While largely invoking gender and marriage to make his points about states' rights, his arguments helped create a legal distinction between sex and race in federal law. In the senate, while trying to elucidate the meaning of the Thirteen Amendment, he stated, "What was the involuntary servitude mentioned there... Was it the right the husband had to the service of his wife? Nobody can pretend that those things were within the purview of that Amendment; nobody believes it." Thus, "involuntary servitude" was only to be in reference to men in the service of other men, not women in legal service to their husbands. In response to arguments by the likes of Senator Cowan, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was written to only apply to "race" and "color," but did not include gender.