January 27, 1869 (4)

Mr. KERR. Mr. Speaker, in my judgment, L this measure has never been surpassed inim-™ importance by any enactments in our entire legislative history. In intrinsic interest, in far reaching consequences, if it become a law, it would be difficult to conceive a proposition more momentous. Besides, in reference to the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution, it is an initial measure, and for the first time makes it our imperative duty to consider that amend ment, and before we make it the basis of legislation to determine, under the sanction of our oath to support the Constitution, what are its true intent and meaning.

Mr. Speaker, I have come to its consideration with a profound desire to attain such conclusions as shall at once most truly "support" the instrument and preserve het liberties and promote the highest welfare of the people. Yet, on every material point, I find most of my conclusions to be precisely antipodal to those of the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. Boutwell.] Our several reasons and arguments must answer for our different judgments. I only pray that they shall be fairly and dispassionately considered and weighed by all. I shall then cheerfully abide the result. The most important part of the bill, and that which presents the great questions of power contained in it, reads as follows in its title and first section: A bill to secure equal privileges and immunities to citizens of the United States, and to enforce the provisions of article fourteen of the amendments to the Constitution.

That no State shall abridge or deny the right of any citizen of the United States to vote for electors of President and Vice President of the United fet«ite3, or for Representatives in Congress, or or members of the Legislature of the State in which he may reside, by reason of race, color, or previous condition of slaver*: and any provisions in the laws or constitution 01 any Slate inconsistent with this section are hereby declared to be null and void.

The title of the bill and the text of this section clearly indicate, and the gentleman s argument declares, that this bill rests for support, in part at least, on the first paragraph of the first section of the fourteenth amendment. I read it:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subiect to the jurisdiction thereot are citizens of theUnitedStfttes and of the State wherein they reside."

What does this meanl

It is no grant of power.

It gives no new power to Congress,

It takes no preexisting power from the Slates. It declares who shall be citizens of the Dmted States..,

But the fact that certain persons are citizens, and the number of them, and the definition of citizenship or of its constituent elements, were just the same before the ratification of that section that they are now neither is now more certain or better settled than it was before..

The thirteenth amendment had made all persons of color citizens of the United States, it they were not hitherto.# Then J dy of citizens is no way materially changed by this amendment. 'On this point I do nofc wish to stand without great and worthy authority. 'I therefore give you the opinion of the great chancellor:

"Citizens, under our Constitution and laws, mean free inhabitants born within the United States or naturalized under the laws of Congress. It' a slave born in the United States be manumitted or otherwise lawfully discharged from bondage, or if a black man be bom within the United States and born free, be becomcs thenceforward a citizen, but under Buck, disabilities as the laws of the States respectively m iy deem it expedient to prescribe to free persons of color —2 Kent, 25&; Ilobbsvs. Fogg, 6 Watts, 553; The State vsv Claiborne, Meigs; 331; Opinions of Attorneys General, vol. 1, 382.

If gentlemen prefer a later, a more partisan but yet most respectable authority, I will also cite the able advice of the late Republican Attorney General Bates to Secretary of the Treasury Chase iti 1862. In .answer to the question, who are citizens of the United States? he says*

"The phrase 'a citizen of the United States,' without addition or qualification, means neither more nor less than a member of the nation. And all such are politically and legally equal. The child in the cradle and its father in the Senate are equally citizens of the United States. And it needsno argument to prove"**** "that every citizen of the UnitedStates is a citizen of the particular State in which he is domiciled."

It does not deny, annul, or modify the power of the States to make citizens of the States. Slates may confer State citizenship and suffrage. They have always done it. It has become the settled law of the Union. They have given suffrage to persons not citizens of the United States, They have repeatedly both enlarged and abridged the number of electors. They have done this in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and almost all the other States. Their right was never denied, and has been either tacitly or expressly approved by all departments of the Government. On this point, too, I am able to sustain my position by the judgment of the same great chancellor:

"These civil privileges conferred upon aliens by State authority, are dictated by a just and liberal policy, but they must be taken to be strictly local; "iid until a. foreigner is duly naturalized according t<> the net of Congress he is not entitled in any other blate to any other privileges than those which the laws of that State allow to aliens —2 Kent, 70; G (hUJ{%, 250; 2 Curtice lltetoiy of Constitution, 200; JJutet 0 i Citizenship.

And further, by the judicial opinions of a majority oi the justices of the Supreme Court, io which I ask the attention of the House:

44 We must not confound the rights of citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits and the rights of ciuacoship as a member of the Union, lie may have all the rights and privileges of thocitl en of 21, State, and yet not be entitled to the rights and privileges of a citizen of any other State. Nor have the States surrendered the power and privilege of conferring the rights and privileges of citizens by adopting the Constitution of the United States. Each State may still confer them upon an ah en or any one it thinks proper, or upon any class or description ot persons; yet ho would not be a citlxen m tho sense in which the word is used in tho Constitution ot the United States, nor entitled to sue us such m one of its courts, nor to the privileges and immunities of a citizen in tho other States. A i tate cannot make a man a member of the community of tho United States by making him a member ot its own —Scott vs. Sandford, lOJrlowaid, 105.

Neither does the paragraph under consideration define citizen, or the constituent elements ot' citizenship of the United States or of the States. It leaves both where it found them—to rest upon the common law and the laws of the several States. These words are nowhere precisely delined in the Constitution, laws, or judicial decisions of our country; but in the uniform practice of the country, in many learned commentaries, and numberless judicial decisions touching the subject more or less directly, they have been so nearly defined as to remove all doubt as to their substantial meaning.

American citizenship does not depend upon or coexist with the legal capacity to h old office and the right of suffrage. The majority of persons in every community in oar country, every one of whom are citizens as really and absolutely as the others, are denied the right either to hold office or vote. The Constitution nowhere declares who may vote or hold office, except as to a few offices.

As' voting and holding office afe* not essential to citizenship, so the deprivation of either by law is not a deprivation of citizenship; no more so in the ease of a negro than of a white woman or child. I therefore hold that the first paragraph in question is merely declaratory in a more specific and authoritative form of what was law before. It gives no support, in my judgment, to the extraordinary propositions contained in this bill. It is manifestly intended only to remove all doubt, if any existed, upon the fact that nativity and naturalization confer, in the language of Justice Story, a general citizenship of the United States .and give the country jurisdiction over them, and give rise to the correlative obligations of allegiance and protection; and also to declare all such persons citizens alike of the States wherein they reside. The latter citizenship must also be held to be of that same general character. It is not more specific or certain or better defined, and amounts in law to just what it did before this enactment. Ever since the organization of the Union, and just as much before as since this amendment, any citizen of the United States who voluntarily removed to and became a permanent resident of any State that instant, and by virtue of that act and fact, became also a citizen of that State. But such citizenship alone never gave a right to vote or hold office, and it does not now. There must be some added or acquired qualification under the provisions of the State constitution and laws, which can only be acquired after the residence begins, and generally results from its continuance for a prescribed period. Otherwise, and on the theory of the gentleman from Massachusetts, all such persons, the moment their State residence begins, become fullfledged citizens with the right to vote and hold office.

