After quoting the opinions of Chief Justices Story and Marshall to show that the right of Congress to establish federal courts could not be denied without defeating the Constitution itself, Mr. Robinson continued:  “I say, then, that those constitutional provisions give to the citizens of the different States their rights in the federal courts.  I say again, it is not within the constitutional power of Congress to make discriminations as to citizens in this matter.  It has been taken as settled that the corporations of the States for purposes of jurisdiction are citizens of the States in which they are created.  Can you discriminate?  Why, in the famous Dred Scott decision, the Supreme Court did discriminate, and said that a negro was not a citizen within the meaning of the Constitution, nor entitled to sue in the Circuit Court of the United States.  The nation paused and held its breath, and never recovered itself until after the bloody strife of the war, when was put into the Constitution that guaranty that no such doctrine should ever be repeated in this country.  If Congress can exclude the citizens of a locality, or the citizens of one color, or the citizens of one occupation, or the citizens of certain classes of wealth or industry, surely it can exclude any other citizens.  If you can, in this bill and under our Constitution, declare that the citizens, or any portion of them, in this country, because they act in their corporate capacity, shall lose their rights in the federal courts, it is but the next step to legislate that the man who is engaged in rolling iron, or in the manufacture of cotton, or of woolen goods, or is banker, or ’bloated bond-holder,’ shall not have any rights in the federal courts.  There is no step between them.  There may be a discrimination as to subject-matter, but not as to citizens.  The distinction is very broad, and in recognition of it my argument is made.”  In the discussion of the apportionment at the Forty-sixth Congress, third session, Mr. Robinson eloquently defended the honor of Massachusetts against the aspersions which had been cast upon the Commonwealth by General Butler in his brief as attorney in the Boynton-Loring contest.  In the course of the debate Mr. Cox called attention to this brief and suggested that if it were true the representation of Massachusetts should be curtailed.  Mr. Robinson entered into an explanation of the reading and writing qualification for suffrage in Massachusetts.  As General Butler was the assailant in this case, Mr. Robinson said: 

“I propose to show this matter was understood before 1874.  Turn to the debates in the Congressional Globe, volume 75, and in 1869 in this House, and within these walls.  General Benjamin F. Butler made this speech in reply to an inquiry made by the gentleman from New York, the Chairman of this Census Committee.  He says: