"Now, after the raging fires of war have swept from the domain of every State in the South the pernicious institution of slavery; after the result has been that every slave has received his freedom; after the slaves have gained more by the success of this war than any other class of people in the United States, white men, men who are the representatives of the white race, come here proposing to compel the States, on pain of being deprived of a portion of their representation, to allow all the negroes within their limits to vote, without regard to qualification or any thing else, while under the same provision the State may, by its organic law, impose qualifications and conditions upon the exercise of the right of suffrage by the white population. The proposed amendment to the Constitution undertakes to consolidate the power in the Federal Government. It throws out a menace to the States, and the inevitable result of the passage would be to induce every State in the Union to adopt unqualified negro suffrage, so as not to deprive them of the great and inestimable right of representation for that class of population in the halls of the legislation of the United States."
Mr. Conkling, also a member of the Reconstruction Committee, made an argument in favor, of the proposed amendment: "Emancipation vitalizes only natural rights, not political rights. Enfranchisement alone carries with it political rights, and these emancipated millions are no more enfranchised now than when they were slaves. They never had political power. Their masters had a fraction of power as masters. But there are no masters now. There are no slaves now. The whole relationship in which the power originated and existed is gone. Does this fraction of power still survive? If it does, what shall become of it? Where is it to go?
"We are told the blacks are unfit to wield even a fraction of power, and must not have it. That answers the whole question. If the answer be true, it is the end of controversy. There is no place, logically, for this power to go, save to the blacks; if they are unfit to have it, the power would not exist. It is a power astray, without a rightful owner. It should be resumed by the whole nation at once. It should not exist; it does not exist. This fractional power is extinct.
"A moral earthquake has turned fractions into units, and units into ciphers. If a black man counts at all now, he counts five-fifths of a man, not three-fifths. Revolutions have no such fractions in their arithmetic; war and humanity join hands to blot them out. Four millions, therefore, and not three-fifths of four millions, are to be reckoned in here now, and all these four millions are, and are to be, we are told, unfit for political existence.
"Did the framers of the Constitution ever dream of this? Never, very clearly. Our fathers trusted to gradual and voluntary emancipation, which would go hand in hand with education and enfranchisement. They never peered into the bloody epoch when four million fetters would be at once melted off in the fires of war. They never saw such a vision as we see. Four millions, each a Caspar Hauser, long shut up in darkness, and suddenly led out into the full flash of noon, and each, we are told, too blind to walk, politically. No one foresaw such an event, and so no provision was made for it. The three-fifths rule gave the slaveholding States, over and above all their just representation, eighteen Representatives beside, by the enumeration of 1860.
"The new situation will enable those States, when relationships are resumed, to claim twenty-eight Representatives beside their just proportion. Twenty-eight votes to be cast here and in the Electoral College for those held not fit to sit as jurors, not fit to testify in court, not fit to be plaintiff in a suit, not fit to approach the ballot-box! Twenty-eight votes to be more or less controlled by those who once betrayed the Government, and for those so destitute, we are assured, of intelligent instinct as not to be fit for free agency!
"Shall all this be? Shall four million beings count four millions, in managing the affairs of the nation, who are pronounced by their fellow-beings unfit to participate in administering government in the States where they live, or in their counties, towns, or precincts; who are pronounced unworthy of the least and most paltry part in local political affairs? Shall one hundred and twenty-seven thousand white people in New York cast but one vote in this House, and have none but one voice here, while the same number of white people in Mississippi have three votes and three voices? Shall the death of slavery add two-fifths to the entire power which slavery had when slavery was living? Shall one white man have as much share in the Government as three other white men merely because he lives where blacks outnumber whites two to one? Shall this inequality exist, and exist only in favor of those who without cause drenched the land with blood and covered it with mourning? Shall such be the reward of those who did the foulest and guiltiest act which crimsons the annals of recorded time? No, sir; not if I can help it."
Two other modes of meeting the case had been considered by the committee, namely: First, To make the basis of representation in Congress and the Electoral College consist of sufficiently qualified voters alone; Second, To deprive the States of the power to disqualify or discriminate politically on account of race or color.
After presenting some reasons why the committee saw proper to recommend neither of these plans, Mr. Conkling further argued in favor of the proposed amendment: "It contains but one condition, and that rests upon a principle already imbedded in the Constitution, and as old as free government itself. That principle I affirmed in the beginning; namely, that representation does not belong to those who have not political existence, but to those who have. The object of the amendment is to enforce this truth. It therefore provides that whenever any State finds within its borders a race of beings unfit for political existence, that race shall not be represented in the Federal Government. Every State will be left free to extend or withhold the elective franchise on such terms as it pleases, and this without losing any thing in representation if the terms are impartial as to all. Qualifications of voters may be required of any kind—qualifications of intelligence, of property, or of any sort whatever, and yet no loss of representation shall thereby be suffered. But whenever in any State, and so long as a race can be found which is so low, so bad, so ignorant, so stupid, that it is deemed necessary to exclude men from the right to vote merely because they belong to that race, in that case the race shall likewise be excluded from the sum of Federal power to which the State is entitled. If a race is so vile or worthless that to belong to it is alone cause of exclusion from political action, the race is not to be counted here in Congress."
Mr. Conkling maintained that the pending proposition commended itself for many reasons. "First. It provides for representation coëxtensive with taxation. I say it provides for this; it does not certainly secure it, but it enables every State to secure it. It does not, therefore, as the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Rogers] insists, violate the rule that representation should go with taxation. If a race in any State is kept unfit to vote, and fit only to drudge, the wealth created by its work ought to be taxed. Those who profit by such a system, or such a condition of things, ought to be taxed for it. Let them build churches and school-houses, and found newspapers, as New York and other States have done, and educate their people till they are fit to vote. 'Fair play,' 'A fair day's wages for a fair day's work,' 'Live and let live'—these mottoes, if blazoned over the institutions of a State, will insure it against being cursed for any length of time with inhabitants so worthless that they are fit only for beasts of burden. I have said that the amendment provides for representation going hand in hand with taxation. That is its first feature.
"Second. It brings into the basis both sexes and all ages, and so it counteracts and avoids, as far as possible, the casual and geographical inequalities of population.
"Third. It puts every State on an equal footing in the requirement prescribed.
"Fourth. It leaves every State unfettered to enumerate all its people for representation or not, just as it pleases.
"Thus every State has the sole control, free from all interference, of its own interests and concerns. No other State, nor the General Government, can molest the people of any State on the subject, or even inquire into their acts or their reasons, but all the States have equal rights. If New York chooses to count her black population as political persons, she can do so. If she does not choose to do so, the matter is her own, and her rights can not be challenged. So of South Carolina. But South Carolina shall not say, 'True, we have less than three hundred thousand "persons" in this State, politically speaking, yet we will have, in governing the country, the power of seven hundred thousand persons.'
