The President had urged an objection that if Congress could confer civil rights upon persons without regard to color or race, it might also confer upon them political rights, and among them that of suffrage. In reply to this, Mr. Trumbull referred to the policy of the President himself in undertaking to "reoerganize State governments in the disloyal States." He "claimed and exercised the power to protect colored persons in their civil rights," and yet, when "urged to allow loyal blacks to vote," he held that "he had no power; it was unconstitutional." "But, sir," continued Mr. Trumbull, "the granting of civil rights does not and never did, in this country, carry with it rights, or, more properly speaking, political privileges. A man may be a citizen in this country without a right to vote or without a right to hold office. The right to vote and hold office in the States depends upon the legislation of the various States; the right to hold certain offices under the Federal Government depends upon the Constitution of the United States. The President must be a natural-born citizen, and a Senator or Representative must be a citizen of the United States for a certain number of years before he is eligible to a seat either in this or the other House of Congress; so that the fact of being a citizen does not necessarily qualify a person for an office, nor does it necessarily authorize him to vote. Women are citizens; children are citizens; but they do not exercise the elective franchise by virtue of their citizenship. Foreigners, as is stated by the President in this message, before they are naturalized are protected in the rights enumerated in this bill, but because they possess those rights in most, if not all, the States, that carries with it no right to vote. "But, sir, what rights do citizens of the United States have? To be a citizen of the United States carries with it some rights, and what are they? They are those inherent, fundamental rights which belong to free citizens or free men in all countries, such as the rights enumerated in this bill, and they belong to them in all the States of the Union. The right of American citizenship means something. It does not mean, in the case of a foreigner, that when he is naturalized he is to be left entirely to the mercy of State legislation. He has a right, when duly naturalized, to go into any State of the Union, and to reside there, and the United States Government will protect him in that right. It will protect a citizen of the United States, not only in one of the States of the Union, but it will protect him in foreign lands. "Every person residing in the United States is entitled to the protection of that law by the Federal Government, because the Federal Government has jurisdiction of such questions. American citizenship would be little worth if it did not carry protection with it.