February 4, 1869

The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, resumed the consideration of the joint resolution (IT. R. No. 402) proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. FERRY. Mr. President, I ask the Clerk to read the resolution of the House of Representatives as it will stand if amended as proposed by the Senator from Nevada, [Mr. Stewart.]

The Chief Ci ebk The resolution if amended as proposed will read as follows:

Article XV.

Section 1. The right of citizens of tho United States tovoto and hold ofliooshallnotbodeniedorabridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Mr. FERRY. Mr. President, it was my intention, when I sought the floor upon this resolution as reported by the Committee on the Judiciary, to address myself to a considerable degree to the merits of the proposed amendment to the Constitution; butthe course which the debate has taken seems to have rendered such a discussion in a degree superfluous. Every Senator who has spoken against the resolution has placed his opposition not upon its merits or demerits, but upon the particular mode of submission to the people provided for, or upon other technicalities surrounding the subject, instead of upon the subject itself.

The Senator from Kentucky, [Mr. Davis,] lifting no voice now against the extension of the suffrage, simply denies the capacity of Congress to propose amendments to the Constitution at all, because there yet remain a few of the States unrepresentedinthenational Legislature. The Senatorfrom Indiana, [Mr. Hendricks,] silent now with regard to the capacity of the disfranchised class for self government bases his opposition to the resolution of the committee on the technical doctrine of estoppel, drawn from his familiarity with the law. And my colleague, [Mr. Dixon,] twice during the last fifteen years committed by his votes to the extension of the suffrage to the extent proposed in the resolution, cannot oppose himself to its principle, but seeks by indirection to accomplish its defeat.

A great change has come over the minds of the Opposition since the voice of the people of this land was heard last autumn upon the questions involved in this amendment. A year ago opprobrious nicknames applied to the class of citizens whom it is now proposed to enfranchise, denials of the capacity and almost of the humanity of the negro, appeals to popular prejudice, were the staple of the argument which we heard against the beneficent measure now, brought tb the co nsWbraticm of this body.

But since that period a change has come over the vision of the opponents of this measure; and now no voice is raised in denial of its expediency or its justice considered in itself, but only against the method in which it is proposed that the measure shall be accomplished. And, sir, there is good reason for this change. Within a year the people of the United States, in their ratification at the polls of the action of Congress upon the question of reconstruction, have decided that four fifths of the colored men of this country shall henceforth enjoy all the civil and political rights of American citizens. To day five bundled thousand ballots in the hands of colored citizens have a voice more potent than had a year ago the unsupported claims of right upon the consciences and the action of those who then as now opposed the extension of the suffrage.

But although the hostility which is developed to the resolution is changed in the mode of its manifestation, it is not changed in itself in any particular. As I have intimated, what formerly it sought to attain by a denial of the common rights of manhood it now seeks to accomplish by indirection and by technicalities.

The first of the technicalities is the one which was urged by the Senator from Indiana. We are estopped, is the purport of his argument, from proposing to the people of the nation a great and beneficent change in the fundamental law, because a convention of a political party almost a year ago pledged that party, according to the construction ©f the Senator, against any such change. This doctrine of estoppel, which lawyers who have no other defense in their causes find so easy to set up, and whose principle is that though the defendant has no just ground to resist the claim that is made upon him yet the plaintiff has said or done something which shall preclude him from enforcing it—this technical doctrine of estoppel isgravely urged upon the consideration of the Senate as if any action of a political convention were competent to bind the action of the Congress of the United States. No matter what parties in convention may declare to be their view of what ought to be the course of legislation in this nation, I as a legislator have the right to propose what changes in our law, ordinary or organic, I may choose; and I and all of us have the right, and it is our bounden duty, if those changes are required by grave considerations of public interest, to advocate and to vote for those changes.

But, sir, it is not true that the Chicago platform does contain anything in contravention of the amendment to the Constitution which is now proposed by the Committee on the Judiciary. The Senator read from the second resolution of the Chicago platform as follows:

The guarantee by Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal men at the South was demanded by every consideration of public safety, of gratitude, and of justice, and must be maintained, while the question of suffrage in all the loyal Statos properly belongs to the people of those States."

And he avers that the concluding portion of this resolution binds the Republican members of Congress neither to adopt nor propose any amendment to the Constitution of the United States looking to the extension of the suffrage. Why, sir, the resolution is of directly the contrary purport. What is it in sum and substance? It makes a distinction between the loyal and the lately rebel States in regard to the extension of the suffrage in them respectively. Adhering—for at that time the fourteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States had not been fully ratified—to the construction of the Constitution familiar to every one since the foundation of the Government on that question, it declared that in those States whose people had renounced their rights under the Federal Constitution, by rebellion against the sovereignty of the United States, must submit to the legislation of Congress in regard to their social reorganization; while at the same time it declared that the people of the loyal States, in which all the guaranty of the Cbnstitution retained their vigor, should themselves have control of any change of their organic laws in this respect, whether effected by amendment of the Constitution of the United States or of any individual State.

