competent for the Congress of the United States to-day to declare that no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble together and petition for redress of grievances for these are of the rights of citizens of the United States defined in the Constitution and guarantied by the fourteenth amendment, and to enforce which Congress is thereby expressly empowered. . . ." Cong. Globe, 42d Cong., 1st Sess. (1871) App. 81, 83-85.
And the day after Mr. Garfield's address, Mr. Dawes, also a member of the 39th Congress, stated his understanding of the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment:
"Sir, in the progress of constitutional liberty, when, in addition to thoseprivileges and immunities [secured by the original Constitution . . . . there were added from time to time, by amendments, others, and these were augmented, amplified, and secured and fortified in the buttresses of the Constitution itself, he hardly comprehended the full scope and measure of the phrase which appears in this bill. Let me read, one by one, these *119 amendments, and ask the House to tell me when and where and by what chosen phrase has man been able to bring before the Congress of the country a broader sweep of legislation than my friend has in the bill here. In addition to the original rights secured to him in the first article of amendments he had secured the free exercise of his religious belief,