aturalization; and it may
safely be assumed that the same enactments are sufficient to give like
protection and benefits to those for whom this bill provides special
legislation. Besides, the policy of the Government from its origin to
the present time seems to have been that persons who are strangers to
and unfamiliar with our institutions and our laws should pass through
a certain probation, at the end of which, before attaining the coveted
prize, they must give evidence of their fitness to receive and to
exercise the rights of citizens as contemplated by the Constitution of
the United States. The bill in effect proposes a discrimination against
large numbers of intelligent, worthy, and patriotic foreigners, and in
favor of the negro, to whom, after long years of bondage, the avenues to
freedom and intelligence have just now been suddenly opened. He must of
necessity, from his previous unfortunate condition of servitude, be less
informed as to the nature and character of our institutions than he who,
coming from abroad, has, to some extent at least, familiarized himself
with the principles of a Government to which he voluntarily intrusts
"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Yet it is now proposed,
by a single legislative enactment, to confer the rights of citizens upon
all persons of African descent born within the extended limits of the
United States, while persons of foreign birth who make our land their
home must undergo a probation of five years, and can only then become
citizens upon proof that they are "of good moral character, attached to
the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well
disposed to the good order and happiness of the same."

The first section of the bill also contains an enumeration of the rights
to be enjoyed by these classes so made citizens "in every State and
Territory in the United States." These rights are "to make and enforce
contracts; to sue, be parties, and give evidence; to inherit, purchase,
lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property," and to have
"full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of
person and property as is enjoyed by white citizens." So, too, they are
made subject to the same punishment, pains, and penalties in common with
white citizens, and to none other. Thus a perfect equality of the white
and colored races is attempted to be fixed by Federal law in every State
of the Union over the vast field of State