The substantial thing declared was, that in the loyal States any change ofthe suffrage should be wrought out by constitutional amendment to be submitted, to the people in the rebel States, whose people had abjured their privileges under the Constitution by rebellion, they must submit to the legislation of Congress in their social reorganization; and that is all there is of it. The sole distinction is this distinction between the people of these two classes of States; and as to which mode of submitting the question to the people of the loyal States should beadopted, through an amendment to the Constitution of the United States or through an amendment to the constitutions of their respective States, is a simple question of expediency. In the language of the Chicago resolution, the proposal to the people of the United States of an amendment extending suffrage is a giving to the people of the States the decision of that question. The fathers meantto give it to them when they framed the Constitution. By fourteen successive articles of amendment we have submitted alteration, after alteration in this mode to the people, and now upon this question of the extension of the suffrage we have only to ask, is it better and wiser and more expedient to submit an amendment of the Constitution ofthe United States, to be ratified by the people at once, or amendments of the State constitutions, to be ratified at various periods by the people of the States respectively? In deciding this question of expediency the answer seems to me to be apparent. What do we want to change the constitution of a State or of the United States at all for in this respect? If we need the change at all it is because there is an evil existing in theland which calls for a remedy. Those ofus whosustainthisamendmentbelieve that such an evil exists J and that evil is, that in eighteen out of the thirty seven States a class of citizens of the United States is deprived of its natural rights by local laws; and we believe that this oppression—a remnant of slavery— should be removed from an innocent, a lawabiding, and a useful class of our fellow-citizens. If it be such an evil it should be removed in the manner speediest and surest, It may be removed by constitutional means, either by an amendment to the Constitution of the United States or by the process of successive amendments of the constitutions of theseveral States. But it exists in eighteen States. The action of no one State can affect the action of any other. Nothing can reach them all so quickly or in a manner so accordant with a wise expediency as an amendment to the fundamental law of the Republic itself which shall place all its citizens upon the same footing of equal political rights.

It is in this respect similar to the amendment, for which my colleague voted, abolishing slavery in the States. That was a matter within State jurisdiction and which might have been left for the several States themselves to remove by amendment of their respective constitutions; but it existed in fifteen States; the experience of the nation from its very beginning had shown that the evil was real, and the intervention of Congress by the proposal to the whole people of an amendment to the Constitution ofthe United States was the mode adopted -here and approved by the people, The same reason which then called for the intervention of this power to amend the Con stitution of the United States so that slavery should be abolished now calls for the intervention of the same power so that disfranchisement shall also be abolished.

But, sir, this is not all. The entire principle which underlies this amendment was affirmed by the people of the United States in November last, not merely by the people of New England and New York, but it was distinctly and positively affirmed by the people of Indiana, in whose name the Senator [Mr. -Hendricks] spoke so earnestly. For what is the principle that underlies this amendment? It is neither more nor less than this: that every citizen of the United States, both as respects civil and political rights, shall stand upon the same footing of equality before the law. In the Chicago platform, in the very resolution which the Senator read, isan expression oftheopinion of the Republican party upon this subject:

The guarantee by Congress of equal suffrage to all loyal men at the South was demanded by every consideration of public safety, of gratitude, and of justice, and must be maintained.",.

That is, every consideration of public safety, of gratitude, and of justice required that the suffrage should be extended, as it liad been extended by the reconstruction laws, to four fifths of the colored population of the United States, and once extended thus it was the bounden duty of the Government to maintain it. It cannot be said that upon this branch of the resolutions of the Chicago convention the people of Indiana and the people of all the States did not express themselves. The reconstruction acts, in all their parts, were argued everywhere. The sanction of the people was invoked for them in all their details; and above all and more than all was the sanction of the peopl e invoked for that greatest of all their principles, the extension of equal political rights to every citizen of the Republic; and the people all over the land, in November last, declared that every consideration of safety, of gratitude, and of justice, requires that the ballot should be given to half a million of the colored men of this country. The principle of the extension of the suffrage, therefore, was indorsed fairly and squarely by the people of the United Stales in the recent presidential election.

But there is a resolution of the Chicago convention which the Senator from Indiana and my colleague did not read. Not only did that convention, by declaring its affirmance of the principle of extended suffrage as applied to the southern States, affirm the principle of the amendment now proposed, but it declared its adherence to the same in its application to every State, North and South alike; for, after adopting the second resolution in reference to the question of suffrage, the convention went on to adopt the fourteenth resolution:

"Recognizing the great principles laid down in tlie Declaration of Independence as the true foundation of democratic Government, and hailing with gladness every effort toward making these principles a living reality on every inch of American soil."

