No act of Congress can make a valid enactment prohibiting Massachusetts from depriving of the right to sue. a person whom she otherwisa would have the right to deprive of the right to sue. That is beyond the constitutional power of Congress. and as far as the bill goes if it intends any such thing as that. it is beyond our capacity to make the enactment. The one thing -we can do under our power of naturalization is to enact that these persons shall have the rights of citizens. If the bill means that. there is no harm in passing my amendment. if the bill does not mean that. it is essential to justice. it is essential to the protection of the rights you confer. it is essential to any success in the policy which you now seek to inagurate. that the landowner. the Indian landowner. among white neighbors shall not depend for the protection of his little homestead. the value of which in the next twentyfive years is for the first time to be taught him. upon anything but an equal right to sue and to be sued. to present himself as plaintiff. as complainant. in the criminal and the civil courts and to have his complaint heard by the honesty and humanity and sense of duty of a jury of the neighborhood. And I do not think we have enough experience of the value of the discretion of the Secretary of the Interior as a protection to the Indians against wrong and barbarism at other hands than their own to desire. if we are going to undertake this policy. to leave the protection of the Indians there and there only.
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naturalization