shall be protected by penal enactments against those who interfere
with his rights? There is no difference in the principle involved. If
we may adopt the gentleman's mode, we may also select the mode
provided in this bill. There is a difference in regard to the expense
of protection; there is also a difference as to the effectiveness of
the two modes. Beyond this, nothing. This bill proposes that the
humblest citizen shall have full and ample protection at the cost of
the Government, whose duty it is to protect him. The amendment of the
gentleman recognizes the principle involved, but it says that the
citizen despoiled of his rights, instead of being properly protected
by the Government, must press his own way through the courts and pay
the bills attendant thereon. This may do for the rich, but to the
poor, who need protection, it is mockery. The highest obligation which
the Government owes to the citizen, in return for the allegiance
exacted of him, is to secure him in the protection of his rights.
Under the amendment of the gentleman, the citizen can only receive
that protection in the form of a few dollars in the way of damages, if
he shall be so fortunate as to recover a verdict against a solvent
wrong-doer. This is called protection. This is what we are asked to do
in the way of enforcing the bill of rights. Dollars are weighed
against the right of life, liberty, and property. The verdict of a
jury is to cover all wrongs and discharge the obligations of the
Government to its citizens.

"Sir, I can not see the justice of that doctrine. I assert that it is
the duty of the Government of the United States to provide proper
protection and to pay the costs attendant on it. We have gone out with
the strong arm of the Government and drawn from their homes, all over
this land, in obedience to the bond of allegiance which the Government
holds on the citizen, hundreds of thousands of men to the
battle-field; and yet, while we may exercise this extraordinary power,
the gentleman claims that we can not extend the protecting hand of the
Government to these men who have been battling for the life of the
nation, but can only send them, at their own cost, to juries for
verdicts of a few dollars in compensation for the most flagrant wrong
to their most sacred rights. Let those support that doctrine who will,
I can not."

At the conclusion of Mr. Wilson's speech, Mr. Eldridge, of Wisconsin,
moved to lay the whole subject on the tab