"The amendment is common to all States and equal for all; its operation will, of course, be practically only in the South. No Northern State will lose by it, whether the Southern States extend suffrage to blacks or not. Even New York, in her great population, has so few blacks that she could exclude them all from enumeration and it would make no difference in her representation. If the amendment is adopted, and suffrage remains confined as it is now, taking the census of 1860 as the foundation of the calculation, and the number of Representatives as it then stood, the gains and losses would be these: Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Maine would gain one Representative each, and New York would gain three; Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee would each lose one; Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia would each lose two, and Mississippi would lose three."
On the following day, January 23d, the proposed joint resolution came up in the regular order of business.
Mr. Jenckes, of Rhode Island, feared that a construction might be put upon the bill which would be fatal to its efficiency for the purposes had in view by its friends. He said: "It says nothing about the qualification of property. Suppose this amendment is adopted by three-fourths of the States, and becomes a part of the fundamental law of the land, and after its adoption the State of South Carolina should reinstate the constitution of 1790, striking out the word 'white' and reëstablishing the property qualification of fifty acres of land, or town lots, or the payment of a tax, there would then be no discrimination of color in the State of South Carolina, yet the number of electors would not be enlarged five hundred, and the basis of representation would be exactly as it is, with the addition of two-fifths of the enfranchised freedmen. A Representative to this House would be reëlected by the same voting constituency as now, perhaps with the addition of five hundred black men in the State. If it bears this construction, and I believe it does, I shall vote against it.
"If any of the States should establish property qualification based upon lands, then the same oligarchy would be enthroned on the whole basis of representation, entitled to a larger number of Representatives than now in this House, and elected by a slightly enlarged number of qualified electors, giving power more firmly to that very aristocracy we have sought to overthrow."
A number of queries were propounded, several amendments proposed, and a considerable desire for discussion expressed, until Mr. Stevens, much disappointed at the reception the measure met in the House, withdrew the demand for the previous question, and left the subject open for unlimited debate.
Mr. Blaine, of Maine, addressed the House, detailing some objections to the measure. He said: "While I shall vote for the proposition, I shall do so with some reluctance unless it is amended, and I do not regret, therefore, that the previous question was not sustained. I am egotistic enough to believe that the phraseology of the original resolution, as introduced by me, was better than that employed in the pending amendment. The phrase 'civil or political rights or privileges,' which I employed, is broader and more comprehensive than the term 'elective franchise,' for I fear, with the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. Farnsworth,] that under the latter phrase the most vicious evasions might be practiced. As that gentleman has well said, they might make suffrage depend on ownership of fifty acres of land, and then prohibit any negro holding real estate; but no such mockery as this could be perpetrated under the provisions of the amendment as I originally submitted it."
In relation to taxation, Mr. Blaine remarked: "Now, I contend that ordinary fair play—and certainly we can afford fair play where it does not cost any thing—calls for this, namely, that if we exclude them from the basis of representation they should be excluded from the basis of taxation. Ever since this Government was founded, taxation and representation have always gone hand in hand. If we shall exclude the principle in this amendment, we will be accused of a narrow, illiberal, mean-spirited, and money-grasping policy. More than that, we do not gain any thing by it. What kind of taxation, is distributed according to representation? Direct taxation. Now, we do not have any direct taxation. There has been but twenty millions of direct taxation levied for the last fifty years. That tax was levied in 1861, and was not collected, but distributed among the States and held in the Treasury Department as an offset to the war claims of the States; so that, as a matter of fact, we are putting an offensive discrimination in this proposition and gaining nothing by it except obloquy."
Mr. Donnelly, of Minnesota, said: "It follows, as a logical conclusion, that if men have no voice in the National Government, other men should not sit in this hall pretending to represent them. And it is equally clear that an oppressed race should not lend power to their oppressors, to be used in their name and for their destruction. It is a mockery to say that a man's agent shall be his enemy, and shall be appointed without his consent and against his desire, and by other enemies.
"In fact, I can not see how any Northern man can vote against this measure, unless he wishes to perpetuate an injustice to his section, because the effect of it will clearly be to increase the representation of the North and decrease that of the South; and this, too, upon a basis of undoubted justice. It means simply that those who do not take part in the Government shall not be represented in the Government."
Mr. Donnelly did not, however, regard the proposed amendment as "a grand panacea for all the ills that affect the nation." He would vote for the law, "not as a finality, but as a partial step as one of a series of necessary laws." Said he, "When we vote for this measure, it must be because we think it right and necessary, not that it may furnish us with an excuse for failing to do all other right and necessary things expected of us by the people. We must take direct, not sidelong measures. We must make laws, not arguments. We must enforce, not induce.
"To pass this law and then hope that South Carolina, moved by the hope of future power, would do justice to the negro, is absurd. She has 291,300 whites and 412,406 negroes. To pass such a law would be for the governing power to divest itself of the government and hand it over to a subject and despised caste, and that, too, for a faint hope of some future advantage that might never be realized under the most favorable circumstances, and certainly could never be realized by the aspiring class abdicating and relinquishing power. The same is true, more or less, of all the South. In Mississippi there are 353,901 whites, and 436,631 negroes; and in all the States the negro vote would be large enough to turn the scale against the disloyal party."
Mr. Sloan, of Wisconsin, thus presented the practical workings of the "Constitution as it is:" "Look at the practical operation of the question we are discussing to-day. In the State I represent there are eight hundred thousand free white people loyal to the Constitution, who have done their whole duty in sustaining their Government during this terrible war. The bones of our soldiers are moldering in the soil of every rebel State. They have stood around our flag in the deadly hail of every battle of the war. The State of Wisconsin has six Representatives on this floor. South Carolina has three hundred thousand white inhabitants, disloyal, who have done all in their power to overthrow and destroy the Government, and yet, sir, under the Constitution as it now stands, the three hundred thousand disloyal white inhabitants of South Carolina will exercise as much political power in the Government as the eight hundred thousand loyal people of the State of Wisconsin."
Mr. Sloan called attention to a proposition which he had submitted to the preceding Congress, providing that the right of representation should be based upon the right of suffrage—upon the numbers allowed the right to vote in the respective States.
In answer to a supposed objection to this plan, that "there might be some inequality in the representation of the respective States," he said: "We all know that the young men of the old States go out in large numbers to settle in the new States and Territories, while the women and children do not emigrate to so great an extent, and hence there would be a larger number of voters in the new States in proportion to population than in the old. And yet this is a consideration which, in my judgment, ought not to weigh a hair with any member on this floor. It would be only a temporary inequality. In the rapidly increasing settlement and in the natural increase of population of our new States, that inequality would very soon be entirely swept away. I believe the difference to-day between Massachusetts and Wisconsin would be very slight, if any, so rapid has been the increase of our population and the settlement of our State. We are now proposing to adopt an amendment to the Constitution which we expect to stand for all time, and any temporary inequality which could continue but for a few years ought not to have any weight."
