oped the Senator from Kentucky would have
enlightened us. He says a negro is not a citizen, and a negro is not a
foreigner and can not be made a citizen. He says that a person who
might be and was a citizen before the Constitution, is not a citizen
since the Constitution was adopted. What right was taken away from him
by the Constitution that disqualifies him from being a citizen? The
free negroes in my State, before the Constitution was adopted, were
citizens."

Mr. Davis, having admitted that free negroes were citizens before the
Constitution in New Hampshire, Mr. Clark said:

"I desired that the Senator should tell me what, in his opinion,
constituted a citizen under the Constitution."

Mr. Davis replied: "I will answer the honorable Senator. We sometimes
answer a positive question by declaring what a thing is not. Now, the
honorable Senator asks me what a citizen is. It is easier to answer
what it is not than what it is, and I say that a negro is not a
citizen."

"Well, that is a lucid definition," said Mr. Clark.

"Sufficient for the subject," said Mr. Davis.

"That is begging the question," Mr. Clark replied. "I wanted to find
why a negro was not a citizen, if the gentleman would tell me. If he
would lay down his definition, I wanted to see whether the negro did
not comply with it and conform to it, so as to be a citizen; but he
insists that he is not a citizen."

"I will answer that question, if the honorable Senator will permit
me," said Mr. Davis. "Government is a political partnership. No
persons but the partners who formed the partnership are parties to the
government. Here is a government formed by the white man alone. The
negro was excluded from the formation of our political partnership; he
had nothing to do with it; he had nothing to do in its formation."

"Is it a close corporation, so that new partners can not be added?"
asked Mr. Stewart, of Nevada.

"Yes, sir," said Mr. Davis; "it is a close white corporation. You may
bring all of Europe, but none of Asia and none of Africa into our
partnership."

"Let us see," said Mr. Clark, "how that may be. Take the gentleman's
own ground that government is a partnership, and those who did not
enter into it and take an active part in it can not be citizens. Is a
woman a citizen under our Constitution?"

"Not to vote," said Mr. Davis.

"I did not ask about voting," said Mr. Clark. "The gentleman said
awhile ago that voting did not constitute citizen