If the citizen must depend upon the State, then he owes the first allegiance to that government or power that is under obligation to protect him. Then, if a State secedes from the Union, the citizen should go with the State--should go with the power that protects.
That is not my doctrine. My doctrine is this: The first duty of the General Government is to protect each citizen. The first duty of each citizen is to be true--not to his State, but to the Republic.
This clause of the 14th Amendment made us all citizens of the United States--all children of the Republic. Under this decision, the Republic refuses to acknowledge her children. Under this decision of the Supreme Court, they are left upon the doorsteps of the States. Citizens are changed to foundlings.
If the 14th Amendment created citizens of the United States, the power that created must define the rights of the citizens thus created, and must provide a remedy where such rights are infringed. The Federal Government speaks through its representatives--through Congress; and Congress, by the Civil Rights Act, defined some of the rights, privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States--and Congress provided a remedy when such rights and privileges were invaded, and gave jurisdiction to the Federal courts.
No State, or the department of any State, can authoritatively define the rights, privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States. These rights and immunities must be defined by the United States, and when so defined, they cannot be abridged by State authority.
In the case of Bartemeyer vs. Iowa, 18 Wall., p. 140, Justice Field, in a concurring opinion, speaking of the 14th Amendment, says:
"It grew out of the feeling that a nation which had been maintained by such costly sacrifices was, after all, worthless, if a citizen could not be protected in all his fundamental rights, everywhere--North and South, East and West--throughout the limits of the Republic. The amendment was not, as held in the opinion of the majority, primarily intended to confer citizenship on the negro race. It had a much broader purpose. It was intended to justify legislation extending the protection of the National Government over the common rights of all citizens of the United States, and thus obviate objection to the legislation adopted for the protection of the emancipated race. It was intended to make it possible for all persons--which necessarily included those of every race and color--to live in peace and security wherever the jurisdiction of the nation reached. It therefore recognized, if it did not create, a national citizenship. This national citizenship is primary and not secondary.".