Is their judgment misled by their kindness or are they unconsciously drifting into the haven of power at the other end of the avenue? I do not suspect it, but others will.
The second section I consider the most important in the article. It fixes the basis of representation in Congress. If any State shall exclude any of her adult male citizens from the elective franchise or abridge that right, she shall forfeit her right to representation in the same proportion. The effect of this provision will be either to compel the States to grant universal suffrage or so to shear them of their power as to keep them forever in a hopeless minority in the national Government, both legislative and executive. If they do not enfranchise the freedmen, it would give to the rebel States but thirty-seven Representatives. Thus shorn of their power, they would soon become restive. Southern pride would not long brook a hopeless minority. True it will take two, three, possibly five years before they conquer their prejudices sufficiently to allow their late slaves to become their equals at the polls. That short delay would not be injurious. In the meantime the freedmen would become more enlightened and more fit to discharge the high duties of their new condition. In that time too, the loyal Congress could mature their laws and so amend the Constitution as to secure the rights of every human being and render disunion impossible. Heaven forbid that the Southern States or any one of them should be represented on this floor until such muniments [documents] of freedom are built high and firm. Against our will they have been absent for four bloody years. Against our will they must not come back until we are ready to receive them. Do not tell me that there are loyal representatives waiting for admission — until their States are loyal they can have no standing here. They would merely misrepresent their constituents.
I admit that this article is not as good as the one we sent to death in the Senate. In my judgment we shall not approach the measure of justice until we have given every adult freedman a homestead on the land where he was born and toiled and suffered. Forty acres of land and a hut would be more valuable to him than the immediate right to vote. Unless we give them this we shall receive the censure of mankind and the curse of Heaven. That article referred to provided that if one of the injured race was excluded the State should forfeit the right to have any of them represented. That would have hastened their full enfranchisement. This section allows the States to discriminate among the same class and receive proportionate credit in representation. This I dislike. But it is a short step forward. The large stride which we in vain proposed is dead; the murderers must answer to the suffering race. I would not have been the perpetrator. A load of misery must sit heavy on their souls.
The third section may encounter more difference of opinion here. Among the people I believe it will be the most popular of all the provisions. It prohibits rebels from voting for members of Congress and electors of President until 1870. My only objection to it is that it is too lenient. I know that there is a morbid sensibility sometimes called mercy which affects a few of all classes from the priest to the clown, which has more sympathy for the murderer on the gallows than for his victim. I hope I have a heart as capable of feeling for human woe as others. I have long since wished that capital punishment were abolished. But I never dreamed that all punishment could be dispensed with in human society. Anarchy, treason, and violence would reign triumphant. Here is the mildest of all punishments ever inflicted on traitors. I might not consent to the extreme severity denounced upon them by a provisional governor of Tennessee — I mean the late lamented Andrew Johnson of blessed memory — but I would have increased the severity of this section. I would be glad to see it extended to 1876 and to include all State and municipal as well as national elections. In my judgment we do not sufficiently protect the loyal men of the rebel States from the vindictive persecutions of their victorious rebel neighbors. Still I will move no amendment nor vote for any, lest the whole fabric should tumble to pieces.
I need say nothing of the fourth section for none dare object to it who is not himself a rebel. To the friend of justice, the friend of the Union, of the perpetuity of liberty, and the final triumph of the rights of man and their extension to every human being let me say, sacrifice as we have done your peculiar views and instead of vainly insisting upon the instantaneous operation of all that is right accept what is possible and “all these things shall be added unto you.”
Source: Thaddeus Stevens in Congressional Globe, 39th Congress, 1st session (1866), 2459-2460, May 8, 1866. https://archive.org/details/americanhistoryt00ivunse/page/482/mode/2up