What is the meaning of that fourteenth resolution? Why did l that convention, with unanimous applause, spring to its feet and shout its affirmation of that resolution as the cap stone of all the rest? It was because that in it the principle of extended suffrage and equal political rights throughout all this land was unequivocally proclaimed; because in that resolution we recognized again (and it never can be recognized too often) the fundamental principle upon which our system rests, that all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Democrats sneer nowadays at the Declaration of Independence. But the words are not true merely because they are contained in that instrument. They have "an older origin than that. They go back through eighteen centuries to the time when He who spake as never man spake first proclaimed the principles ot human brotherhood and human equality to the rude Galilean peasants. And those principles, affirmed thus in the Chicago platform, went forth to the people of this land last November, and from the lakes to the Gulf, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the people ratified them. And now, sir, we, the Congress of the United States, in proposing this amendment, are but doing what our masters in November bade us do; and it is too late for Senators to stand here higgling about estoppels and technicalities. When nineteen States of this Republic have already granted to the men of that other race whom we have oppressed so l ng both civil and political rights, every man, however short his vision, can see the consummation of universal liberty rapidly drawingnigtu But leaving the ground taken by the Senator from Indiana I come to t he position occupied by my colleague. Whether auythirtgfwhieh has been done by the Chicago convention operates as ah estoppel upon us or not, whether the objections to details) presented by the Senator from Indiana ought to prevail or tiotj i«y colleague has an additional objection; to it that the mode of submitting the proposed amendment is somehow unjust; unfair, and improper; and to obviate this he proposes to amend th& resolution by striking 6ut the word "Legislatures" and inserting the word "conventions," so that, the amendment shall be referred to conventions of the people of the States for ratification instead of being referred to the Legislatures. I confess that I felt some degree of surprise at the language employed by my colleague, and echoed by the Senator from Indiana, as to the effect of the resolution in the manner of its submission of the amendment to the Legislatures; for the whole tenor of their argument was to denounce such a mode of submission as contrary to what my colleague termed the fundamental principles of republican government and calculated to subvert republican institutions everywhere. Sir, these gentlemen, since I have been in this body, lmve been stout sticklers for the Constitution of the United States. My colleague has walked nori passibus emiis in the footsteps of the occupant of the White House ia his devotion to that instrument, and yet it, would be hard to believe, after listening to his denunciation of the proposed mode of submission in this resolution, that that mode is in strict conformity with the Constitution; that it is the mode in which fourteen amendments, one after the other, have been submitted to the people, and that never before has any man dreamed that when the Legislatures had ratified an amendment to the Constitution it had not received the popular sanction. But my colleague would submit this amendment to conventions of delegates of the people of the States.

Why has that mode never been adopted hitherto? The answer to this question will show why it ought not to be adopted now. Where an evil exists of such grave magnitude as to demand the interposition of the people themselves by way of change of their organic law it is an evil which ought to be corrected speedily. The Constitution has provided for its speediest correction by the submission of an amendment to the Legislatures. It has given the power indeed of submission to conventions: but Congress and the people never have used that power, because the machinery of conventions was dilatory, expensive, and unwise. Observe how it works: in the first place, your proposed amendment goes out. The Legislatures of the States convene, and they are to frame laws calling together conventions. There may be a thousand reasons outside of the proposed amendment why no convention should be held. If a convention is once assembled you cannot limit its power to the simple amendment which you are jiroposing to it. It may go on to amend your State constitution and to subvert the whole machinery of your State government, and there is no power in your State to stop it. The States, irrespective of the particular question referred, may be unwilling to assemble a convention w tL these extraordinary powers. But suppose ti ey do pass their laws for that object. I Then the people must hold an election, and at a due period afterward the conventions must assemble, thus interposing a delay, it mavbe, of years before the evil can be removed which the amendment is proposed in order to remove. In addition to all this, at this time, when the States as well as the nation are borne down with the heavy burden of debt which rests upon them, to require the assembling of thirty seven constitutional conventions at an expense of miliionsof dollars to the already over burdened people ia thati which nothing but a politician s afterthought, it seems to me, would have suggested as the mode of ratifying art amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

The only reason given for the submission to conventions instead of Legislatures which has a shadow of reason in it is that most of the Legislatures were chosen, at the last autumn elections j that they were not chosen with reference tct the proposed amendment, and that therefore new elections either of Legislature^ or conventions ought to be- bad at a time when the people would, have the proposition distinctly in their contemplation. But, sir, I have already, shown, or else I have failed in the first branch of my argument, that this whole subjectmatter was distinctly before the people in the elections of last November, and the men who chose the Legislatures knew when they voted for the Republican majorities in them that they Stood by that Chicago platform which declares the principle of universal suffrage, without distinction ot race, to be demanded by every consideration of gratitude and public expediency, and which declares further that it "hails with gladness every effort toward making these princples a living reality on every inch of American. soil.", So that the reason adduced by my colleague fails.

But, again, fourteen amendments of the Constitution of the United States have been submitted. In every instance they have been submitted to Legislatures; and in every instance, without exception, an examination of the record shows that a majority of those Legislatures had been chosen before the proposed amendment was sent out to the people. And therefore the amendment proposed by my colleague is one which departs from all the usages of the Government, and without any reason which has not always existed for such departure. It is admitted, indeed, that the objection that the Legislatures are already chosen does not apply to Connecticut, for its Legislature is yet to be elected. The canvass for that election has already begun, and the telegraph this morning brings from the Republicans of Connecticut, assembled in convention yesterday, no uncertain sound upon this great subject. Fairly and squarely they have gone before the people of my State upon the issue presented by this amendment. Therefore there, at least, the preceding objections which I have already considered to the mode of ratification do not apply, and my colleague, whose ingenuity I cannot but admire, although I distrust his logic, baa discovered still another difficulty in the mode of submission proposed by the resolution of the committee, based upon the peculiarities of the system of representation in Connecticut, lie told us, when he introduced his amendment-—

"Xhe reasons for this f will not givo now at any length; but I will barely stute that it seems to mcso important a proposition as this should bo ratified by bodies selected for that very purpose. In my own State it is peculiarly important, because in the first placo the Logislaturo in that as in other States is not chosen for ttiat purpose; and then again, as is well known, the Legislature of the Stnta of Connecticut does not represent the people in consequence of the peculiar mode ot our representation."