Mr. Brooks, of New York, thought that Mr. Stevens would better "at the start have named what are States of this Union. The opinion of the honorable gentleman himself, that there are no States in this Union but those that are now represented upon this floor, I know full well; but he knows as well that the President of the United States recognizes thirty-six States of this Union, and that it is necessary to obtain the consent of three-fourths of those thirty-six States, which number it is not possible to obtain. He knows very well that if his amendment should be adopted by the Legislatures of States enough, in his judgment, to carry it, before it could pass the tribunal of the Executive chamber it would be obliged to receive the assent of twenty-seven States in order to become an amendment to the Constitution."
Mr. Brooks, in the course of his speech, presented a petition from certain ladies of New York, asking an amendment of the Constitution, prohibiting the several States from disfranchising any of their citizens on the ground of sex. He then proposed to amend the joint resolution by inserting the words "or sex" after the word "color," so that it would read, "Provided, That whenever the elective franchise shall be denied or abridged in any State on account of race or color or sex, all persons of such race or color or sex shall be excluded from the basis of representation."
"Is the gentleman in favor of that amendment?" asked Mr. Stevens.
"I am," replied Mr. Brooks, "if negroes are allowed to vote."
"That does not answer my question," said Mr. Stevens.
"I suggested that I would move it at a convenient time," said Mr.
Brooks.
"Is the gentleman in favor of his own amendment?" Mr. Stevens again asked.
"I am in favor of my own color in preference to any other color, and I prefer the white women of my country to the negro," was the response of Mr. Brooks, which was followed by applause in the galleries.
Mr. Orth, of Indiana, obtained the floor for the purpose of offering an amendment, which he prefaced with the following remarks: "My position is that the true principle of representation in Congress is that voters alone should form the basis, and that each voter should have equal political weight in our Government; that the voter in Massachusetts should have the same but no greater power than the voter in Indiana; and that the voter in Indiana should have the same power, but no greater, than the voter in the State of South Carolina. The gentleman from Maine, however, states that the census tables will show that by the amendment which I desire to offer at this time you will curtail the representative power of the State of Massachusetts. And why? Because he has shown by his figures that although Massachusetts has a male population of 529,244, her voting population is only 175,487, being a percentage of twenty-nine, while Indiana, with a white male population of 693,469, has a voting population of 280,655, being about forty per cent. Why is this difference? Is it because our voting population is so much greater in proportion than the voting population of Massachusetts? Not at all. The difference arises from the fact that the State of Massachusetts has seen fit to exclude a portion of her citizens from the ballot-box. Indiana has done the same thing. Indiana has excluded one class of citizens; Massachusetts has excluded another class. Indiana has seen fit, for reasons best known to herself, to exclude the colored population from the right of suffrage; Massachusetts, on the contrary, has seen fit to exclude from the ballot-box those of her citizens who can not read or write. While we in Indiana are governed by a prejudice of color, the people of Massachusetts, I might say, are governed by a prejudice as regards ignorance. But here is the difference: under the amendment that I propose, while Indiana excludes the black man from the right to participate in the decisions of the ballot-box, she does not ask that the black man shall be represented on this floor. On the contrary, while Massachusetts excludes black and white persons who can not read and write, she yet asks that that population excluded from the ballot shall have representation on this floor. I regard this as wrong in theory, wrong in principle, and injurious to the State which I have the honor to represent, giving to Massachusetts a power upon this floor of which my State is deprived. Why? Because the exclusion which drives from the ballot-box in Massachusetts a large portion of her citizens, yet admits them to representative power on this floor."
Mr. Orth's amendment proposed that Representatives should "be apportioned among the several States according to the number of male citizens over twenty-one years of age, having the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature." There being objection to the reception of this amendment under the rules of the House, it could not be considered.
Mr. Chanler, of New York, alluding to Mr. Stevens' desire to have the joint resolution passed on the day of its introduction, before the sun went down, said: "Sir, this measure, if passed, will tend to obscure the sun from which the liberties of this country derive their nourishment and life, the brilliant orb, the Constitution, whose light has spread itself to the farthest ends of the earth. The vital principle of that Constitution, the soul of its being, is that balance of power between the States which insures individual liberty to every citizen of each State, and harmony among all the States of the Union.
"I affirm, sir, that the discussion of this subject in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was conducted in a spirit worthy of a great people, and resulted in the noble instrument under whose authority we now live. That era furnishes us a sad comparison with the present epoch, when it may well be said that our Rome has 'lost the breed of noble bloods,' and when, so far as the agitation of these fanatical and partisan questions is concerned, reason seems to have 'fled to brutish beasts.' How differently and with what wise moderation did the framers of the Constitution act! No narrow and fanatical partisanship marks their opinions or their acts."
After reading an extract from Curtis' History of the Constitution, Mr. Chanler, contrasting former legislation with the present on the subject of suffrage, said: "From the above historical statement, it will be found that the framers of the Constitution considered the question of suffrage of so vital importance in fixing the balance of power between the States, that it was, after full discussion in Congress by the whole body, referred to a select committee of one from each State, again reported and fully discussed, and then referred to a committee of five, whose thorough examination of the subject gave rise to new difficulties, and caused the matter to be referred to another committee of one member from each State. All differences were compromised in a spirit of patriotism and justice. How different is all this from the hasty partisan legislation on this very suffrage question by the present Congress!
"A caucus met before Congress organized, and chalked out a line of policy and action for the Republican party on the floor of Congress. The whole matter of reconstruction was referred to a grinding committee, whose dictation should govern Congress in every measure brought before it for consideration. Is this wise, just, or reasonable? I hold that this resolution is too narrow to be of use and too weak to last. It will totter to an untimely grave, and hobble, a feeble and contemptible instrument, from this Congress to every State Legislature to which it may be submitted, to be rejected for its feebleness in a time like this, amid the overwhelming issues which agitate this country."
Mr. Farnsworth, of Illinois, remarked: "It is necessary, it seems to me, that whatever constitutional provision we may make should be made clear, manifest, certain. If possible, we should make it enforce itself, so that by no cunningly-devised scheme or shift can they nullify it. It seems to me that the resolution reported by the joint Committee on Reconstruction is not so clear as it ought to be; I am afraid that it will be worthless. A State may enact that a man shall not exercise the elective franchise except he can read and write, making that law apply equally to the whites and blacks, and then may also enact that a black man shall not learn to read and write, exclude him from their schools, and make it a penal offense to instruct or to teach him, and thus prevent his qualifying to exercise the elective franchise according to the State law. And they may do in regard to the elective franchise just what they are doing now in regard to slavery. They may provide that no man shall exercise the elective franchise who has been guilty of a crime, and then they may denounce these men as guilty of a crime for every little, imaginary, petty offense. They may declare that no man shall exercise the right of voting who has not a regular business or occupation by which he may obtain a livelihood, and then they may declare that the black man has no settled occupation and no business. It seems to me, therefore, necessary that we should, by some provision in this amendment, settle this beyond a peradventure, so that none of these shifts or devices may defeat the purpose of the enactment."
