“The judicial decisions of the country are to the same effect.… Such being the construction of the Constitution in regard to free persons of color, it is conceived that they cannot be regarded, when beyond the jurisdiction of this Government, as entitled to the full rights of citizens; but the Secretary directs me to say, that, though the Department could not certify that such persons are citizens of the United States, yet, if satisfied of the truth of the facts, it would give a certificate that they were born in the United States, are free, and that the Government thereof would regard it to be its duty to protect them, if wronged by a foreign government while within its jurisdiction for a legal and proper purpose.”[146]
Amidst the general anxieties of the time this important question was presented for revision. A colored youth of Boston, son of Robert Morris, Esq., a practitioner in the courts of Massachusetts, unable to obtain a college education at home, proposed to seek it in France, where there was no exclusion on account of color, and Mr. Sumner, in a written communication to the Secretary of State, requested a passport for him, at the same time inclosing the description of his person duly authenticated, in which his complexion was said to be “colored” and his hair “short and curly.” There being some delay, Mr. Sumner called at the Department to urge personally his formal application. Mr. Seward did not like to issue a passport on the description furnished, but at the same time would furnish a passport to Mr. Sumner for anybody whom he certified to be a citizen, without description. The authenticated description was then returned, and Mr. Sumner, at Mr. Seward’s own desk, and on the ordinary despatch paper of the Department, wrote at once the following.
SIR,--Please send me a passport for Robert Morris, Jr., of Boston, a citizen of the United States.
The passport was duly issued, bearing date June 29, 1861, and Mr. Sumner’s note was filed in the Passport Bureau, being the only paper in the case.
The opinion of the Attorney-General, affirming the citizenship of colored freemen, November 29, 1862,[147] settled this question definitively.
PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE, ON THE CRITTENDEN RESOLUTION DECLARING THE OBJECT OF THE WAR, JULY 24 AND 25, 1861.