The key issue was how to ensure that state governments would respect equality of rights. Congress, as James Wilson declared during debates on the Civil Rights Bill, was not “making a general criminal code for the states.” If state authorities actually protected the rights of all then civil rights “could be left to the states.” But if necessary, “we must do our duty by supplying the protection which the states deny.” Republicans did not dismantle the federal system, but they did try to ensure that within that system, states would act responsibly.
