tatives of the American
people that their Constitution forbids the exercise of
judicial power in any way but one; that is, by the ordained
and established courts. It is equally well known that, in
all criminal cases, a trial by jury is made indispensable by
the express words of that instrument. I will not enlarge on
the inestimable value of the right thus secured to every
freeman, or speak of the danger to public liberty, in all
parts of the country, which must ensue from a denial of it
anywhere, or upon any pretense. * * *

"The United States are bound to guaranty to each State a
republican form of government Can it be pretended that this
obligation is not palpably broken if we carry out a measure
like this, which wipes away every vestige of republican
government in ten States, and put the life, property,
liberty and honor of all the people in each of them under
the domination of a single person clothed with unlimited
authority.

* * * * *

"The purpose and object of the bill--the general intent
which pervades it from beginning to end--is to change the
entire structure and character of the State governments, and
to compel them by force to the adoption of organic laws and
regulations which they are unwilling to accept if left to
themselves. The negroes have not asked for the privilege of
voting; the vast majority of them have no idea what it
means. This bill not only thrusts it into their hands, but
compels them, as well as the whites, to use it in a
particular way. If they do not form a Constitution with
prescribed articles in it, and afterward elect a Legislature
which will act upon certain measures in a prescribed way,
neither blacks nor whites can be relieved from the slavery
which the bill imposes upon them. Without pausing here to
consider the policy or impolicy of Africanizing the Southern
part of our territory, I would simply ask the attention of
Congress to that manifest, well-known, and
universally-acknowledged rule of constitutional law which
declares that the Federal Government has no jurisdiction,
authority, or power to regulate such subjects for any State.
To force the right of suffrage out of the hands of the white
people and into the hands of the negroes is an arbitrary