Again, he spoke of" our unfortunate—I may say rotten—borough system of representation." What is he going to gain by the adoption of his amendment, even if all that he says be true regarding the system of representation in Connecticut? The convention which, under his amendment, would be called by the Legislature, will be composed of delegates from the towns precisely as the house of representatives in the General Assembly is chosen now, or else that system must, by some authority, be changed. We have had two conventions of the people of Connecticut; one in 1787, to ratify the Constitution of the United States, and one in 1818, to make a new constitution for ourselves and in both instances the conventions were composed of delegates from the towns. But that is the very difficulty which my colleague finds with the system of representation in Connecticut, because one house of the General Assembly is composed of delegates from the towns; And what' is his remedy for that? For such a stickler for State rights as he has become within the last year, for a Senator who stands up before this body and speaks of Connecticut as "an independent republic," the first remedy which he proposed upon the offering of his amendment was certainly a novelty. I n the course of his argument upon the introduction of his amendment I interposed, and this occurred between us:•

"Mr. Fkkry. I wish it to be understood that the drift of my colleague s argument is, that in submitting this amendment to the Constitution to the people of Connecticut he would have our system of representation changed, not by the act of the people of that State, but by act of Congress. Such is the drift of his argument.

"Mr. Dixon. One word further, with the consent of the Senate, on that question. I do not know that there is any other method of changing the mode of representation. Perhaps it might bo submitted to the Legislature, I do not know but that Congress would have power to authorize the Legislature to point out the. mode in which the convention should be chosen; but at any rate, if Congress is to do it, it should be remembered that it is to do it by existing power and authority. If the power exists in Congress, then thereis nothingvery shocking to my mind in the exercise of the power."

So that while my colleague is shocked at a proposition to amend the Constitution of the United States, proposed by Congress according to the very letter and spirit of the Constitution, and regards it as an assault upon the independent sovereignty of Connecticut, he is yet wilting that this very Congress shall interfere with the institutions of our State even so far as to change our system of representation. But upon reflection, the next day, he abandons the remedy which in his zeal he had first devised, and now proposes another, that the amendment shall be submitted to a convention, which, I take it for granted from the drift of his argument he expects the Legislature of Connecticut to provide shall notbe composed of delegates from the towns, like the conventions of 1787 and 1818, bat upon a new system which shall more accord with his ideas of popular representation.

Now, sir, let us see whether there is any necessity for all this. The whole idea which my colleague entertains with regard to the system of representation in Connecticut is founded, in my judgment, on an utter misapprehension of what that system is.

It should be borne in mind that the essential function of a State is local self government whereby those concerns which most nearly and continually affect the people are brought directly undertheir own control. The more completely this is accomplished, and the greater the share of the functions of government which is reserved to the people in their primary capacities, consistently with the general welfare, the more perfectly the proper end of State governments will be attained. And this is precisely what is aimed at in Connecticut. With us the town is the unit of government. Four fifths of the proper functions of government are performed by the whole body of the people, assembled according to certain prescribed modes, in town meeting. The important subjects of taxation, education, pauperism, of internal communication by highways and bridges, with many others, are there discussed and settled. In the language of the statute," the inhabitants of the respective towns, in legal meeting assembled, have power to make such orders, rules, and regulations for the welfare of the towns as they may deem expedient." Thus the town meeting is at once a local legislature and a pure democracy. In addition to this, in every town exists an executive and judicial department of government, chosen by the same democracy, and if the Federal and State governments were to be suddenly annihilated these little atonomies, if unmolested from abroad, would be entirely capable of performing all the functions of society.

This system began, sir, when there were but three towns in the ancient colony of Connecticut; for two hundred and thirty years it has brought out for our people almost unmixed good. It has fostered economy, diffused intelligence, and generated and maintained a spirit of individual freedom which lies at the found* ation of our wonderful industrial prosperity. The people of Connecticut will never voluntarily surrender it or put it in peril. On the contrary they will jealously cherish the safeguards which they have thrown around .it to the last. Chief among those safeguards is our system of representation, by which the towns are made the constituency of one branch of the Legislature. For a brief period they lost it, while the charter- lay hidden in the old oak at Hartford, and Sir Edmund Andrns lorded it over New England. But when the revolution of 1688 had disposed both of him and his master, the charter was again brought out to the light, the towns resumed their functionsin the representative system, and as the threats of Sir Edmund could not, so the blandishments of my colleague will not, induce the people of my State to abandon it.

Yet they have by no means lost sight of the principle of popular representation. My colleague seems to forget that there are two branches of the General Assembly of Connecticut, and that while the towns are represented in one representation by population prevails in the other, and both must concur in a constitutional amendment. The constitution of Connecticut provides that the State shall be divided into districts for the choice of Senators, and the General Assemby shall determine what number shall be elected in each, regard being had to the population in them; and after each census the Assembly shall have power to alter the same if found necessary to preserve a proper equality between said districts in respect to the number of inhabitants therein. The Senators, like the Representatives, are chosen annually, with the same powers and privileges, and thus are able to preserve the equilibrium between the influence of population and that of the towns. Thus to the Legislature of Connecticut, above all, should an amendmentoftheConstitutionofthe United States be submitted, it meets in the one House the representatives of the town democracies and challenges their approval, and, as if to gain a double assurance, presents itself next in the Senate to the representatives of population, without whose added ratification it fails to gain the assent of the Legislature.

This brief sketch of thesystem of representation in Connecticut demonstrates the entire fallacy of the argument of my colleague as applied t o the submission of the proposed amendment of the Constitution to the people of that State. The amendment is to go out to that people now just upon the eve of an election, and it goes with the indorsement of the Republican party of Connecticut; and if the people of Connecticut do not sanction it, they will choose a Legislature that will vote that party down; and there, before that people, I and they are willing to meet those who dare not meet us face to face upon the merits of this proposition, but seek now by indirection and technicalities to evade it.

