Chapter XIV (1)

THE BASIS OF REPRESENTATION--IN THE HOUSE.

First work of the Joint Committee -- The joint resolution
proposing a constitutional amendment -- Mr. Stevens' reasons
for speedy action -- Protracted discussion commenced --
Objections to the bill by Mr. Rogers -- Defense by Mr.
Conkling -- Two other modes -- How States might evade the
Law -- Not a finality -- Wisconsin and South Carolina --
Amendment for Female Suffrage proposed -- Orth on Indiana
and Massachusetts -- Obscuration of the sun -- More Radical
remedy desired -- A Kentuckian gratified -- Citations from
the Census -- Premium for Treason -- White Slaves -- Power
to amend well-nigh exhausted -- Objections to the Suffrage
Basis -- "Race" and "Color" ambiguous -- Condition of the
Question -- Recommitted -- Final passage.

Although the Joint Committee of Fifteen were assiduous in their attention to the work assigned them, it was not until the 22d of January, 1866, that they were ready to make a partial report and recommend a practical measure for the consideration of Congress.

On that day Mr. Fessenden, of the Senate, and Mr. Stevens, of the House of Representatives, brought before those bodies respectively a partial report from the committee, recommending the passage of the following joint resolution:

_Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled_, (two-thirds
of both houses concurring,) That the following article be
proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as an
amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which,
when ratified by three-fourths of the said Legislatures,
shall be valid as part of said Constitution, namely:

ARTICLE--. Representatives and direct taxes shall be
apportioned among the several States which may be included
within this Union according to their respective numbers,
counting the whole number of persons in each State,
excluding Indians not taxed: _Provided_, That whenever the
elective franchise shall be denied or abridged in any State
on account of race or color, all persons of such race or
color shall be excluded from the basis of representation.

In the Senate this subject was laid over, and was not reached for several days, as the Freedmen's Bureau Bill was then under discussion.

The subject was pressed upon the attention of the House for immediate action. Mr. Stevens had no intention to make a speech, since the question had been under consideration by every member for the last six weeks. He remarked, however: "There are twenty-two States whose Legislatures are now in session, some of which will adjourn within two or three weeks. It is very desirable, if this amendment is to be adopted, that it should go forth to be acted upon by the Legislatures now in session. It proposes to change the present basis of representation to a representation upon all persons, with the proviso that wherever any State excludes a particular class of persons from the elective franchise, that State to that extent shall not be entitled to be represented in Congress. It does not deny to the States the right to regulate the elective franchise as they please; but it does say to a State, 'If you exclude from the right of suffrage Frenchmen, Irishmen, or any particular class of people, none of that class of persons shall be counted in fixing your representation in this House. You may allow them to vote or not, as you please; but if you do allow them to vote, they will be counted and represented here; while if you do not allow them to vote, no one shall be authorized to represent them here; they shall be excluded from the basis of representation.'"

As indicative of the apparent harmony of sentiments prevailing on the question, Mr. Wilson said that the Committee on the Judiciary had determined to report a proposition substantially identical with that offered by Mr. Stevens.

It was deemed important to have the joint resolution passed as soon as possible, that it might go before the State Legislatures then in session for their ratification before their adjournment. The member who had the measure in charge desired, after one or two speeches on either side, to have the question put to vote, and have the resolution passed before the sun went down. Such action, however, seemed to the House too hasty, and a discussion of the measure was entered upon, which ran through many days.

Mr. Rogers, a member of the committee, offered a minority report, and addressed the House in opposition to the proposed amendment of the Constitution. He thus presented his view of the object of the measure proposed: "It appears to have in its body, in its soul, and in its life only one great object and aim; that is, to debase and degrade the white race, and to place upon a higher footing than the white men are placed, under the Constitution, this African race. It is a proposition to change the organic law of the land with regard to one of the fundamental principles which was laid down by our fathers at the formation of the Constitution as an axiom of civil and political liberty, that taxation and representation should always go together. If gentlemen will examine this proposed amendment of the Constitution, they will see that it is in violation of that great doctrine which was proclaimed by the fathers of the republic when they enunciated the Declaration of Independence, and protested against the tyranny and despotism of England, because she attempted to tax the people of the colonies without allowing them representation in the councils of the kingdom. The amendment now under consideration proposes the very same identical thing that the Parliament of England proposed when it attempted to inflict upon the American colonies taxation without allowing the people of the colonies to have representatives in the Parliament of England to represent them upon the question whether they should be taxed by the mother country or not.

"The first objection I have to the passage of this joint resolution is, that it is violative of the main principle upon which the Revolutionary War was conducted, and which induced our fathers to enter the harbors of Boston and New York and throw the tea into the water. Because the British people attempted to inflict taxation upon them with regard to that tea, and refused to allow them representation in the Parliament of England, our fathers rebelled against their mother country. What has come over the fortunes and happiness of the people of this country that the great principle of the Constitution should now be violated, that principle for which our fathers spilt their blood to sustain, the great axiom of American liberty, that taxation never should be imposed upon a people unless that people have a corresponding representation? If this amendment to the Constitution should be carried into effect, it will prevent any State, North or South, from allowing qualified suffrage to its colored population, except upon forfeiture of representation; and if qualified suffrage should be allowed to the colored population of any State in this Union, on account of race of color, and but one single negro should be deprived of his vote by failure to meet the requirements of the qualification imposed, that State would be denied representation for the whole of that colored population--men, women, and children.

"More than that: this bill attempts, in an indirect manner, to have passed upon, by the Legislatures of the different States, a question which the party in power dare not boldly and openly meet before the people of this country, because there can be but one object lying at the foundation of this bill--an object which has been explained and expatiated upon in this House--and that object, as I have said, is, through the Federal power, to force the States to adopt unqualified negro suffrage, by holding over them the penalty of being deprived of representation according to population.

"But I object to this joint resolution upon another ground--upon the same ground that I objected to the passage of the Negro Suffrage Bill for the District of Columbia--without consulting the people. It has been said in this country that all power emanates from the people. And I say that to submit this grave question to the consideration and decision of partisan Legislatures in the different States--Legislatures which were elected without any regard to this question--is violative of the great principles which lie at the foundations of the liberties of this country; that no organic law, affecting the whole people, should be passed before submitting it to the people for their ratification or rejection. Now this joint resolution proposes simply to submit this amendment for ratification to the Legislatures of the different States. The Legislatures are not the States; the Legislatures are not the people in their sovereign capacity; Legislatures are not the source from which all power emanates. But the people, the _sacred people_, in the exercise of their sovereign power, either at the ballot-box or in conventions, are the only true and proper forum to which such grave and serious questions should be submitted.

"I maintain that the Constitution of the United States, as it now exists, is not as liberal toward the Southern States, now that slavery has been abolished, as it was before the abolition of slavery. Why, sir, in the days of the past, under our Constitution, the Southern States have been allowed a representation for a population that was not classed as citizens or people; they were allowed a representation for people who had no political _status_ in the State; persons who were not entitled even to exercise the right of coming into a court of civil justice as a plaintiff or defendant in the prosecution or defense of a suit.

"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."