But the more important part of that section declares:

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridsro the privileges orimmunitios of citizens of the United States."

This is a limitation on the powers of the States. It needs no legislation to enforce itIt is better enforced by itself, and judicially. But what do the important words" privileges or immunities" mean 1 They are historic, and have_ often received judicial and legislative definition and construction. They had their origin in the fourth article of the Articles of Confederation, which reads:

"The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the ftee. inhabitants of cac i oft7ie eS afe i—paupers vagahonds, and fugitives from justice excepted—shall be entitled to all ■privileges and immunities of free citizens m the several States."

The purpose and intent of this provision are clear and free from ambiguity, and afford an infallible key to unlock the more mysterious meaning of section two, article four, ofthe Constitution. which was intended to perpetuate the provisions in the Articles of Confederation, and reads:

The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in tho several States."

In the draft, of this section it is to be lamented that certainty and perspicuity of intention were sacrificed for the sake of brevity.

The language of the fourteenth amendment seems to have been intended to give Congress the power to enforce the provisions of this section; but the expression "privileges or immunities of citizens ofthe United Slates" appears to be restrictive of the object and intent of the words in the section," privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."

But for the purposes of this argument, as that view is most favorable to the friends of this bill, I will assume that the two forms of expression are exact equivalents.

I then proceed to inquire what do they mean?

In their derivation and legally and judicially accepted signification they give no countenance to the assumptions of the friends of this bill, ihe word "privilege" is defined by Worcester to mean "an exemption or immunity from some general duty or burden; a right peculiar to some individual or body; a peculiar advantage or benefit." And the descriptive word "peculiar" means "belonging to only one, not common to many." The term "exemption" has an even more limited signification, being by the same great lexicographer defined to be "freedom or exemption from serving in an office or from performing duties required of others." It is most erroneous to suppose that the words rights, privileges, and immunities are synonymous, i liey are not. The word rights is genetic, embracing all that may be lawfully claimed, and it is affirmative, but the others are, in their most exact and legal definitions, both restrictive and negative. The gentleman from Massachusetts justly and logically maintains that whatever rights, privileges, and immunities attach to and inhere in the citizen or citizens of the United States must belong to all alike. They must belong equally to man and woman, to adultand infant, to sane and insane, to black and white. But this just and invulnerable position is most fatal to the claim that the right of suffrage is one of the constituent elements of citizenship, because if it is it also must belong alike to all. But the truth is, and it is within the observation of all men, and is established by the uniform practice of every State in the Union, and is sustained by an unbroken line of judicial decisions, that no person ever did exercise the right of suffrage in virtue of the naked, unassisted fact of citizenship. But in every instance the right depends, and the franchise of suffrage is exercised, upon some additional fact and cumulative qualification prescribed by the laws of the State, which may as perfectly exist without as with citizenship, (Bates on Citizenship.) The word citizenship has not in any of its elements or meanings under the Federal Constitution, nor have the words "privileges and immunities," in any of their just interpretations, anything to do with or any power to set aside or disregard any of the distinctions, requirements, or rights based upon domicile or residence in the respective States. Even the infamous and revolutionary measures of reconstruction in the South recognize and do not attempt to disregard this universal truth. But now and in this bill, and by the gentleman from Massachusetts, for the first time in our history, these fundamental truths are all to be ignored or reversed.

This section does not require that the laws and usages of one State shall be permitted to prescribe qualifications for citizens to be aimed and exercised in other States in contravention to their local policy. (2 Kent, 71; 19 How. R., 405.)

I understand its primary object to be to secure equal privileges and immunities to the citizens of each State while temporarily sojourning in any other State; and its secondary and only other purpose is to prevent any State from discriminating in its laws in favor of or against the citizens of any other State merely because they are the citizens of such other State, or, in other words, for mere sectional reasons. For example, Massachusetts cannot form any tacit or express alliance or friendship with Maine which shall require or justify Massachusetts in giving to the citizens of Maine who shall settle in Massachusetts any privileges and immunities it does not equally give to the same class of citizens from any other State.

Our ancestors had formed a sisterhood of States, equal in dignity, rights, and powers, and they merely intended by this provision to prevent any combinations arising out of mutual interests or animosities between certain States from taking the form of legislative discriminations against the citizens of other States. Texas cannot, because it dislikes Yankees, withhold from the citizens of New England any privileges and immunities it accords to the citizens of the same class from Louisiana. But Texas can deny to the paupers, vagabonds, or fugitives from justice of iTew England privileges' and immunities which it denies, on grounds of local public policy^ to the same classes from other States, and which it denies on the same grounds to persons of the same classes within its own limits, although such persons in New England have been invested with greater rights.

This interpretation is reasonable, practical, and free from the dangerous and centralizing tendencies of the one claimedin this bill. It is consistent with the full enjoyment by the States respectively of the sacred and natural right of local self government and self protection. It will enable the States to protect the body politic against the dangers and demoralizations which would inevitably result from the other theory.

In this view I am fully sustained by that distinguished jurist whom I have before quoted. He says:

"The article in the Constitution of the United States declaring that citizens of each State were entitled to all the privileges andimmunitiesof citizens in the several States applies only to natural born or duly naturalized citizens; and if they remove from one State to another they are entitled to the privileges that persons of the same description are entitled to in the State to which the removal is made, and to none other. The privileges thus conferred are local, aiul necessarily territorial in their nature 1—2 Kent, 71.

To the same effect is the opinion of Justice Story:

"Theintention of this clause was to confer on them, if one may so say, a general citizenship, and to communicate all the privileges and immunities which the citizens of the same State would be entitled tovnder the like circumstances —Story s Commentaries on the Constitution, sec. 1806.

Now, if my construction of this constitutional provision is incorrect, and the one claimed by the friends of this bill is correct, then it follows that aliens made citizens by the States are entitled to all the privileges of citizens in any other States to which they may remove, because they were citizens in the State they removed from. But the contrary is both the law and the practice throughout the Union. Such a citizen removing to another State is then entitled only to such privileges as are accorded by the laws of that State to persons of the same class.