But my colleague, as a final stroke in his assault upon this beneficent measure, lifts up again that old battle cry which I thought had gone down forever with the overthrow of the rebellion. Adopt your amendment to the Constitution, he says, and Connecticut ceases to be an independent republic. When was she one? If my State has ever been an independent republic, in his life time or in mine, J have not known it. I heard in the other House before the war began men who were plotting to wrench this Republic asunder talk about the independent republics of South Carolina and Georgia and Mississippi and Alabama— those utterances came from the lips of such men as Keitt and Crawford and Barksdaleand Davis— but sir, I did not expect now, after that fierce struggle is over, that my colleague would strike hands with those who in the spring of 1801, claiming to represent the Democracy of Connecticut, and under the lead of Burr and Seymour and Eaton proclaimed that this Government was without the power to put down a rebellion, because every State was an independent republic, and had a right to secede at its pleasure. No, sir; the people of Connecticut, ■when South Carolina proclaimed that doctrine, did not believe it. I resisted it in Coagress before the war; 1 resisted it before; my people in the spring of 1861; and when the assertion of the sovereignty of the independent republics ofthe South flamed out into rebellion and threatened to devour the national sovereignty a million of the young men of this nation went out to meet it, and to trample it down in bloody mire forever; and now when we simply propose to extend to an innocent, a law abiding an industrious, a peaceful portion of the citizens of the United States rights which God gave them, and of which man for generations has deprived tbetn, my colleague raises the old cry of State sovereignty and independent republics to cast odium upon it.*

Mr. DIXON. I am sorry to interrupt ray colleague, but if he will allow me, as he has appealed to me on this subject, I will say a word.

Mr. FERRY. Certainly.

Mr. DIXON. Mr. President, my Colleague objects to

Mr. FERRY. J am not through; but I am willing my colleague shall ask me any question or make any explanation. If it is to be a long explanation I prefer that he should wait until I get through.

Mr. DIXON. I wish to be heard only briefly on this point.

Mr. FERRY. Perhaps my colleague had better wait until I get through.

Mr. DIXON. Very well.

Mr. FERRY. No, sir; this pretense that the independence of Connecticut is to be demolished by doing right to a portion of her citizens seems to me like the politician s afterthought, as 1 said before; for, committed as he is to the rectitude of the principle involved in this amendment, some mode must be devised of awakening prejudice other than by the old cry against the negro, in order to escape from the position in which he is placed by his new party affiliations. What limitation is put upon such independence as remains to Connecticut since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States by this amendment differing in principle from the limitations already imposed by that instrument? How came the Constitution to be adopted at all? Sir, it was because Connecticut and the other States were too independent under the old confederation. They were independent enough to do wrong. They were independent enough to refuse plighted faith. They wereindependent enough to neglect to support the Government which they had created, by obedience to its requisitions. They were independent enough to break down the general welfare by imposing onerous taxes upon the trade of each other. And, therefore, the people chose a convention to make for us a constitution which should limit this independent capacity of doing wrong.

I was about to refer to the different articles and clauses of the Constitution which place these limitations upon the power of the States thus to detract from the general welfare. I will not take the time. They are familiar to us all.' There have been amendments adopted to the Constitution for the same purpose. When experience has shown that the States retained the power to do wrong, and exercised it to the general injury, the people have amended their Constitution and limited that power. Most conspicuous of all these recent limitations was that which took away the power originally left by the Constitution in the States to inflict slavery upon man. It was a power that the States had to do wrong, and the people by eoastitutionalamendment ookitaway Now there is left behind another powerto the States to do wrong—a power instead of enslaving the laboring masses of society to disfranchise them; and that power .the amendment pending proposes to take away, and nothing more.

Mr. DIXON. I am sorry to interrupt my colleague, but with his permission I will ask him a single question at this stage.•

Mr. FERRY. Certainly.

Mr. DIXON. I wish to inquire of my oolleague if I understand him correctly that he now denies that the State of Connecticut ig an independent republic?

Mr. FERRY; I do.

M r DIXON. He has stated it to be a doctrine new to himself, as I understood him, and to use, and a doctrine which had not existed consistently with truth since my recollection. Now, does the Senator deny that the State of Connecticut is an independent republic?

Mr. FERRY. I do emphatically, and I propose to prove it.

Mr. DIXON. I beg leave, with the Senator s consent, to refer him to something which seems to strike him as a novelty

Mr. FERRY. I remember the bill to which my colleague refers, I presume.

Mr. DIXON. He speaks of this idea that the State of Connecticut, like other States, is an independent republic as not only a novel claim, but as one that was only set up by South Carolina and by other States which were afterward its rebellion. He speaks of it as something new in the State of Connecticutinvented by me—a politician s afterthought! Now, let us see whether it is a politician s afterthought. The State of Connecticut provides in her constitution that her electors before voting shall take such oath as shall be prescribed by law. That oath my colleague took. That oath I took. He seems to have forgotten it; it seems to have made little impression upon his mind. Let me revive his recollection:

"You. A B, do solemnly swear that you will ho true and faithful to the State of Connecticut and tho constitution and government thereof, as afreo and independent State, and to the Constitution of the United States," &o.

"A free and independent State" is the language. The Senator, as I understand him, says now it is not an independent State or an independent republic; that that is a new idea, an afterthought.

Mr. SUMNER. Will the Senator be good enough to s ate the date of that constitution?

