In alluding to Mr. Johnson's strictures on his assertion that Congress had no power to confer the right of citizenship on "the native born negro," Mr. Davis said: "The honorable Senator, [Mr. Johnson,] as I said the other day, is one of the ablest lawyers, and, I believe, the ablest living lawyer in the land. I have seen gentlemen sometimes so much the lawyer that they had to abate some of the statesman [laughter]; and I am not certain, I would not say it was so--I will not arrogate to myself to say so--but sometimes a suspicion flashes across my mind that that is precisely the predicament of my honorable friend. "I maintain that a negro can not be made a citizen by Congress; he can not be made a citizen by any naturalization laws, because the naturalization laws apply to foreigners alone. No man can shake the legal truth of that position. They apply to foreigners alone; and a negro, an Indian, or any other person born within the United States, not being a foreigner, can not be naturalized; therefore they can not be made citizens by the uniform rule established by Congress under the Constitution, and there is no other rule. Congress has no power, as I said before, to naturalize a citizen. They could not be made citizens by treaty. If they are made so at all, it is by their birth, and the locality of their birth, and the general operation and effect of our Constitution. If they are so made citizens, that question is a judicial question, not a legislative question. Congress has no power to enlarge or extend any of the provisions of the Constitution which bear upon the birth or citizenship of negroes or Indians born in the United States. "If there was any despot in Europe or in the world that wanted a master architect in framing and putting together a despotic and oppressive law, I would, if my slight voice could reach him, by all means say to him, Seek the laboratory of the Senator from Illinois. If he has not proved himself an adept in this kind of legislation, unconstitutional, unjust, oppressive, iniquitous, unwise, impolitic, calculated to keep forever a severance of the Union, to exclude from all their constitutional rights, privileges, and powers under the Government eleven States of the Union--if he has not devised such a measure as that, I have not reason enough to comprehend it."