Mr. Farnsworth was in favor of more radical remedies: "I protest here that I will not accept any such constitutional amendment as this as a substitute for that full measure of justice which it is our duty to mete out. I will not promise that hereafter I will not propose, and vote for, and advocate with whatever power I possess, a measure which will give to all the people of the States that which is their due. By no vote of mine shall there be incorporated in the Constitution a provision which shall, even by implication, declare that a State may disfranchise any portion of its citizens on account of race or color. We have no right to give our countenance to any such injustice. All provisions in reference to representation which are based upon any other principle than that of the people of this country, who are the subjects of government, have the right to vote and to be represented, are false in principle. Such a measure may, perhaps, answer for a temporary expedient, but it will not do as a fundamental rule to be embodied in the Constitution for the people of this country to live by. I deny that a State has the right to disfranchise a majority or even a minority of its citizens because of class or race. And I say that that provision of the Constitution which makes it the duty of the General Government to 'guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government' ought to be taken into consideration by this Congress and enforced. Does a State that denies the elective franchise to one-half of its citizens possess a republican form of government? Where a large portion of the citizens of a State—the men who are required to pay taxes and perform military duty, to contribute their money and their strength in support of the Government—are denied the elective franchise, is that a republican form of government? I say that it is a libel upon republicanism; it is not a republican form of government; it is neither republican in form nor in substance."
Mr. Baker, of Illinois, although anxious to have an amendment of the Constitution "achieving the general purpose of supplying a more just basis of representation," saw points of objection to the proposition before the House, some of which had been raised by previous speakers. He said: "I am reluctant to indorse an amendment to the Constitution framed in this day of growing liberty, framed by the party of progress, intended to make representative power in this Government correspond with the quantum of political justice on which it is based, and yet which leaves any State in the Union perfectly free to narrow her suffrage to any extent she pleases, imposing proprietary and other disqualifying tests, and still strengthening her aristocratic power in the Government by the full count of her disfranchised people, provided only she steers clear of a test based on race or color."
Mr. Jenckes was desirous of having a more just and comprehensive enactment than the one proposed: "In my judgment," said he, "justice requires that the qualification of electors for members of this House and for electors of President and Vice-President of the United States—in other words, for the two popular branches of this great Government—should be defined in the fundamental law. Upon this point let me quote the words of Madison, written in his mature years to a distinguished son of the republic seeking advice from him. He says: 'The right of suffrage, the rule of apportioning representation, and the mode of appointing to and removing from office, are fundamentals in a free government, and ought to be fixed by the Constitution.'
"Certainly, sir, it is less difficult, in a Congress composed of less than three hundred men, to agree to a proposition which will meet the views of the whole country on this question of suffrage than to adopt a proposition which, when submitted to and adopted by the requisite number of States, must be carried into effect by as many Legislatures as there are States, and in a different manner by each, and which, in being carried into effect, must be acted upon by as many thousands of men in State conventions and Legislatures as there are hundreds in this Congress.
"There is no equality, and there can be no equality, in the proposed amendment. It seems to me, therefore, if we undertake to amend the fundamental law at all in this respect, we ought to agree upon what should be the qualification of voters for members of this House, embodying them in the proposed amendments to submit to the Legislatures of the States. Then there would be a definite proposition; and that, I believe, if it emanated from this House, would have substantial equality and justice—would have the elements of equality and uniformity, and be enforced without difficulty in every State of the Union."
Referring to a mode which might be adopted for evading the legitimate results of the proposed amendment, Mr. Jenckes remarked: "I was alluding to another one. Some of the Southern States, up to the breaking out of the war, had constitutions which prescribed a property qualification. Suppose this amendment were adopted, and the State of South Carolina chose to annul the Constitution recently proclaimed and to go back to that of 1790, and that the word 'white' should be stricken out of it, I desire to ask how many freedmen, how many persons of African descent, can be found who own in fee fifty acres of land or a town lot, or who have paid a tax of three shillings sterling. As far as I can ascertain from the statistics, there would not be, if that constitution were restored and the word 'white' omitted, over five hundred additional qualified voters in that State.
"Ever since the adoption of the Constitution of 1790 down to the time of firing on Fort Sumter, South Carolina was in practical relation to this Government as a State of this Union. She had been considered as having a republican form of government, and that which we had guaranteed as such for many years we would be bound to guarantee to her hereafter. Stronger than ever this oligarchy would be enthroned upon their old seat of power, not upheld merely by slaves beneath it, but by the power of the General Government above and around it. She might make any of the discriminations which I have suggested, of age, of residence, of previous servitude, and of ignorance or poverty."
Mr. Trimble, of Kentucky, was "exceedingly gratified at the disposition manifested among the party in opposition here, by reason of their own differences of opinion, to allow an opportunity to us to present our objections to the measure now under consideration. This subject of amending the Constitution under which we have lived so long, so happily, and so prosperously, is one of great moment; and while I have some confidence in the ability and capacity of some of the friends on the opposite side to make a constitution, yet I prefer the Constitution as made by our fathers eighty years ago.
"In my opinion, the amendment proposed is in violation of the reserved rights of the people of the States under that instrument. The object and purpose of this resolution is to enfranchise a million men in this country whom no political party in this country ever had the boldness to propose the enfranchisement of prior to the present session of Congress. I remember that, in 1860 and 1861, the party known in this country as the Union party took the ground, from one end of the country to the other, that neither Congress nor the people of the States had the power, under the Constitution of the United States, to interfere with slavery in the States where it existed; much less, sir, did they claim the power not only to destroy it, but to strike down the provisions of the Constitution that protected me and my constituents in our right to our property. Sir, there was an amendment submitted then for the purpose of peace, for the purpose of restoring peace and quiet throughout the country. It met, at the time, my hearty support, and I regret, from the bottom of my heart, that the people, North, South, East, and West, did not agree to that proposition, and make it part and parcel of the Constitution. I refer to the amendment proposed in 1861, declaring that Congress should never thereafter interfere with the question of slavery in the States.
"Sir, it is a well-established principle that no one should be permitted to take advantage of his own wrong. If the party in power have succeeded in freeing the slaves of the South, ought they not, at least, to allow the Southern States to enjoy the increased representation to which, according to the rule established by the Constitution, they are now entitled? Or, if the Northern States sincerely desire that the negroes of the South shall vote and shall be represented in Congress, let them transport those negroes to the North and take them under their guardianship; they are welcome to them.
"I believe that the people of Kentucky, whom I in part represent, and I have no doubt the people of the whole South, will submit in good faith to the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. While they may believe that the amendment is revolutionary and unjust, in violation of the rights of Kentucky and the South, still the Southern States, having in a way yielded up this question, for representation and peace, they will stand by the Constitution as amended."