Directly pertinent to this inquiry also are the citations already made by me from Mr. Kent. Therefore, if negroes remove from Massachusetts, or coolies from California, to Ohio or Indiana they are entitled there .to enjoy the same privileges and immunities which are accorded by those States respectively to negroes or coolies from any other State," but to none other." They cannot import into those States the laws of Massachusetts or California. The right to exclude them or to limit them in political rights and privileges is fundamental and necessary to the existence and safety of the State. It antedates all constitutions. It is original in the State.

Next, hear the views of Justice "Washington: "The inquiry is, what are the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States? We feel no hesitation in confining these expressions to those privileges and immunities which are in their nature fundamental; which belong of right to the citizens of allfreeGovernments; and which have at all times been enjoyed by the citizens of the several States which compose this Union, from the time of their becoming free, independent, and sovereign. What these fundamental principles are it would perhaps be more tedious than difficult to enumerate. They may, however, be all comprehended under the following general heads: protection by the Government; the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right to acquire and possess property of every kind and to p iii pursue and obtain happiness and safety; subject nevertheless, to such restraints as the Government way justly ■prescribe for the general good of the whole. The right ot a citizen of one State to pass through or to reside in any other State for purposes of trade, agriculture, professional pursuits or otherwise; to claim the benefitof the writ of habeas corpus.' to institute anamamtain actions of any kind in the courts of the State; to take hold, and dispose of property, either real Or personal; and an exemption from higher taxes or impositions than are paid by the othercvtizensot the State, in may be mentioned as some of the particular privileges and immunities of citizens, which are clearly embraced by the general description of privileges deemed to be fundamental; to which may be added the elective franchise, as regulated and establithedby the laws or constitution ofthe Statein which %t is io be exercised —Corfield vs. Coryell, 4 Washmg- (pus Circuit Court liepotte, page 3S0.

The gentleman from Massachusetts cited at great length and indorsed the decision of the court of appeals of Kentucky ih Atnyvs. Smith, Littell s Reports.) I will waste but little time on that authority. In most of its reasoning it is in entire harmony with my views and the authorities I am using. So far as it is not, and especially in its attempt to define citizenship, it is not supported by a single respectable authority in the judicial records of the country. It has therefore no intrinsic value.

But I give the gentleman, as a full offset to that case, the case of Abbott vs. Bayley, 6 Pick. R., p. 92, from the supreme court of his own State; and I read the material part of the decision in that case. The court says:

The privileges and immunities secured to the people of each State in every other State can be applied only in ease of removal from one State into another. By such removal they become citizens of the adopted State without naturalization, and have a right to sue and be sued as citizens! and yet this privilege is Qualified- and not absolute, for they cannot enjoy the right of suffrage or of eligibility to office without such term of residence as shall be ■prescribed by the constitution and laws of the State into which they shall remove. They shall have the privilegesandiminunities of citizens; that is, they shall not be deemed aliens, but may take and hold real estate; and may, according to the laws of such State, eventually enjoy the full rights of citizenship without the necessity of being naturalized."

I now refer at some length to the views of the judges in the passenger cases, 7 Howard, 46G, which bear directly upon and illustrate this subject. After referring to the cases of Holmes vs. Jennison, 14 Peters, 540; Groves vs. Slaughter, 15 Peters, 449; and Prigg vs. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 10 Peters, 539, Chief Justice Taney remarks:

If these cases are to stand, the right of the State is undoubted. And it 13 equally clear that if it may remove from among its citizens any person or description of persons whom it regards as injurious to their welfare, it follows that it may meet them at the threshold and prevent them from entering; for it will hardly be said that the United States may permit them to enter and compel theState to receive them, and that the State may immediately afterward expel them. There could be no reason of policy or humanity for compelling the States, by the power of Congress, to imbibe the poison, and then leaving them to find a remedy for it by their own exertions and at their own expense. Certainly no such distinction can be found in the Constitution, and such a division of power would be an inconsistency, not to say an absurdity, for which I presume no one will contend. If the State has the power to determine whether the persons objected to shall remain in the State in association with its citizen:; it must, as an incident inseparably connected with it, have the right also to determine who shall enter. Indeed, m the case of Groves vs. Slaughter, theMississippi constitution prohibited the entry of the objectionable persons, and the opinions of the court throughout treat the exercise of this power as being the same with that of expelling them after they have entered. "Neither can this be a concurrent power, and whether it belongs to theGeneralorto theState Government the sovereignty which possesses the right must in its exercise be altogether independentof the other. If the United States have the power, then any legislationbytheStatein conflict with atreaty oraet of Congress would be void. And if the States possess it, then any act on the subject by the General Governmentin conflict with the State law would also be void and this court bound to disrespect it. It must be paramount and absolute in the sovereignty which possesses it. A concurrent and equal power in the United States and the States as to who should and who should not be permitted to reside in a State would be a direct conflict of powers, repugnant to each other, continually thwarting and defeating Us exercise by either, and could result in nothing but discord and confusion,

"Again, if the State has the right to exclude from its borders any person or persons whom it may regard as dangerous to the safety of its citizens it must, necessarily have therightto decidewhen and toward whom" this power is to be exercised. It is m its nature a discretionary power, to be exercised according to the judgment of the party that possesses it. And it must, therefore, rest with the State to determine whether any particular class or description ot persons are likely to produce discontent or insurrection in its territory, or to taint the morals ot its citizens or to bring: among them contagiousdiseases or the evils and burdensofnumerous pauper population.* or if the General Government can m any respect or by any form of legislation control or restrain a State m the exercise of this power, or decide whether it has been exercised with proper discretion and toward proper persons and on proper occasions, then the real and substantial power would be in Congress and not in the States. In the cases decided in this court and hereinbefore referred to the power ot dctermin ing who is or is not dangerous to the interest and wcllbeing of the people of the State has been "uniformly admitted to reside in the State.

"I think it, therefore, to be very clear, both upon principle and the authority ot adjudged cases, that the several States have a right to remove from among their people and to prevent from entering the State any person or class or description pi persons whom it may deem dangerous or injurious to the interests and welfare of its citizens; and that the State has the exclusive right to determine, in its sound discretion, whether the danger does or does not exist, free from the control of the General Government."