Mr. DIXON. Eighteen hundred and eighteen. If my colleague will allow me. I will refer him

Mr. FERRY. I prefer to go ori and answer the question which my colleague has put. I gave him an opportunity both to ask a question and make his own comments on his question. My colleague has referred to the ordinary elector s oath taken by the citizens of Connecticut, in which the relations of the State of Connecticut as a State to the General Government are not obscurely intimated, and in which it is as clearly as day made known to every citizen who shall take the oath that the Government of the United States is the only independent republic in any appropriate sense of those words of which the people of Connecticut are citizens. We are exercising a constitutional power of the United States my colleague argues against, because Connecticut, as he says, is an independent republic. The only meaning of his word is, independent in its relations to the United States. If he does not mean this, his argument amounts to nothing. And, in this, his obvious meaning, Connecticut is not an independent republic. It is restrained by the limitations of the Coristitution of the United States, which take away from it all the essential functions of such an independency. The State of Connecticut is part and parcel of one great republic, and while I rejoice that I am its citizen, while I am proud of its history and proud of the energy and enterprise of its people, I am prouder still that I am a citizen of a great Republic span* ningthe continent where soon, underthe beneficent operation of this amendment, law everywhere is to be liberty and liberty everywhere is to be law, and which is too mighty to dread the mightiest among the Powers of the earth, God help little Connecticut if she were indeed such an independent republic as my colleague would have her to be. God help little Connecticut if she had not the bulwark of this great nation, of which she is a component part, to stand between her and the ambiti u encroachments of alien Powers too strong for her unaided strength to resist,

Mr. DIXON, Mr. President-——

Mr. FERRY. I would prefer that my col' league should wait until I get through. I aw willing, however, to answer a question.

Mr. DIXON, I ask my colleague what he meant when he swore that the State of Connecticut was an independent State? I should like an explanation of that.

Mr. FERRY. My colleague makes a terrible mistake about our official oath. I never swore that the State of Connecticut was an independent State, nor he either. We swore to be true and faithful to the constitution and laws of the State of Connecticut, as a free and independent State, and to the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. DIXON. Of course.

Mr. FERRY. Thes eby indicating, and indi* eating clearly, the true position which that Commonwealth, like all the States, holds in this great Commonwealth of States; and if in the language of that official oath my colleague can find anything to sustain him in his new position, either to the satisfaction of his own Conscience or before the people of Connecticut, I shall wish him joy of his discovery.

Mr. DIXON. Will my colleague allow me to read it once more, and perhaps it will more explicitly and clearly illustrate the idea which he is attempting to explain, that the State of Connecticut is not an independent State because we have promised to support the Constitution of the United States:

"You solemnly swear that you will bo tmo and faithful to the State of Connecticut and the constitution and government thereof, as a free and independent State.”

Now, what I would like to know from my colleague, if he will condescend to answer it, is whether or not at that time and at this time the State of Connecticut was and is, notwithstanding the citizens thereof have sworn to support the Constitution of the United States, a free and independent State?

Mr. FERRY. In the sense of those words as used by my colleague heretofore, the State of Connecticut is not, and never has been since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States an indepe ideut republic, for its independency is limited by the provisions of the Constitution which control the exercise of the functions of sovereignty by the States; but so far as the exercise of the functions of local self government properly devolved upon the States by our American system is concerned, the State of Connecticut in its relations with the otherStat es they themselves exercising the same functions of local self government is independent of them. And such is the meaning of the elector s oath. But an independent republic—in language which would be understood to convey all that the meaning of those words does convey, and which I certaiuly understood my colleague to intend to communicate the other day—Connecticut is not any more than was South Carolina an independent republic when she undertook to proclaim her independency by raising the flag of secession.

But enough, Mr. President, upon this branch ofthe topic. My colleague has one more argument appropriate again to the system of things in Connecticut, and I am sorry to be compelled to comment upon this because it develops an injustice still maintained in my State. Connecticut, said he, does no wrong to the negro by disfranchising him because slse does not tax him. Let my colleague apply that argument to himself or to any American who has an arm strong enough to grasp a musket or a heart with life enough its it to beat, would you give up your right of suffrage; would you sell your birthright for the miserable mess of pottage of exemption from taxation? Sir, illustrations, perhaps, on questions- of right or wrong are sometimes the strongest arguments that can be employed. In the autumn of 1864, in the very crisis of the nation s peril, when your Government was straining every nerve to bring every possible soldier to the field a black regiment from Connecticut reached the front of Petersburg and took its place along the national line. In the conflicts that ensued ninctee n of Mb' number were killed and one hundred afl d twenty one were wounded. The dead lie side by side with their white comrades on the shores of the James; the old pine trees there sing the same requiem over both and the 'brave souls of both have gone where all merely external earthly distinctions are forgotten forever. But what shall I say, what shall my colleague say, of those one hundred and twenty onawoundea Shattered and maimed they went home to the State thart. sent them forth and to the people for whom they had shed their blood. Let my colleague go home, if he can, and look these scarred veterans in the face and tell them that it is doing no wrong to deprive them of all share in that Government for which they have made this horrible self sacrifice

Mr. DIXON. Does my colleague claim that those were citizens of Connecticut; that they went from Connecticut and returned to Connecticut?

Mr. FERRY. I know scores of them that did. I have one in my own family to day that

Mr. DIXON. There is one, but I do not think the Senator can count six.