Finally, Mr. Trimble presented the following argument against the measure: "This proposition is a direct attack upon the President of the United States; it is a direct attack upon the doctrines and principles taught by that distinguished man now holding the presidential chair. This amendment is in violation, in my judgment, of every principle that that man has held from his boyhood up to the present hour. Sir, the President of the United States does not believe that the Congress of the United States has the right, or that the people have the right, to strike down the inalienable right of the States to settle for themselves who shall be clothed with that high privilege—suffrage."
The subject being resumed on the following day, January 24th, Mr. Lawrence, of Ohio, addressed the House, premising his remarks by a motion that the resolution and amendments be recommitted to the Committee on Reconstruction, "with instructions to report an amendment to the Constitution which shall, first, apportion direct taxes among the States according to property in each; and which shall, second, apportion Representatives among the States on the basis of adult male voters who may be citizens of the United States."
He argued that "the rule which gave representation to three-fifths of the slave population was wrong in principle, and unjust in practical results. It was purely arbitrary, the result of compromise, and not of fixed political principles, or of any standard of abstract justice. If slavery was a just element of political strength, I know of no rule which could properly divide it into 'fractional quantities;' if it was not a just element of political strength, I know of no rule which could properly give it 'fractional power.'
"The basis of representation was unjust in practical results, because it gave to chattel slavery political power—a power accorded to no other species of property—thus making what the slave States regarded as wealth an element of political strength."
After having given a statistical table showing how representation was apportioned among the several States having free and slave population, Mr. Lawrence deduced the following facts: "New Hampshire, with a white population of 325,579, has but three Representatives, while Louisiana, with a white population of 357,629, had five. California, with a white population of 323,177, has but three Representatives, while Mississippi, with a similar population of 353,901, had five. In South Carolina 72,847 white persons had one Representative, while the ratio of representation is one for 127,000 persons.
"Under this mode of apportionment, the late slave States had eighteen Representatives, by the census of 1860, more than their just share, if based on free population. The whole political power of Ohio was counterbalanced by slave representation. It was equal to two-thirds of all the representation from New England. In South Carolina 14,569 votes carried as much political power as 25,400 in the free States."
Freedom having been given to the slaves, "the effect will be, so soon as lawful State Governments are created in the rebel States, to largely increase their representation in Congress and the Electoral College. The slave population, by the census of 1860, was 3,950,531. Three-fifths of this, or 2,370,318, has heretofore entered into the basis of representation. Now, the additional 1,580,213 is to be added to that basis. This will give ten additional Representatives to the late slave States—in all twenty-eight more than their just proportion upon a basis excluding the late slaves. If this injustice can be tolerated and perpetuated, and the late rebel States shall soon be admitted to representation, they will enjoy as the reward of their perfidy and treason an increased political power. This will reward traitors with a liberal premium for treason."
As to the proper time for amending the Constitution, Mr. Lawrence said: "But if ever there could be a time for making fundamental changes in our organic law, and ingrafting on it irreversible guarantees, that time is now. The events of the past four years demonstrate their necessity, and our security for the future imperatively demands them at our hands. The great events which have transpired, and the altered circumstances that surround us, admonish us that we will be recreant to our trusts if we fail to inscribe justice on the Constitution, and fortify it against the encroachments of treason, so that it shall be eternal. One of the elements of our past misfortunes, and which gave power for evil to the enemies who assailed us in this temple, was unequal and unjust representation—political power wielded by a dominant class, augmented by concessions on behalf of a disfranchised and servile race, insultingly declared almost in the very citadel of national justice as having no rights which a white man was bound to respect. By this amendment we strike down the iniquity of one class wielding political power for another, and arrogant because in the exercise of unjust power."
Maintaining that representation should be based upon suffrage, Mr. Lawrence said: "The reason which conclusively justifies it is, that a people declared by law, if in fact unprepared for suffrage, should not be represented as an element of power by those interested in forever keeping them unprepared. But children never can be qualified and competent depositaries of political power, and, therefore, should not enter into the basis of representation. It never has been deemed necessary for the protection of females that they should be regarded as an element of political power, and hence they should not be an element of representation. If the necessity shall come, or if our sense of justice should so change as to enfranchise adult females, it will be time enough then to make them a basis of representation."
Mr. Shellabarger, of Ohio, though having "fifteen times as much respect for the opinions of the Committee on Reconstruction" as for his own, yet suggested the following as objections to their report:
"1. It contemplates and provides for, and in that way, taken by itself, authorizes the States to wholly disfranchise entire races of its people, and that, too, whether that race be white or black, Saxon, Celtic, or Caucasian, and without regard to their numbers or proportion to the entire population of the State.
"2. It is a declaration made in the Constitution of the only great and free republic in the world, that it is permissible and right to deny to the races of men all their political rights, and that it is permissible to make them the hewers of wood and drawers of water, the mud-sills of society, provided only you do not ask to have these disfranchised races represented in that Government, provided you wholly ignore them in the State. The moral teaching of the clause offends the free and just spirit of the age, violates the foundation principles of our own Government, and is intrinsically wrong.
"3. The clause, by being inserted into the Constitution, and being made the companion of its other clauses, thereby construes and gives new meanings to those other clauses; and it thus lets down and spoils the free spirit and sense of the Constitution. Associated with that clause relating to the States being 'republican,' it makes it read thus: 'The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government;' provided, however, that a government shall be deemed to be republican when whole races of its people are wholly disfranchised, unrepresented, and ignored.
"4. The report of the committee imposes no adequate restraint upon this disfranchisement of races and creation of oligarchies in the States, because after a race is disfranchised in a State it gives to one vote cast in such State by the ruling race just the same power as a vote has in a State where no one is disfranchised.
"5. These words of the amendment, to-wit, 'denied or abridged on account of color,' admit of dangerous construction, and also of an evasion of the avowed intent of the committee. Thus, for example, the African race may, in fact, be disfranchised in the States, and yet enumerated as part of the basis of representation, by means of a provision disfranchising all who were slaves, or all whose ancestors were slaves.
"6. The pending proposition of the committee is a radical departure from the principles of representative republican government, in this, that it does not provide for nor secure the absolute political equality of the people, or, relatively, of the States. It does not secure to each vote throughout the Government absolute equality in its governing force. It, for example, permits twenty-five thousand votes in New York city to elect two members of Congress, provided one-half of its population should happen to be foreigners unnaturalized, and not electors of the State, whom the law deems unfit to vote; whereas, twenty-five thousand votes in Ohio would elect but one member of Congress, provided her citizens were all Americans instead of foreigners."
