t any State does justice and abolishes all
discrimination between whites and blacks in civil rights, the judicial
functions of the Freedmen's Bureau cease.

"But," continued Mr. Trumbull, "the President, most strangely of all,
dwells upon the unconstitutionality of this act, without ever having
alluded to that provision of the Constitution which its advocates
claim gives the authority to pass it. Is it not most extraordinary
that the President of the United States returns a bill which has
passed Congress, with his objections to it, alleging it to be
unconstitutional, and makes no allusion whatever in his whole message
to that provision of the Constitution which, in the opinion of its
supporters, clearly gives the authority to pass it? And what is that?
The second clause of the constitutional amendment, which declares that
Congress shall have authority by appropriate legislation to enforce
the article, which declares that there shall be neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude throughout the United States. If legislation be
necessary to protect the former slaves against State laws, which allow
them to be whipped if found away from home without a pass, has not
Congress, under the second clause of the amendment, authority to
provide it? What kind of freedom is that which the Constitution of the
United States guarantees to a man that does not protect him from the
lash if he is caught away from home without a pass? And how can we sit
here and discharge the constitutional obligation that is upon us to
pass the appropriate legislation to protect every man in the land in
his freedom, when we know such laws are being passed in the South, if
we do nothing to prevent their enforcement? Sir, so far from the bill
being unconstitutional, I should feel that I had failed in my
constitutional duty if I did not propose some measure that would
protect these people in their freedom. And yet this clause of the
Constitution seems to have escaped entirely the observation of the
President.

"The President objects to this bill because it was passed in the
absence of representation from the rebellious States. If that
objection be valid, all our legislation affecting those States is
wrong, and has been wrong from the beginning. When the rebellion broke
out, in the first year of the war, we passed a law for collecting a
direct tax, and we assessed that tax upon all the rebellious States.
According to the theory of the President, that was all wr