39th Congress debates...an example..
” This act of legislation would destroy the foundations of the Government as they were laid and established by our fathers, who reserved to the States certain privileges and immunities which ought sacredly to be preserved to them.
” If you had attempted to do it in the days of those who were living at the time the Constitution was made, after the birth of that noble instrument, the spirit of the heroes of the Revolution and the ghosts of the departed who laid down their lives in defense of-the liberty of this country and of the rights of the States,
would have come forth as witnesses against the deadly infliction, and the destruction of the fundamental principle of the sovereignty of the States in violation of the Constitution, and the breaking down of the ties that bind the States, and the violation of the rights and liberties of the white men and white women of America.
” If you pass this bill, you will allow the negroes of this country to compete for the high office of President of the United States.
Because if they are citizens at all, they come within the meaning and letter of the Constitution of the United States, which allows all natural-born citizens to become candidates for the Presidency, and to exercise the duties of that office if elected.
” I am afraid of degrading this Government; I am afraid of danger to constitutional liberty;
I am alarmed at the stupendous strides which this Congress is trying to initiate; and I appeal in behalf of my country, in behalf of those that are to come after us, of generations yet unborn, as well as those now living, that conservative men on the other side should rally to the standard of sovereign and independent States,
Mr. Rogers, of New Jersey
History of the Thirty-ninth Congress of the United States
By William Horatio Barnes
Very interesting the way that is worded.