Mr. FERRY. I saw the regiment at Bermuda Hundreds. It was encamped within forty rods of me. Scores of them from all parts of Connecticut I knew, and they are there in my State now, and my colleague would crush them down into hopeless ignominy. Do not talk to me, sir, about doing these men no wrong by depriving them of the right of suffrage ifyou will only not tax them!

My colleague says the object of this amendment is not to declare who shall vote, but who shall make voters. Again, he rests under that fatal misapprehension regarding the real character of our American system. In this land Government does not make voters, but voters make the Government. To vote, under every principle upon which our Governmentis based, is a right of man because of his manhood, and it comes to every citizen because of that truth in our fundamental charter which proclaims that "governments deriveall their just powers from the consent of the governed." And herein lies the essential distinction between the European and the American social theories. By the former, all political functions find their source in the governing authority, and descend from it to the subject. By the latter, all political functions originate from the people, in whom alone is inherent sovereignty. The European petitions for franchises; the American asserts rights. This amendment only forbids the denial of these rights.

Sir, I thank God that I have lived long enough to witness the dawning of that day when these caste distinctions shall be obliterated all over this land. The amendment attains the accomplishment of that state of society toward which the nations have been struggling since the beginning of the Christian civilization. To the old pagan system of civilization the only law was the law of force. To the new Christian civilization, ushered in by Divine revelation, the foundation of all law is right. For eighteen centuries that civilizatfon has been struggling through the nations amid insurrections and revolts and wars and overturningsof kingdoms, until here upon this western continent it at last is to attain that accomplishment which has been the hope of philosophers and statesmen and patriots of all ages. One thing only yet remains to restrain its foil fruition, the prejudice of race.

Sir, there were two nations of antiquity in Which that prejudice exerted a more potentinfluence than in any others. To the Greek, tracing his lineage back through heroes and demi gods to the very deities of Olympus, all the world outside of Hellas was but a barbaric chaos. To the Hebrew the family of Abraham were the chosen of God, to whom the very touch ofthe Gentile was defilement to theJew. And now, sir, roll back for a moment the curtain" of history. On the Athenian- Aeropagus, in the Very center of that brilliant Greek lite, Paul the Hebrew is proclaiming" God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." Behold the realization Of that which is contained in those Divine words rapidly approaching on these western shores! Three centuries have scarce elapsed since Europe poured forth her children out of all her diverse nationalities upon our Atlantic coast, and Africa in chains was dragged hither to be their servant; while now, in the midst of the growing glory of the nation, the Orient is sending its myriads eastward across the Pacific. .Europe, Asia, Africa, are blending here into a nationality such as the world has never seen; a nation where equal civil rights and equal political rights, under the benign operation of a Constitution broad in its humanity as the sway of the Republic, shall be the law for every individual; a nationality which shall realize the vision of the statesman and, may we not hope, the aspiration of the Christian.

Mr. DIXON. Mr. President, the speech of my colleague has been mainly directed to the question whether suffrage ought to be extended, and not to the question which I raised in my speech to which he has replied; and that was that the tribunal which had a right to decide upon this question was the people of the separate States, acting each for itself.

The Senator calls that a technicality. It is possible that some of the points to which ho referred might be called technicalities. Possibly it is a technicality to say that when a great party like the Republican party, claiming to comprise within themselves all the talents and all the intelligence and all the virtue of the country, assemble in solemn convention, and lay down a platform of principles, it is bound in honor to carry out those principles in practice. The Senator calls that argument a plea of estoppel. If his party meet and declare a principle; if they say that the actual existing law of the land gives to the several States the power to control suffrage, and then say furthermore that rightfully that power is given, he says it is a technicality to insist upon it. If they say the law is so, and that it ought to be so, we have no right to insist upon its adherence to that declaration because it is a technicality! Well, sir, let it be so; let it be a technicality, and let the other objections be considered technicalities. It certainly is not a technicality to claim that if suffrage ought to be extended in the several States the people of those States themselves are the proper tribunal to judge of the propriety of the extension; and particularly in the State of Connecticut.

Now, sir, I will not dwell upon the fact that the Chicago convention admitted and declared that to be the true doctrine. I will not merely insist upon that point. I go further; I strike deeper; I go to the fundamental principles of things in the genius of our Government; and I declare here, asl did the other day, that the State of Connecticut being a republic, the State of Connecticut being an independent State, has necessarily the power to regulate suffrage for herself, or she ceases to be an independent State.

Now, the Senator says she is not an independent State to day Certainly she would not be an independent State to day if she could not say who should vote at her elections. He objects to my expression that the question is not who shall be the voter, but who shall make the voter; and he says the voter makes the Government and not the Government the voter. Now, the Senator knows perfectly well that the expression "make a voter" is a technical expression in the State of Connecticut. Make an elector," "admit an elector," is a common expression there. A man says he is made a voter. How? Because our constitution requires that before he shall be admitted a voter he shall have certain qualifications and take a certain oath. The Senator knows very well that that state of things exists in Connecfieut, and that language is used to express the idea that in -Connecticut the constitution prescribes the "qalifications having which a man is made an elector.