Mr. Justice Grier, in the same case, (page 47,) said:

"It must be borne in mind (what lias sometimes been forgotten) that the controversy in this case is not with regard to the right claimed by the State of Massachusetts in the second section, of this act, to repel from her shores lunatics, idiots, criminals, or paupers, which any foreign country, or even one of her sister States, might endeavor to thrust upon her; nor the right of any State, whose domestic security might be endangered by the admission of free negroes, to exclude them from her borders. This right of the States has its foundation in the sacred law of self defense which no power granted to Congress can restrain or annul. It is admitted by all that those powers which relate to merely municipallogislation, or what may. be more properly called internal police, are not surrendered or restrained; and that it is as competent and necessary for a State to provide precautionary measures against the moral pestilence of paupers, vagabonds, and convicts, as -it is to guard against the physical pestilence which may arise from unsound and infectious articles imported."

Justice Story, in delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Priggs vs. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 16 Peters, page 625, says;

To guard, however, against any possible misconstruction of our views, it is proper to state that we are by no means to be understood in any manner whatever to doubt or to interfere with the police power belonging to the States in virtue of their general sovereignty. That police power extends over all subjects within theterritorial limits of the States, and has never been conceded to the United States." Now, let it be remembered that in all these authorities it is assumed that the privileges and immunities referred to as attainable in the States are required to be attained if at all according to the laws or constitutions of the States, and never in defiance of them.

In 1855, in Conner vs. Elliott, 18 Howard, 591, the Supreme Court of the United States further decided, in reference d this clause, that it does not entitle a native born female citizen of Louisiana, who removed to Mississippi, and there married and lived, to take the interest in her husband s real estate in Louisiana on his death to which the laws of that State entitle a widow who resided there at the time of her husband s death. The State oi Louisiana gave to widows who were citizens of one State just the same advantages under its laws which it gave to those of another, and no more could be rightfully demanded.

But it is claimed there is some support for this bill and the claim of congressional power in another provision of the Constitution. The Constitution declares that—

"The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors m each btate shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature."— Constitution, art. 1, sec. 2, clause 1.

At the time this provision in the Constitution on the subject of the qualifications of electors in the different States was under the consideration of the Constitutional Convention, we all know that there existed in the States a very great diversity of provisions and regulations upon this subject of suffrage. They differed both in extent and principle. In some of the States the suffrage was extended upon principles of great liberality to almost all men of competent age, while in other States it was extended upon principles of less liberality, and in some States it was limited by lingering principles of the feudal system, which still prevailed in the laws of descent and the transmission of property in some of the States.

In was in view of these diversities that the Constitutional Convention approached the consideration of this question. And we are told by Mr. Story, in his excellent Commentaries on that sacred charter of our liberty, that for obvious reasons it would have been improper to leave that subject open for the occasional regulation of Congress, even as to the qualification of electors for Representatives to its own body; and therefore it was settled in the Constitution itself, and placed forever beyond the control of Congress. Story s Commentaries on the Constitution, sec. 088.)

Now, vvbo determines those qualifications in the respective States? I say that .the people of the several States themselves determine thosequafifieations and nootherpoweron earth is authorized to interfere. The language of the Constitution is clear and emphatic. It is too plain to require interpretation. It establishes a rule Which, in the nature of our Government, cannot be uniform. It i to be fixed by each State for itself. And upon this point I desire to invite attention for a moment to a few authorities, and they are authorities of great weight and distinction in the constitutional history of our country; authorities entitled to. the very highest consideration at the hands of their posterity. And first, Alexander Hamilton, one of the earliest and greatest expounders of our Federal Constitution, who may be ranked as equal with our great statesmen of the earlier school. What does he say? In No. 52 of the Federalist he use? this language:

"To have" reduced the different qualifications in the different States to one uniform rule would probably have been as dissatisfactory to some of the States as it would have been difficult to the Convention. The provision made by the Convention appears. therefore, to be tiiQ host that lay within their option. It must be satisfactory to every State, because it it conformable to Ik- standard already established or which nifty be established by the State itself. It will be sate to the United States, because, being fixed by the State constitutions, it is not alterable by the State governments; and it cannot be feared that the people of the States will alter this part of their constitutions in such manner as to abridge o the rights secured to them by the Federal Constitution."

And in this connection I beg leave to invite the attention of the House to a fact, perhaps forgotten by some, that this number of the Federalist may be quoted with equal propriety as expressing the deliberate opinion and judgment of Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Madison; because, in every list of the numbers of that work ever furnished by Mr. Madison himself he claimed that he, and not Mr. Hamilton, was the author of No. 52; and Mr. Hamilton, in some of his lists, claimed that he was its author, and not Mr. Madison. But the claim that is made by both of those distinguished statesmen for the paternity of this number of the Federalist is enough to establish the fact that each of them approved, indorsed, and adopted as his own the opinions expressed in it. 1 therefore quote it now as expressing the equally deliberate judgment of Mr. Madison himself upon this subject.*

And in this connection I will briefly invite attention to another authority. I quote now from the History of the Constitution, hy Mr. Curtis. I read it for the purpose of showing what were the intentions, as he understands them, of the framers of this particular part of the Constitution. He says:

"The committee of detail, after a review of a 11 these considerations, presented a scheme that was well adapted to meet the difficulties of the case. They proposed that the same persons who, by the laws of the several States, were admitted to vote for members of the most numerous branch of their own Legislatures, should have the right to vote for the Representatives of Congress. The adoption of this principle avoided the necessity of disfranchising any portion of the people of a State by a system of qualifications unknown to their laws. As the States were the best judges of the circumstances and temper of their own people, it was certainly best to conciliate them to the support of the new constitution by this concession. It was possible, indeed, but not very probable, that they might admit foreigners to the right of voting without the previous qualification of citizenship._ It was possible, too, that they might establish universal suffrage in its most unrestricted sense. But against all these evils there existed one greatsecurity, namely, that the mischiefs of an absolutely free suffrage would be felt most severely by themselves in their own domestic concerns; and against thespecialdan er to bo apprehended from the indiscriminate admission of foreigners to the right of voting, another feature of the proposed plan gave the national Legislature power to withhold from persons of foreign birth the privileges of general cit-. izenship, although a State might confer upon them t lie power of voting without previous naturalization." I will read no more of that authority, but simply add that in a somewhat lengthy review of this subject Mr. Curtis fully sustains the expressed opinions of Mr. Madison and Mr. Hamilton, and the positions I now maintain.

I think it ^ill fye generally- conceded by most, men in this country that if this great power which is claimed by the, gentleman exists at all, it cannot be found to rest upon this provision of the Constitution, but must find its abiding place in another clause of the Constitution, (Art. 1, sec. 4, clause 1,) which I will now read to the House. It is as follows:

"The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and .Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time, by law, make or alter such regulations, except us to the places of choosing Senators."