Mr. Eliot submitted an amendment to the effect that population should be the basis of representation, and that "the elective franchise shall not be denied or abridged in any State on account of race or color." He stated the following grounds of objection to the resolution offered by the committee: "First, the amendment as it is now reported from the committee is objectionable, to my mind, because it admits by implication that a State has the right to disfranchise large masses of its citizens. No man can show that in that Constitution which the fathers made, and under which we have lived, the right is recognized in any State to disfranchise large masses of its citizens because of race. And I do not want now, at this day, that the Congress of the United States, for the purpose of effecting a practical good, shall put into the Constitution of the land any language which would seem to recognize that right.
"The next objection I have to the amendment is this: that it enables a State, consistently with its provisions, by making the right to vote depend upon a property qualification, to exclude large classes of men of both races. A State may legislate in such a way as to be, in fact, an oligarchy, and not a republican State. South Carolina may legislate so as to provide that no man shall have the right to vote unless he possesses an annual income of $1,000, and holds real estate to the amount of five hundred acres. Every one sees that that would exclude multitudes of all classes of citizens, making the State no longer republican, but oligarchical. Yet gentlemen say that under the Constitution Congress is bound to see to it that each State shall have a republican form of government.
"The third objection I have to this amendment is, that it controls by implication that power; because, while the Constitution now says that Congress shall guarantee to every State a republican form of government, this amendment, as reported by the committee, admits by implication that, although a State may so legislate as to exclude these multitudes of men, not on account of race or color, but on account of property, yet, nevertheless, she would have a republican form of government, and that Congress will not and ought not to interfere."
Mr. Pike, of Maine, had, on the assembling of Congress after the holidays, offered a resolution, expressing the idea contained in the report of the committee, but on reflection had come to the conclusion that the resolution would not accomplish the purpose desired. He stated his reasons for changing his opinion. He thought that the provisions of the proposed amendment might be evaded. "Suppose," said he, "this constitutional amendment in full force, and a State should provide that the right of suffrage should not be exercised by any person who had been a slave, or who was the descendant of a slave, whatever his race or color. I submit that it is a serious matter of doubt whether or not that simple provision would not be sufficient to defeat this constitutional amendment which we here so laboriously enact and submit to the States."
Mr. Conkling thought that this criticism could have no practical importance, from the fact that the proposed amendment was to operate in this country, where one race, and only one, has been held in servitude.
Mr. Pike replied: "In no State in the South has slavery been confined to any one race. So far as I am acquainted with their statutes, in no State has slavery been confined to the African race. I know of no slave statute, and I have examined the matter with some care, which says that Africans alone shall be slaves. So much for race. As to color, it was a common thing throughout the whole South to advertise runaway slaves as having light hair and blue eyes, and all the indications of the Caucasian race, and 'passing themselves off for white men.' I say further to the honorable gentleman from New York, that well-authenticated instances exist in every slave State where men of Caucasian descent, of Anglo-Saxon blood, have been confined in slavery, and they and their posterity held as slaves; so that not only free blacks were found every-where, but white slaves also abounded."
Mr. Kelley, who next addressed the House, also brought proof to controvert the "hasty assertion" that but one race had been enslaved: "The assertion that white persons have been sold into slavery does not depend on common report, but is proven by the reports of the superior courts of almost every Southern State. One poor German woman, who had arrived in our country at thirteen years of age, was released from slavery by the Supreme Court of Louisiana, but not until she had become the mother of three mulatto children, her owner having mated her with one of his darker slaves. Toward the close of the last century, the Supreme Court of New Jersey decided that American Indians could be reduced to and legally held in slavery. And so long ago as 1741 white slave women were so common in North Carolina, that the Legislature passed a law dooming to slavery the child of every 'white servant woman' born of an Indian father."
Mr. Kelley thought that the enforcement of this long-dormant power of the Constitution would be for the benefit not merely of the poor, the ignorant, and the weak, but also of the wise, "the strong, and the wealthy of our country." "There is now pending," said he, "before the Legislature of regenerated and, as gentlemen would have us believe, reconstructed Virginia, a bill to require five years' residence on the part of citizens of other States who may invest their capital and settle within the sacred limits of the Old Dominion before they can acquire citizenship. If they may pass a limitation of five years, why may they not pass a limitation of fifty? Why will not any limitation that comes within the ordinary duration of human life be admissible?"
Mr. Bromwell, obtaining the floor, inquired whether the question was in such condition that any amendment or substitute could be offered. The Speaker replied: "Six amendments are pending now. The only one that could be offered would be to amend the amendment of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Stevens,] which was, to add the word 'therein' in the fifteenth line. No other amendment would be in order now, the whole legislative power to amend being exhausted."
Mr. Bromwell had desired to offer an amendment which, in his opinion, would obviate many of the objections to pending joint resolution, and the amendments thereto; but the way not being open for this, he addressed the House in a brief speech. He said: "When this amendment was introduced, on last Monday morning, the differences of opinion which have been developed in reference to the principles of the amendment were not anticipated. But to-day we see that it has, so far, not an advocate upon this floor. Such may be the result with every amendment which may be presented. It is difficult to see, among all the amendments which are now pending, any one of them, or any combination of them, that will meet the desire of the majority, not to say two-thirds of this House. I apprehend that the members of this House desire to act so as to secure the support of a proper majority here. I apprehend, also, that they desire to make this amendment such that it will meet with the sanction of a sufficient number of the States of the Union to make it effectual. Now, sir, it is in vain for this Congress to launch an amendment which shall die on the road through the Legislatures."
Notwithstanding the difficulties in the way of all the plans proposed, Mr. Bromwell was heartily in favor of modifying the basis of representation. "I think," said he, "seventy years is long enough for fifteen, twenty, or thirty Representatives to sit here and make laws to apply to Northern people, with no constituencies behind them. I think it has been seen long enough that a large number of persons called property, made property by the laws of the States, shall give to the oligarchs of those particular districts of country the right to outvote the independent men of the North, of the free States, where some approximation has been made to securing God-given rights to all inhabitants. I think that it is wrong that the further a State recedes from common right and common justice the more power the oligarchy which controls it shall grasp in their hands; and I desire that this amendment shall be made so that it shall bear down upon that abuse with the crushing power of three-fourths of the legislatures of the Union."
After the House had heard so many objectors to the basis of representation, as proposed by the committee, Mr. Cook, of Illinois, took the floor in favor of the measure. He said: "We have now, as I believe, the golden opportunity to remedy this evil which will never come again to the men of this generation. The system of slavery has fallen. The States whose representation was increased by it have, with two or three exceptions, destroyed their loyal and legal State governments, and now seek reconstruction. The adoption of this amendment by the States lately in rebellion should be one of the guarantees to be insisted upon as a condition precedent to their taking equal authority and rank in the Union with the loyal States."
To the proposition that the basis of representation should be voters only, Mr. Cook presented the following objections:
"1. It is difficult to enumerate voters accurately; their qualifications are fixed by State laws. We can not send Federal officers into every State to adjudicate, in disputed cases, the rights of those claiming to be voters under the State laws, as we should have to do.
