when they please, to make contracts and enforce contracts, I give notice that, if no one else does, I shall introduce a bill and urge its passage through Congress that will secure to those men every one of these rights: they would not be freemen without them. It is idle to say that a man is free who cannot go and come at pleasure, who cannot buy and sell, who cannot enforce his rights. These are rights which the first clause of the constitutional amendment meant to secure to all; and to prevent the very cavil which the Senator from Delaware suggests to-day, that Congress would not have power to secure them, the second section of the amendment was added. There were some persons who thought it was unnecessary to add the second clause. It was said by some that wherever a power was conferred upon Congress there was also conferred authority to pass the necessary laws to carry that power into effect, under the general clause in the Constitution of the United States which declares that Congress shall have authority to pass all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution any of the powers conferred by the Constitution. I think Congress would have had the power, even without the second clause, to pass all laws necessary to give effect to the provision making all persons free; but it was intended to put it beyond cavil and dispute, and that was the object of the second clause, and I cannot conceive how any other construction can be put upon it. Now, sir, I trust that this bill may be referred, because I think that a bill of this character should not pass without deliberate consideration and without going to some of the committees of the Senate. But the object which is had in view by this bill I heartily sympathize with, and when the constitutional amendment is adopted I trust we may pass a bill, if the action of the people in the Southern States should make it necessary, that will be much more sweeping and efficient than the bill under consideration. I will not sit down, however, without expressing the hope that no such legislation may be necessary. I trust that the people of the South, who in their state constitutions have declared that slavery shall no more exist among them, will by their own legislation make that provision effective. I trust there may be a feeling among them in harmony with the feeling throughout the country, and which shall not only abolish slavery in name, but in fact, and that the legislation of the slave states in after years may be as effective to elevate, enlighten, and improve the African as it has been in past years to enslave and degrade him.[80]