Now, I invite attention to the obvious fact that this provision of .the Constitution is limited by its own terms to certain objects. What are they? First, to the "times." Times of what? The times of holding the elections. Second, to the" places.’’ The places for what? The places for holding the elections. Third, to the "manner." Here I invite attention to the obvious meaning of that word taken in connection with the context. The maimer of what? Is it the manner of determining the qualifications of electors? That would be absurd. If it was intended to confer that power, an absolute and apt term would have been used to grant it. No, sir; it relates solely to the manner of holding elections, not the manner of determining who shall vote or who shall not vote. Such is the construction placed upon this provision by Mr. Justice Story, whose examination of the history of the Constitution was perhaps more thorough and exhaustive than that of any other jurist or statesman in our country. He disposes of the monstrous idea that Congress may regulate elections in the States, or that such purpose was ever cherished by the framers of the Constitution, in the following manner:

"What would be said of a clause introduced into tho national Constitution to regulate the State elections of the members of the State Legislatures? It would be deemed a most unwarrantable transfer of power, indicating a premeditated design to destroy the State governments. It would be deemed so flagrant a violation of principle as to require no comment —Story on the Constitution, sec. 819.

Then, confining the power of Congress, under the provision in question, to the mere regulation of the times, places, and manner of holding elections, he approves it as demanded by possible emergencies that may arise in the history of the Union, and adds:

"There is no pretense to say that the power in the national Government can bo used so as to exclude anyStatefrom its share in the representation in Congress. Nor can it be said with correctnessthat Congress can in any way alter the rights orqv at ifieations of voters. The most that can be urged with any show of argument is, that the power might, in a given case, bo employed in such a manner as to promote the election ot some favorite candidate or favorite class of men in exclusion of others, by confining the places of election to particular districts, and rendering it impracticable for the citizens at laa ge to partake in tho choice —Ibid see. 820.

Mr. Hamilton is equally emphatic in his mode of disposing of the theory that would tolerate the interference of Congress in the regulation of elections in the States for State officers. In No. 59 of the Federalist, he says: Suppose an article had been introduced into the Constitution, empowering the United States to regulate the elections for the particular States, would any man have hesitated to condemn it, both as an unwarrantable transposition of power and as a premeditated engine for the destruction of the State governments?"

In the next number of the Federalist, speaking more at length on the subject of the propriety of allowing Congress to regulate the times, places, and manner of holding elections for Representatives in Congress, and of the alleged danger that Congress might so regulate them as to favor certain classes in the States, he further says:

The truth is, that there, is no method of securing to the rich the preference apprehended but by prescribing qualifications of property either for those who mjy elect or be elected. But this forms no part of the power to be. conferred upon the national Government. Its authority would be expressly restricted to the regulation of the times, the placcs, and the manner of elections. The qualifications of the persons who may choose to be chosen, as has been remarked upon another occasion, are defined ar iflxud in the Constitution; and are unalterable by the Legislature" [of the Union.]

These views in reference to the history and just interpretation of that provision are substantially concurred in by Mr. Duer, in his Lectures on Constitutional Jurisprudence, and by Mr. Curtis, in the work to which I have already referred, the History of the Constitution.

■Now I desire very briefly to direct the attention of the House to some additional testimony on this subject, derived from the proceedings of the Convention itself, as reported by James Madison. I propose from them to show that the interprteation for which I contend is the only true one, the only one of which the provision is fairly susceptible, and the only one which ever for a single istant entered the minds or controlled the action of the framers of the Constitution.

I invite attention now to what is called the fifth volume of Eliot s Debates. It is really the debates of the Constitutional Convention, prepared by Mr. Madison. While the subject was under discussion, on the 24th day of July, 1787, the following proceedings were had:

Mr. Gocverneur Mokkis moved to strikeout the last member of the section beginning with the words 'qualifications of electors,' in order that some other provision might be substituted which would restrain tho right of Miffrage to freeholders.

"Mr. Fitzsimmons s conded the motion.

"Mr. Williamson was opposed to it."

He was followed by Mr. Wilson, afterward one of the justices of the Supreme Court, appointed by Washington:

"Mr. Wilson. This part of the report was well considered by the committee, and he did not think it could be changed for the better. It was difficult to form any uniform rule of qualifications for all the States. Unnecessary innovations, he thought, too, should be avoided. It would be very hard and disagreeable for the same persons, at the s vme time, to vote for representatives in the State Legislature, and to bo excluded from a vote for those in the national Legislature.

Mr. Gouvekneuk Morris. Such ahardship would be neither great nor novel. The people are accustomed to it, anrl not dissatisfied with it, in several of the States. In some, the qualifications aredifiereDtforthechoiccof Governor and of the representatives: in others, for different houses of the Legista-. ture. Another objection to the clause a? it stands is, that it makes the qualifications of the national Legislature defend ontlie will of the States, which he thought not proper."'

Then we have Mr. Ellsworth, afterward the second Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States:

"Mr. Ellsworth thought the qualifications of the electors stood on the most proper footing, The right of suffrage was a tender point, and strongly guarded by most of the State constitutions. The people will not readily subscribe to thena national Constitution, if it should subject them to be disfranchised. The States are the bescjudgesof thecircuinstaneesand temper of their own people."

Some remarks were made by Colonel Mason, who was a distinguished member of the Convention from Virginia. After several other distinguished members had expressed their views and all in entire harmony with the views of Story and Hamilton, which I have quoted, James Madison, as reported by himself, used the following language:

"The right of suffrage is certainly one of the fundamental articles of republican government, and ought not to bo left to be regulated by the Legislature" [of the Union.]

