13. Congress can not shirk this responsibility by leaving citizens of the United States to the care and keeping of the several States. The recent decision of the Supreme Court cuts, as with a sword, the tie that binds the citizen to the nation. Under the old Constitution, it was not certainly known who were citizens of the United States. There were citizens of the States, and such citizens looked to their several States for protection. The Federal Government had no citizens. Patriotism did not rest on mutual obligation. Under the 14th Amendment, we are all citizens of a common country; and our first duty, our first obligation, our highest allegiance, is not to the State in which we reside, but to the Federal Government. The 14th Amendment tends to destroy State prejudices and lays a foundation for national patriotism. 14. All statutes--all amendments to the Constitution--in derogation of natural rights, should be strictly construed. 15. All statutes and amendments for the preservation of natural rights should be liberally construed. Every court should, by strict construction, narrow the scope of every law that infringes upon any natural human right; and every court should, by construction, give the broadest meaning to every statute or constitutional provision passed or adopted for the preservation of freedom. 16. In construing the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, the Supreme Court need not go back to decisions rendered in the days of slavery--when every statute was construed in favor of the sovereignty of the State and the rights of the master. These amendments utterly obliterated such decisions. The Supreme Court should begin with the amendments. It need not look behind them. They are a part of the fundamental organic law of the nation. They were adopted to destroy the old statutes, to obliterate the infamous clauses in the Constitution, and to lay a new foundation for a new nation. 17. Congress has the power to eradicate all forms and incidents of slavery and involuntary servitude, by direct and primary legislation binding upon States and individuals alike. And when citizens are denied the exercise of common rights and privileges--when they are refused admittance to public inns and railway cars, on an equality with white persons--and when such denial and refusal are based upon race and color, such citizens are in a condition of involuntary servitude.