Now, is it so or is it not, that the State of Connecticut and the other States of this Union are independent States. Leaving all the Senator s metaphysical disquisitions upon technicalities and his legal disquisitions upon estoppel and his eloquence upon the rights of man; leaving all that behind, I propose now very briefly to consider that question. He denies here positively and directly that the State of Connecticut is an independent republic. Well, sir, what is the claim of the State of Connecticut upon that subject? I have already referred to her constitution; I beg leave to refer to it again. Th e constitution of Connecticut commences with these words:

“The people of Connecticut, acknowledging with gratitude the good providence of God in having permitted them to enjoy a free government, do, in order more effectually to define, secure, and perpetuate the liberties rights, and privileges which they have derived from their ancestors, hereby, after a careful consideration and revision, ordain and establish the following constitution andform of civil government." That is the language properly applying to an independent State. It then goes on to provide that electors shall have certain qualifications, and that the electors shall take a certain oath. I believe in some States that is not required. After specifying all the qualifications of an elector, it is provided that on ,1m taking such oath as may be prescribed by law he shall be an elector. I have read that oath already. I will, for the purpose of having it go into the report of my remarks, ask leave to read it again to the Senate:

"You, A B, do solemnly swear that you will be truoaud faithful to the State of Connecticut, and the constitution and government thereof, ns a free and independent State, and to the Constitution of the United States; and whenever you shall be called to give your vote or suffrage touching any matter that concerns this State or the United States, you will give it as you shall judge will conduce to the best good of the same, without respect of persons, or fear of any man; so help you God."

This is the oath which every voter in Connecticut is required to take, and until he takes it he cannot vote in that State.

The Senator claims that the doctrine set forth by me that the State of Connecticut is an independent republic is a treasonable doctrine, had its birth in South Carolina, was never avowed or dreamed of by me when I acted with the party to which he now belongs, but that the idea is an afterthought of a politician. Never, he says, since my recollection or his, has it been claimed in Connecticut or believed that she was an independent republi*. The fact is, the Senator had forgotten the oath he took. He did not deem it of much importance at the time, I presume; he did not attend to it sufficiently to remember its significant language. Otherwise he would never have denied that Connecticut was and is an independent State. I presume the Senator does not mean to make a distinction between an independent republic and an independent State. I noticed, as he proceeded in his comments, he omitted the word" State," and used the word" republic." I ask if he acknowledges the meaning to be the same?

Mr. FERRY. I used the word" republic" because it was used by my colleague in his speech.

Mr. DIXON. Exactly. I did not suppose my colleague wanted 0to draw a distinction here. If Connecticut is an independent republic she is an independent Stale; if she is an independent State she is an independent republic; for nobody doubts or denies that she is a republic any more than that she is a State. But, sir, it is not Connecticut alone that makes this claim.

The Senator says I have invented or discovered a doetrine new to me, or, at least, have imported an ancient treasonable doctrine from South Carolina. Let us see. I have looked into the constitutions of several State s on this subject, and I beg leave to call the attention of the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sumner] to the constitution of his State. That constitution goes further in its claim of sovereignty than even the constitution and elector s oath of Connecticut:

"The people of this Commonwealth havetho solo and exclusive right of governing themselves as afreo, sovereign, and independent State; and do, and forever hereafter shall, exorcise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right whioli ia not or may not hereafter bo by them expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled."

This clause of the constitution of Massachusetts furnishes me with a complete answer to the argument of my colleague, that inasmuch as the oath of the elector, which he himself took, provides that the elector shall support the Constitution of the United States, therefore Connecticut is not an independent republic. He says she is not independent because she is not entirely free from any obligation to the Constitution of the United States. What did Massachusetts say? She declares herself to be a sovereign republic, a sovereign and independent State; and in the very same clause of the constitution slie provides that she shall hereafter" exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not or may not hereafter be by them expressly delegated to the United States of America;" thus showing that a State may be a sovereign republic as well as an independent republic and at the same time delegate certain powers to the Government of the United States.

Mr. FERRY. What is the date of the constitution of Massachusets referred to?

Mr. DIXON. The date was 1779, and it was finished in 1780; but the constitution expressly provides for a future delegation of power to the Government of the United States. It looks to the creation of a Government of the United States not then existing. The statesmen of Massachusetts knew in 1780 that there probably would be a Union and a Government formed in this country. They were not blind to coming events. They were themselves the inventors, I might almost say, and discoverers of our form of government. They knew perfectly well that this idea of a Federal Government was in the minds of men atthattime; and in anticipation of that idea they say in 1780 that they are a sovereign and independentState, and that they had and for all time would have and exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not or may not be expressly delegated; so that an express delegation of power to the Government of the United States would not prevent their being a sovereign and independent State. Do you suppose that John Adams and his compeers would have declared themselves a sovereign and independent State if they had supposed that the very idea which they themselves suggest—that is, a delegation of power—was to deprive them of their existence as a sovereign and independent State?

That is not all. Massachusetts went further. She required an oath which my honorable friend, [Mr. Sttmner,] I presume, has taken; "I do solemnly swear that X will bear true faith and allegiance to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and will support the constitution thereof."

A great deal has been said here and elsewhere on the subject of the proper point and place where allegiance was due—whether it was due to the Government of the United States or to the government of the State. This constitution must be taken together as a whole. It provides for a future delegation of powers t) a government thereafter to exist by possibili y and it also declares that allegiance is due to the State of Massachusetts. Without dwfellin g on the idea of allegiance, the meaning of it, or the strict definition of that word, every Senator knows that it is the language used when speaking of the relations of a citizen to the sovereign government of which he is a subject. If that government is a government of the people, then he is the subjectof that government, and he owes allegiance to it, whether due to the people or to the sovereign himself. Mr. Webster went into the discussion of the question as to whether the -word "sovereignty" could be applied properly in this country, because, he said, it was borrowed from Europe, and he rather objected to it; but it seems it was not objected to when this constitution was framed.