"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 citizenship. I want to know if she is a citizen. Can she not sue and be sued, contract, and exercise the rights of a citizen?" "So can a free negro," said Mr. Davis. "Then, if a free negro can do all that," said Mr. Clark; "why is he not a citizen?" "Because he is no part of the governing power; that is the reason," Mr. Davis replied. "I deny that," said Mr. Clark, "because in some of the States he is a part of the governing power. The Senator only begs the question; it only comes back to this, that a nigger is a nigger." [Laughter.] "That is the whole of it," said Mr. Davis. [Illustration: Hon. Reverdy Johnson.] "That is the whole of the gentleman's logic," said Mr. Clark. In answer to the statement insisted on by Mr. Davis, "You can not make a citizen of any body that is not a foreigner," Mr. Johnson said: "That would be an extraordinary condition for the country to be in. Here are four million negroes. They are not foreigners, because they were born in the United States. They have no foreign allegiance to renounce, because they owed no foreign allegiance. Their allegiance, whatever it was, was an allegiance to the Government of the United States alone. They can not come, therefore, under the naturalizing clause; they can not come, of course, under the statutes passed in pursuance of the power conferred upon Congress by that clause; but does it follow from that that you can not make them citizens; that the Congress of the United States, vested with the whole legislative power belonging to the Government, having within the limits of the United States four million people anxious to become citizens, and when you are anxious to make them citizens, have no power to make them citizens? It seems to me that to state the question is to answer it.