"2. It would not be just; the voters of the country are unequally distributed. The old States have fewer, the new States more, voters according to the white population. In other words, there is a greater proportion of women and children in the old States. These should be and are represented. They are represented, in the true sense of that word, by their fathers and brothers. The man who represents them does so really and practically, and not by legal fiction, like the man who represents 'three-fifths of all other persons.'
"3. It takes from the basis of representation all unnaturalized foreigners. I do not wish to discuss the question whether this would be judicious or not, but I do not want a measure of this almost supreme importance loaded down with these questions, and its passage jeopardized by the incorporation of provisions which, would render it so liable to attack and misrepresentation."
Mr. Cook referred as follows to some objections urged against the basis of representation proposed by the Reconstruction Committee: "It is said that the Southern States may impose a property qualification, and so exclude the negroes, not on account of race or color, but for want of a property qualification, or that they might provide for a qualification of intelligence, and so disfranchise the negroes because they could not read or write, and still enumerate them. To do this they must first repeal all the laws now denying suffrage to negroes; and, second, provide qualifications which will disfranchise half their white voters; two things neither of which will, in any human probability, occur. And in the event that it was possible that both these measures should be adopted, and all the blacks and half the whites disqualified, it would become a grave question whether the provision of the Constitution which requires the United States to guarantee to each State a republican form of government would not authorize the Government to rectify so gross a wrong. There is no measure to which fanciful objections may not be urged; but I believe this to be the least objectionable of any measure which has been suggested to meet this evil. But above all, I am well persuaded that it is the only measure that can meet the approval of three-fourths of the States; consequently, that this is the only practical measure before the House."
Mr. Marshall, of Illinois, declared the proposition, as reported by the committee, to be "wholly untenable, is monstrous, absurd, damnable in its provisions, a greater wrong and outrage on the black race than any thing that has ever been advocated by others."
He thus set forth the measure in the light of injustice to the negro: "The gentlemen who report it profess to be, and doubtless are, the peculiar advocates of the African race. I wish to ask them upon what principle of justice, upon what principle of free government, they have provided that if, after this amendment is adopted, South Carolina, Mississippi, or any other State shall adopt a provision that all white men over twenty-one years of age shall be voters, and all black men who have two hundred dollars' worth of property, and if there shall be ten thousand legal black voters in such State, upon what principle will you place in the Constitution of the United States a provision which would deprive these ten thousand legal black voters of any representation upon the floor of Congress, or of being considered in the basis of representation? And I wish to ask the honorable gentleman who reported this amendment if that is not the effect and result of the amendment reported from the committee."
In reference to the time and place of inaugurating constitutional amendments, Mr. Marshall used the following language: "If any amendments are necessary to the Constitution of our country, this is not the time, and more especially is this not the place, to inaugurate such amendments. I believe, notwithstanding the conceded wisdom, ability, and virtue of this House, that the fathers who framed our glorious Constitution were wiser, better, and nobler than we are; yet every day we have offered here some dozen or twenty proposed amendments to the Constitution, offered as if we were discussing resolutions in a town meeting."
[Illustration: Robert C. Schenck.]
Among the propositions before the House relating to this subject, was an amendment proposed by Mr. Schenck, of Ohio, providing that representation should be based upon "the number of male citizens of the United States over twenty-one years of age, having the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature."
Mr. Schenck addressed the House, and thus gave a history of his own connection with the measure: "At a very early day in this session, I was one of those disposed to ask the attention of Congress to the subject, to propose in proper form the submission of the question to the Legislatures of the several States. On the first day of the session, on the 4th of December last, as soon as the House was organized, I gave notice that I would on the next, or some succeeding day, introduce a proposition to amend the Constitution. On the ensuing day I did accordingly present a joint resolution. It stands as House Resolution No. 1 of the session.
"In that I propose representation hereafter shall be based upon suffrage. I propose that representation shall be apportioned among the several States of the Union according to the number of voters having qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the Legislature of the State where they reside, following in this the language of the Constitution; these voters, however, to be further limited in their descriptions and definitions as being male citizens of the United States over twenty-one years of age. Now, whether the proposition be a good one or not; whether the limitation be such as should commend itself to the masses of our people, I will not for the present inquire. I will only remark they have seemed to me to embrace as many qualifications as we ought to include when we are going to lay down a new organic law on this subject."
An objection urged by Mr. Schenck against the plan proposed by the committee was, that it failed to offer inducements for a gradual enfranchisement of the negro. He said: "Now, sir, I am not one of those who entertain Utopian ideas in relation, not merely to the progress, but to the immediate change of sentiment, opinions, and practice among the people of those States that have so lately been slave States, and so recently in rebellion. I believe that, like all other people, their growth toward good and right and free institutions must necessarily be gradual; and if we pass the amendment which I have proposed, or any thing similar to it, and say to them, 'You shall have representation proportioned to the portion of your population to which you extend this inestimable franchise,' my belief is that they will not, on the next day after it becomes a part of the organic law of the United States, at once enfranchise all the negroes in their midst. I am not sure that they ought to do it; but we are dealing with the matter now as it presents itself as a practical question. What will they probably do? My belief is, that if you persuade them to do right, if you hold out to them an inducement for letting their negroes vote, and striking out these disqualifications and putting all upon the basis of manhood, they will probably begin, after the amendment becomes part of the organic law, by extending this right to those who have acquired certain property; perhaps they will also extend it, after awhile, to those who have certain qualifications of education. However they may proceed, whether rapidly or slowly, it will be a work of progress and a work of time. But by this amendment you would say to them, 'We do not want you to enter upon any such gradual bringing up of these people to the level plain of right to be enjoyed by them equally with others of other races in your midst.' We say to them, 'You may enfranchise one-third or one-fourth of your people who are black and deprived of the privilege of voting by introducing the qualification of property, up to which one-third or one-fourth may come; you may introduce a qualification of education, up to which a number of them may come; but that will all be of no value; so long as there is any denial or any abridgement of the right to vote of a single man on account of his race or color, you shall have no part of the population of that race or color counted to measure to you your share of representation.'
"Now, I will not go into the abstract question whether they ought to enfranchise the negroes at once or not; I will not go into the question of how soon they ought to do it as a matter of expediency; I say that, in all human probability, when they come to enfranchise, if they do it at all, this portion of their population, they will do it gradually; yet, by this amendment, as it comes from the committee, you say that they shall not be represented for any part of it at all till they completely enfranchise them and put them on the same footing with the white population."
In conclusion, Mr. Schenck remarked: "New England, if she should even lose a vote, or two votes, or a fraction of a vote, can not afford, any more than Ohio or Indiana, or any other of those States can, having these particular objections to the scheme, to let the opportunity go by now and not introduce a general amendment which will remedy the one great evil under which we are all laboring together. I hold that Ohio must give up her objections on account of her negro population; that the North-western States must give up their objections on account of the fact that they are permitting persons to vote who are not yet citizens of the United States. Those persons would have to wait, 'to tarry at Jericho until their beards are grown,' I hold that New England must give up her objections; and, if we are to amend the organic law at all, we must do it by uniting upon a common principle, a common sympathy, a common feeling, at least on this side of the House, upon which the entire responsibility is thrown, acting harmoniously, and adopting such an amendment to the organic law as shall be entirely democratic and fair in all its scope and action upon all the people of the States of this Union."