The illustrious Dr. Franklin, a member of the Con vendor, in some characteristic remarks, opposed the motion of Mr. Morris, and gave the weight of his great influence to retain the provision as reported by the committee and as explained in the preceding discussion, iti the same connection I refer to the remarks of George Nicholas in the convention at Virginia. They are to be found in the third volume of Eliot s Debates, page 41:

MI will consider it first, then, its to the qualifications of the electors. The best writers on government agree that in a republic those Jaws which fix the right of suffrage are fundamental; if, therefore, by the proposed plan it is left uncertain in whom the right of suffrage is to rest, or if it has placed that light in improper hands,! shall admit that it is a radical detect; but in this plan there is a fixed rule for determining the qualifications of electors, and thatruiethe most judicious thateould possibly have been devised, because it refers to a criterion which cannot be changed. A. qualioco iion that gives a rightto elect representatives for the State LegisJaturesgives al o by thisconsritution a right to choose Representatives for the General Government. As thequajifieafcions- of electors are different in the different St teai ftO particular (salifications, uniform through the States, would have' been politic, as it would have caused a great inequality in the electors, resulting from the situation and circumstances of: the respective States. Uniformity of qualifications would greatly uifect the yeomanry in the States, as; it would either exclude from ihisinherentnghtsome, who are entitled to it by the laws of some States at; present, or be extendedso universally a? to defeatthe admirable end of the institution of representation." On a subsequent day, when the same provision was under consideration, Mr. Madison again expressed his views. I should not be disposed to refer to him again, but the honorble gentleman from .Massachusetts, [Mr. Boutwell J in his remarks the other day, quoted in detense of his own theory the remarks of Mr. Madison on the latter occasion, in order to show the entire consistency of those views •with Mr. Madison s more deliberately expressed opinion in the Federalist, 1 will incorporate a part of them into my argument.

Mr. Madison reports himself as saying:

"The necessity of a General Government supposes that the State Legislatures will sometimes fail or "refuse to consult the common interest at the expense ol their local convenience or prejudices. Tho policy of referring the appointment 01 the House of Representatives to the people, and not to the Legislatures ot the Srat es supposes that the result wiii be somewhat influenced by the mode. This view of thequestion seems to decide that the Legislatures of the States ought not to have the uncontrolled right of reguia mg the times, places, and manner of holding elecuoub. These were words of great latitude. It was impossible to foresee all the abuses that might be made of the discretionary power."

Now, I invite attention at this point to the obvious construction that was put by Mr. Madison upon these words, '*the times, the places, and the manner of holding elections." And it is clearly inferable, from what he says, that he understood these things to relate, not to the qualifications of electors, but to various circumstances connected with the holding of elections, not embracing the qualifications of electors at all. lie says further:

4* Whether the electors should vote by ballot or viva voce, should assemble at this place or that place, sfoou d be divided mt« districts or all meet at one place, should all vote for all the Representatives, or all in a district vote for a member allotted to the dis rict these and many other points would depend on the Legislatures and might materially affect the appointments. Whenever the State Legislatures ha i a favorite measure to carry they would takecare so to mold their regulations as to favor the candidates they wished to succeed.

Resides, the inequality of representation m the Legi 1 ttures of particular States would produce a like inequality m their representation in the national Legislature, and it was presumable that the counties, havingthe powerin the former case, would secure it to tsieui elves in the latter.

What danger would there be in giving acontrolling power to the national Legislature? Of whom was it to consist? First, ot a Senate, to be chosen by the State Legislatures. If thelatter, therefore could be trusted their Representatives could not. be dangerous. Secondly, of Representatives elected by the same people who elect! he State Legislatures. Surely, then, if confidence is due to the latter it mustbe due to the former. It seems as improper in principle, though it might be less inconvenient to practice, to give to the State Legislatures this great authority over the election of the .Representatives of the people in the General Legislature, as it would be to give to the latter a, like powerover the election of their Representatives in the State Legislature."

It should be borne in mind that the qualifications of electors for members of Congress and State officers were, at the time of the formation of our Constitution, fixed in every State in the constitution of the State, and were not subject to control or modification by the State Legislatures. All the State Legislatures could do could only consist in laws regulating the times, places, and manner of holding the elections. Lest they should in any contingency, or for any purpose or causes, fail to regulate these matters with reference to the election of Congressmen, it was thought necessary to give to Congress the power to regulate them, so that it might, prevent an entire failure of representation from any State. It is, therefore, no doubt competent for Congress to prescribe by law when the congressional elections shall be held in all the States, and at what places they shall be held, and in what manner they shall beheld; that is, whether the people of a whole State shall all vote for the number of 'Congressmen to which that State is entitled, or the State be divided into districts, and the people of each district vote for one member only, or whether

40tk Co w ')f> —No. 42. they shall vote by the secret ballot or vivavace. But Congress has no power to prescribe bylaw who shall vote or what shall constitute the qualifications of a voter for a member of Congress. Nor has it any power to dictate when or where or how elections shall be held for officers of the State government, or who shall vote at! them.

Now, I have cited or referred to every known expression of opinion on this subject by any American statesman, publicist, or jurist of distinction, and shown that they all, with a unanimity almost unparalleled, concur in the same interpretation of the power of Congress under the provision in question. The practice of the Government, without a single example to the contrary, sustains the same construction. Such an extent of power on this subject over the States as is now claimed for Congress, if it had been asserted by any party prior to our late most deplorable rebellion, would have convulsed the nation to its extremest boundaries with excitement and apprehension. It would have been more than sufficient, if avowed in the constitutional Convention, to have defeated forever the adoption of the Constitution by the people of the States. It will be sufficient now, if conceded to exist, to subvert the great principle of local self government which is the chief bulwark of our liberties.

Against the array of authorities to which I have referred in vindication of this great principle, against the absorbing power of Congress, what authority is produced? Not one clear, direct, or unequivocal authority in the whole range of American statesmanship or history can be found to the contrary. The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr Butler,] with the aid of his great legal and general learning, can sustain his position by nothing better than the following from 3 Eliot s Debates, page Mi, which is attributed to Mr. Madison:

"With respect to the other point it was thought that the regulation of the time, place, and manner of electing Representatives should bo uniform throughout the continent. Some States might regulate the elections on principles of equality and others might regulate them otherwise. This diversity would be obviously unjust. Elections are regulated now unequally in some States, particularly m South Carolina, with respect to Charleston, which has a representation of thirty members. Should the people of any State by any means be deprived ot the right ot suffrage, it wasjudged proper tint it should bo remIt by theGeiieral Government. Itwasfound impossible to fix the time, place, and manner of the election of Representatives in the Constitution. It was found necessary to leave the regulation of this, in the first place, to the State governments, as being best acquainted with the situation of the people subject to the control of the General Government, in order to enable it to produce uniformity and prevent its own dissolution. And considering the State government and General Government as distinct bodies, acting in different and independent capacities for the people, it was thought the particular regulations should be submitted to the former and the general regulations to the latter. Were they exclusivelyunder the control ot the State governments the General Government might easily bo dissolved. But if they be regulated properly by the State Legislatures the congressional control willvery probablynever be exercised, The power appears to me satisfactory and as unlikely to be abused as any part of the Constitution."*

This language is said to have been used by Mr. Madison, in the Virginia convention of 1788 for the ratification of the Constitution of the United States, at a time when the provision in question was under consideration in that body.

