"There is nothing in this bill in respect to the employment of military force that is not already in the Constitution of the United States. The power here conferred is expressly given by that instrument, and has been exercised upon the most stupendous scale in the suppression of the rebellion. What is this bill? I hope gentlemen, even on the opposite side of the House, will not suffer their minds to be influenced by any such vague, loose, and groundless denunciations as these which have proceeded from the gentleman from New Jersey. The bill, after extending these fundamental immunities of citizenship to all classes of people in the United States, simply provides means for the enforcement of these rights and immunities. How? Not by military force, not through the instrumentality of military commanders, not through any military machinery whatever, but through the quiet, dignified, firm, and constitutional forms of judicial procedure. The bill seeks to enforce these rights in the same manner and with the same sanctions under and by which other laws of the United States are enforced. It imposes duties upon the judicial tribunals of the country which require the enforcement of these rights. It provides for the administration of laws to protect these rights. It provides for the execution of laws to enforce them. Is there any thing appalling in that? Is that a military despotism? Sir, it is a strange abuse of language to say that a military despotism is established by wholesome and equal laws. Yet the gentleman declaimed by the hour, in vague and idle terms, against this bill, which has not a single offensive, oppressive, unjust, unusual, or tyrannical feature in it. These civil rights and immunities which are to be secured, and which no man can conscientiously say ought to be denied, are to be enforced through the ordinary instrumentalities of courts of justice. "While engaged in this great work of restoration, it concerns our honor that we forget not those who are unable to help themselves; who, whatever may have been the misery and wretchedness of their former condition, were on our side in the great struggle which has closed, and whose rights we can not disregard or neglect without violating the most sacred obligations of duty and of honor. To us they look for protection against the wrongs with which they are threatened. To us alone can they appeal in their helplessness for succor and defense. To us they hold out to-day their supplicating hands, asking for protection for themselves and their posterity. We can not disregard this appeal, and stand acquitted before the country and the world of basely abandoning to a miserable fate those who have a right to demand the protection of your flag and the immunities guaranteed to every freeman by your Constitution." Mr. Eldridge, of Wisconsin, opposed the bill, in a speech of which the following are the concluding remarks: