This was agreed to by the committee, but before it was reported to the House, Stevens presented a series of amendments consisting of five sections which had been prepared by Robert Dale Owen, a distinguished publicist, who was not a member of the Congress. This series had met Stevens's approval, and after some delay and some changes it was adopted by the committee. Bingham then withdrew his own proposed amendment and offered the following in place of it, which was adopted as section one: No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The difference between this provision and the first one proposed by Bingham was the whole difference between giving Congress power to pass laws for the administration of justice in the states and merely prohibiting the states from making discriminations between citizens. There was no definition of citizenship in the amendment as reported by the joint committee. Apparently they relied upon the Civil Rights Act, which had been passed over the President's veto, to supply that definition, but shortly before the final vote was taken in the Senate, Howard, who had charge of the measure in the temporary illness of Fessenden, proposed the following words to be placed at the beginning of the first section. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. The reason for adopting this clause was to validate the corresponding part of the Civil Rights Act and put it beyond repeal, in the event that the Republicans should at some future time lose control of Congress.