But let it be remembered that this extract is not the language of Mr. Madison, was not reported by him, and has never had his approval, "it is merely an attempt by some one to give the substance of what he said on the occasion referred to. It was not taken down by an official reporter. In the language of Mr. Elliott himself, "it was collected and revised from contemporaneous publications," long years after it was spoken, perhaps from some loose newspaper report made at the time, and was published. ,1 believe, in 1827. It bears intrinsic evidence of inexactness and want of authenticity. It makes Sir. Madison, whose This extract was aitubuicd to J tmes Madison, under date of June 14 17SS in t he V irtfima convention. i ideas when expressed by himself are always in words most carefully and fitly chosen, say that*' it was thought that the regulation of the time, place, and manner of electing 'Representatives should be uniform throughout the continent." Every expression in it is consistent with the prevailing idea through all the proceedings of the convention, that Congress should have no power to fix qualifications of voters in the Sfat es either for State officers or for Representatives in Congress. It might regulate the mode of holding the elections for Representatives, so as to prevent a failure of representation. As to this mode of holding elections, as Mr. Madison said, some States might regulate it on principles of equality, and others, by various regulations as to the times and places where the elections should be held, might make them affect unequally the people of certain sections of a State, and be therefore unjust. But Congress, having no motive to so regulate these times and placesas to make them bear unequally on different sections in a State, could properly be intrusted with th ir control as to congressional elections. But with all its manifest looseness and inexactness of form, every sentence in this extract is readily reconcilable with the more deliberate and selfwritten judgments of Mr. Madison and all the other fathers and sages to whom I have referred. I unhesitatingly affirm, therefore, that it wholly fails to justify in any degree the structure erected upon it by the honorable gentleman. On the contrary, taken in connection with all I have shown, it stamps the whole theory of the honorable gentleman as most dangerous and revolutionary.

But the gentleman from Massachusetts, with great emphasis, refers to certain general expressionsin the writings of Madison, Hamilton, and others, to the effect, using the words of Hamilton when referring to this very provision, that "its propriety rests upon the evidence of this plain proposition: that every Government ought to contain in itself the means of its own preservation." Upon the authority of this and like expressions he attempts to array the fathers in support of this revolutionary bill. The attempt, in my judgment, involves a most unfair if not intentional perversion of the sentiments of those great men. This wicked perversion is made impressively manifest by placing in 'juxtaposition the more specific declarations of opinion by the same great statesmen, Mr. Hamilton, on thissubjectin the same and succeeding numbers of the Federalist. He says:

"Suppose an article had been introduced into the Constitution empowering the United States to regulate the elections for the particular States, would any man h ivo hesitated to condemn it. both as :'n unwarrantable transposition of power and as a premeditated engine for the destruction of the State governments —2 o 59.

And in the next number, written on the same subject, in replying to the enemies of the Constitution, who had alleged against it that Congress might so regulate elections as to favor or prefer the rich over the poor, he says:

"The truth is, there is no method of securing to the rich the preference apprehended bulbyprescnbliiff qualification*; oj properly tilhei jor tho e icl O elect or be elected. But this formno part oj the power to be conferred upon the national Qoveruntt nt Its authority would be expressly restricted to the regulation of the times, the places, and the manner of elections. The qualif cations of the persons who may choose or be chosen, as has been remarked upon another occasion, are defined and fixed in the Ooo^- stitution, and tire unalterable by the Legislature [of the Union.]

Could language be more explicit and unambiguous? What becomes of the gentleman s repeated declaration that the friends ot the adoption of the Constitution had never denied the construction placed upon the provision referred to by its enemies? The truth is. ill'. Speaker, it was always denied by them. It was strained and exaggerated by the opponents of the Constitution, in order to alarm die people and defeat i r ratification, and it is now entitled to no consideration whatever.

Tliou, what do those expressions mean? Tnov' tnap i estb and only mean tb«t the States might fail to provide i oi flections at all, or might so organize the States into districts and. election precincts as to defeat the will of the majority and give excessive and unfair representation to minorities in this House, precisely what the Radical party have been doing to an unprecedented and most disgraceful extent in all the States of the Union in which they have had political control for the last few years. The friends of the adoption of the Constitution favored and defended this power of regulation of the times, places, and manner of holding elections for members of Congress, on the ground that Congress, in order to secure equal representation of the people in this House, might enact such regulations on these subjects as to prevent the perpetration of just such political frauds, the great fraud of gerrymandering," and like devices of unscrupulous partisans.

Bat it is also urged that there are citizens of the United States in Kentucky and Maryland and other States (negroes) who might become President of the United States and yet cannot vote. The only requisites for eligibility to the Presidency are citizenship of the United States, age, and residence. Sex is no disqualification in terms. Itis, therefore, equally true thatthere are in Massachusetts and the other States millions of white women, and in Rhode Island and under the infamous laws of Missouri and in other States thousands of white men, all equally citizens of the United States, who are eligible, upon the theory of the gentleman from Massachusetts, to the Presidency, and yet cannot vote. But these facts give Congress, no, new power, and do not change the Constitution.

And if the theory of the gentleman is tenable that citizenship of the United States confers the right of suffrage, then every ex rebel in the South is wrongfully denied that right, and in violation of the Constitution, because they are all citizens under the express and most explicit language of the fourteenth amendment, and any one of them having the required age and period of residence may be elected President, and especially if he is not embraced in the disqualification to hold office contained in the third section of that amendment, and yet he cannot vote. Again, if citizenship alone entitles to suffrage, and Congress has power to secure it to all, then every disfranchised man in Missouri, West Virginia, Tennessee, and the other States of the South, is entitled to it and Congress ought to enable them to enjoy it, for they are all citizens of the United States, and cannot vote. Again, on the same theory the vilest criminal behind prison bars in the country is entitled to vote, because he is a citizen of the United States, and if he have the prescribed age and residence might be elected President, butyet he cannotvote. There is 110 power on earth that can decitizenize a citizen of the United States except himself, l y voluntary expatriation. It cannot be done as a punishment for crime. The vilest criminal is entitled, by reason of his citizenship, to demand the protection of the law to a certain extent.

But, another of the startling propositions announced by the gentleman from Massachusetts and embodied in this bill asserts that there are now in this Union no States whose governments are republican in form, and that it has therefore become now th o duty of the United States" to guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of government," and that in the execution of this guarantee Congress has power to form, dictate to, and force upon the States such local constitutions as in its own discretion, distempered judgment, or partisan will shall meet this guarantee. The mere statement of this proposition makes its revolting and despotic character alarmingly apparent.