The discussion was continued on the day following, Mr. Eldridge, of Wisconsin, having the floor for the first speech. After having expressed his satisfaction that the sun was allowed to go down on the deliberations upon this resolution, he confessed himself opposed to the amendment of the Constitution. He said: "I believe that this is not the time for its amendment, and I believe, further, that there are other States than those represented upon this floor which are entitled to deliberate with us on that question, and to that point I shall mainly address the remarks which I have to make at this time."
He made a protracted speech on the general subject of reconstruction. At the close of his remarks, he said: "It would much more comport with the dignity and sense of justice of the American Congress to let the legally elected members from the Southern States be admitted, and participate in the proceedings and debates, especially in matters of so great importance as a change in our organic law. Let us have a representation for our whole country. Wherever the American flag floats, from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico—wherever the Star-spangled Banner waves—that is our country. And let us legislate as Americans, as Representatives of our whole country, in a spirit of justice, liberality, and patriotism, and we will again have one country."
Mr. Higby, of California, was opposed to the joint resolution from the fact that the proviso in the proposed amendment is in conflict with that portion of the Constitution which requires that "the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government." "I say it," said he, "without fear or favor, that that amendment will allow any State government in its organization to exclude one-half of its population from the right of suffrage; and I say such State governments will not be republican in form."
In a conversation which ensued with some members, Mr. Higby maintained that no State excluding any class of citizens on account of race or color was republican in form. "I do not believe," said he, "there is a single State in the Union, except it may be one of the New England States, which is an exception to that general rule."
Mr. Hill, of Indiana, asked whether the gentleman would favor the House with his opinion as to what would be a republican form of government.
Mr. Higby was sorry that the gentleman had lived to his time of life, and obtained a position as the Representative of a large constituency, without finding out what a republican form of government is. "I will ask the gentleman," said he, "if he thinks that those States that have excluded and disfranchised more than half of their native population have a republican form of government?"
"In my opinion," said Mr. Hill, "when the framers of the Constitution placed in that instrument the declaration or the provision that the Government of the United States would guarantee to each State a republican form of government, they spoke with reference to such governments as then existed, and such as those same framers recognized for a long time afterward as republican governments."
"Well, that is a very good answer," said Mr. Higby. "It is an answer from a stand-point seventy-five years ago. I speak from the stand-point of the present time."
Mr. Higby desired that the joint resolution should go back to the committee. He said: "I do not wish it disposed of here, to be voted down. I want, if it is possible, that it shall be so framed that it shall receive the full constitutional majority required, and be a proposition that shall operate with full force in all those States that now have a great population excluded from the rights of citizenship."
"If the gentleman proposes," said Mr. Stevens, "to send it back to the committee without instructions, I would ask him what we are to do. There are not quite as many views upon this floor as there are members; but the number lacks very little of it. And how are we to gather up all those views spread through all this discussion, and accommodate all, when each view would now probably receive from one to three votes in its favor?"
"I have only this to say," replied Mr. Higby: "with my views of the Constitution, I never can vote for this proposition with this proviso in its present language. I say that it gives a power to the States to make governments that are not republican in form."
"I say to my friend," said Mr. Stevens, "that if I thought, that by any fair construction of language, such an interpretation could be given as he gives, I would vote against it myself; but I do not believe there is any thing in that objection."
Mr. Bingham took the floor in favor of the proposed joint resolution. In "giving this and other amendments to the Constitution my support," said he, "I do not subject myself to the gratuitous imputation of a want of reverence either for the Constitution or its illustrious founders. I beg leave, at all events, to say, with all possible respect for that gentleman, that I do not recognize the right of any man upon this floor, who was a representative of that party which denied the right to defend the Constitution of his country by arms against armed rebellion, to become my accuser.
"In seeking to amend, not to mar, the Constitution of the United States, we ought to have regard to every express or implied limitation upon our power imposed by that great instrument. When gentlemen object to amending the Constitution, when they talk sneeringly about tinkering with the Constitution, they do not remember that it is one of the express provisions of that instrument that Congress shall have power to propose amendments to the Legislatures of the several States. Do gentlemen mean, by the logic to which we have listened for the past five days on this subject of our right to amend, that we are not to add any thing to the Constitution, and that we are to take nothing from it? I prefer to follow, in this supreme hour of the nation's trial, the lead of a wiser and nobler spirit, who, by common consent, was called, while he lived, 'the Father of his Country,' and, now that he is dead, is still reverenced as 'the Father of his Country,' and to be hailed, I trust, by the millions of the future who are to people this land of ours as 'the Father of his Country.' In his Farewell Address, his last official utterance, Washington used these significant words, which I repeat to-day for the consideration of gentlemen: "The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.' We propose, sir, simply to act in accordance with this suggestion of Washington. We propose, in presenting these amendments, to alter, in so far as the changed condition of the country requires, the fundamental law, in order to secure the safety of the republic and furnish better guarantees in the future for the rights of each and all.
"The question that underlies this controversy is this: whether we will stand by the Constitution in its original intent and spirit, or, like cravens, abandon it. I assert it here to-day, without fear of contradiction, that the amendment pending before this House is an amendment conforming exactly to the spirit of the Constitution, and according to the declared intent of its framers.
"My friend from California [Mr. Higby] has informed us that there are one hundred thousand more free colored citizens of the United States in the State of Mississippi to-day than there are of white citizens; that there are one hundred thousand more free colored citizens of the United States in South Carolina than there are of white citizens; and then we are gravely told that we must not press this amendment, because we are abandoning the Constitution and the intent of our fathers. That is a new discovery, one for which the Democracy ought to take out letters patent, that it was ever intended that a minority of free citizens should disfranchise the majority of free male citizens, of full age, in any State of the Union! For myself, I will never consent to it."
In answer to the objection that the proviso in the proposed amendment seemed to acknowledge the right to deny or abridge the elective franchise on account of race or color, Mr. Bingham said: "I beg the gentleman to consider that a grant of power by implication can not be raised by a law which only imposes a penalty, and nothing but a penalty, for a non-performance of a duty or the violation of a right. Within the last hundred years, in no country where the common law obtains, I venture to say, has any implication of a grant of power ever been held to be raised by such a law, and especially an implied power, to do an act expressly prohibited by the same law. The guarantee of your Constitution, that the people shall elect their Representatives in the several States, can not be set aside or impaired by inserting in your Constitution, as a penalty for disregarding it, the provision that the majority of a State that denies the equal rights of the minority shall suffer a loss of political power.