In all our history, in all our experience as a people living under Federal and State law, no such system as that contemplated by the details of this bill has ever before been proposed or adopted.  They establish for the security of the colored race safeguards which go infinitely beyond any that the General Government has ever provided for the white race.  In fact, the distinction of race and color is by the bill made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race.  They interfere with the municipal legislation of the States, with the relations existing exclusively between a State and its citizens, or between inhabitants of the same State—­an absorption and assumption of power by the General Government which, if acquiesced in, must sap and destroy our federative system of limited powers and break down the barriers which preserve the rights of the States.  It is another step, or rather stride, toward centralization and the concentration of all legislative powers in the National Government.  The tendency of the bill must be to resuscitate the spirit of rebellion and to arrest the progress of those influences which are more closely drawing around the States the bonds of union and peace.

My lamented predecessor, in his proclamation of the 1st of January, 1863, ordered and declared that all persons held as slaves within certain States and parts of States therein designated were and thenceforward should be free; and further, that the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, would recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons.  This guaranty has been rendered especially obligatory and sacred by the amendment of the Constitution abolishing slavery throughout the United States.  I therefore fully recognize the obligation to protect and defend that class of our people whenever and wherever it shall become necessary, and to the full extent compatible with the Constitution of the United States.

Entertaining these sentiments, it only remains for me to say that I will cheerfully cooperate with Congress in any measure that may be necessary for the protection of the civil rights of the freedmen, as well as those of all other classes of persons throughout the United States, by judicial process, under equal and impartial laws, in conformity with the provisions of the Federal Constitution.

I now return the bill to the Senate, and regret that in considering the bills and joint resolutions—­forty-two in number—­which have been thus far submitted for my approval I am compelled to withhold my assent from a second measure that has received the sanction of both Houses of Congress.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 15, 1866.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I return to the Senate, in which House it originated, the bill, which has passed both Houses of Congress, entitled “An act for the admission of the State of Colorado into the Union,” with my objections to its becoming a law at this time.