This provision supplies no justification whatever for the monstrous policy of these measures. It gives Congress no shadow of right to dictate constitutions to States of this Union. Every contemporaneous interpretation of it is utterly inconsistent with any such idea. Our forefathers never tolerated by any act of theirs any such invasion by fjorigresg of the primary and inalienable right of self government in the people. In its true intent and spiritthis provision is rather designed to prohibit just such changes in the local governments as the pending measures contemplate. Hamilton says, "thisguarantee could only operate against changes to be effected by violenceand that it is "as much directed against the usurpation of rulers as against the ferments and outrages of faction and sedition in the community." Mr. Madison says:

"The authority extends no further than to a guarantee of a republican form of government which supposes a firee eisZinfi government of the form which is to bo guarantied. As long, therefore, as the existing republican forms are continued by the States they are guarantied by the .Federal Government. Whenever the State may choose to substitute other republican forms they have a right to do so, and to claim the Federal guarantee for the latter."

In these views Judge Story fully concurs.

If this power exists then our Government (Federal) is a perfected despotism, and Congress is our dictator and despot. If Congress can declare certain State regulations now existing to be anti-republican, and compel the acceptance by the States of such substitutes as it may dictate on the subject of suffrage, it may to morrow adjudge the latter or others to be anti-republican, and prescribe new organic laws to the States; and if the judgment of Congress is the only test of republican institutions they are liable to change in all the States as often as from any cause that judgment changes; and they would be subject to most material alterations as often as the ascendency of political parties in Congress changes. These changes in any case, on this theory, can only be limited by the varying will of Congress. They may, therefore, embrace in their operation all the laws of descent, of contracts, of marriage, of trial and punishment for crime, and for choosing judges or organizing a judiciary, and almost all others in any State, l Thus the boasted and cherished right of local selfgovernment in this country becomes a myth, a delusion, and a cruel fraud; a fraud, because no State foreseeing such a result would ever have become a party to such a union or would ever have consented thus to commit State suicide. In the language of Mr. Hamilton, any such proposition would have been regarded by every one "as a premediated engine for the destruction of the State governments."

The second section of the fourteenth amendment, in the most direct and conclusive terms, recognizes and reaffirms the original and undelegated right of the States to control the suffrage. It would have been a signal and unprecedented act of stultification for any Congress to propose or any people to ratify such a section, if, at the same time, they claimed or believed the supreme power to regulate suffrage to be in Congress. It involves the absurdity of a solemn constitutional declaration that if the States enact a void law on the subject of suffrage the representation of their people in Congress shall be reduced, although Congress can instantly supply a perfect remedy, and totally annul the State law and give suffrage, in fact, to whom it pleases. Such a construction appears to me to be weak, foolish, and offensive to the just dignity of all legislation, and especially to the solemnity of any constitutional enactment. You would deny representation, a right of the utmost intrinsic value, to the very classes whom the States should vainly attempt but wholly fail to deprive of suffrage.

But the gentleman from Massachusetts Jias discovered that this denial of representation was intended to be "a mere political penalty for doing what the first section declares shall not be done." A penalty against whom? How is it to be enforced? A State withholds suffrage from its citizens of African descent; Congress then at once interposes and confers that suffrage. It is then in fact enjoyed by those citizens. Can Congress then reduce such a State s representation in this House? Certainly not. Must Congress, then, stand by and permit the wrongs, against which it might afford instant remedy, to be done and suffered in order to enable it to inflict the penalty? Did the people intend such absurdities in the enactment of this section? No, Mr. Speaker, they merely recognized an existing right, and power in the respective States, and then presented to them increased representation as an inducement to increased liberality in the regulation of suffrage. That is all. That is consistent with the rights of the States and with just and rational interpretation. It is consistent with the solemn declaration of the Republican party in the Chicago convention, that" the question of suffrage in all the loyal States properly belongs to the people of those States." It is also consistent with the ten thousand times repeated declarations of that party and of all its leading men and organs to the same effect. This construction is necessary now to protect them against the charge and guilt of insincerity and false professions in the past, and a wicked and premeditated purpose thereby to deceive the people, and upon false pretenses to secure and retain political power in the country. If they were honest in the past, the present movement involves a very miraculous conversion or the most disgraceful infidelity to solemn pledges and declarations of principles. It appears to me, Mr. Speaker, that the proposed new amendment which accompanies this bill is justly subject to the same charge of bad faith, and therefore, as well as for its inherent viciousness, ought not to be proposed to the States.

Over a year ago a bill almost identical in legal effect and nearly so in terms was introduced in this House by the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Bboomall,] and discussed by him, and briefly by myself. I then (March 18, 1868) thought it my duty, together with other views, to say:

"Mr. Speaker, the gentleman who Inst addressed the House on this bill [Mr. Kelley] assumes that it is not now a partisan question whether suffrage should be extended to all the States of this Union by act of Congress. I believe myself it is not. From what we have heard here to day I am prepared to asreeyith him that it is not now a party question on that side of the House whether this bill shall pass or not. But I infer from what he said, and I believe it to be true, that the moment the majority of this House feel that they have the power to enact a bill of this kind they will do it just as certainly as tluxt God lives. It is to day the settled purpose of the party to introduce and pass abill of this kind just as soon as possible."

I see no reason now, Mr. Speaker, to change this opinion. On the contrary, it gathers daily confirmation from passing events. It may be that this bill did not have its origin in partisan motives, but I think very few candid observers will attribute it to any other or higher origin. The maintenance of power by the Republican party seems to be the chief aim of this bill.

The fourth section of the bill purports to be designed to enforce the third section of the fourteenth amendment, which disqualifies certain persons to hold office, and it declares that any person who takes office contrary to that section shall be held guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction shall be imprisoned at hard labor for two years. This penal section in the gentleman s bill inspires in my mind emotions of disgust and horror. It carries my mind back to ages of barbarism, and recalls the truculent and merciless persecutions, proscriptions, and punishments inflicted by successful chiefs upon their subjugated enemies, Itis unworthy of this age, and would be an eternal shame to r ur country. Better instantly remove all disabilities from every ex rebel in the country. Practice mercy, notvengeance. Do justice without this indiscriminate cruelty. If you will not do these things, then at least leave the third section of the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution to execute itself by the sufficient aid of the Federal judiciary. It needs no more. Common humanity and decent justice forbid that you shall refuse this much.