January 29, 1869

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The order of the day is the joint resolution (S. R. No. 8) proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which is now before the Senate as in Committee of the Whole, upon which question the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. Dixon] is entitled to the floor.

Mr. DIXON. Mr. President, the importance and the gravity of the subject now under consideration by the Senate ought to lift its discussion out of the region of mere party politics, and elevate the Senate in its consideration into an atmosphere purer and higher than that of mere party controversy; for, sir, it is not, pel haps, too much to Say that this is the most important question iu many of its bearings which has ever been presented to Congress in the shape of a proposed constitutional amendment.

What is the question? Tt is not merely a question of suffrage. That of itself is a subject of vast importance, and is now agitating the public mind of this country to a very great extent. The question whether the female sex should be permitted to participate in the privilege ot suffrage, whether other restrictions should be removed, the question of age, the question of property, a multitude of questions are or may be raised which are vastly important and interesting in connection with the right of suffrage. But, sir, we are not now dealing merely with the qualification of voters. The question is not what shall be the qualifications of the voter, but who shall create, establish, and prescribe those qualifications; not who shall be the voter, but who shall make the voter.

In considering that question we ought to remember that it is utterly impossible that any State should be an independent republic which does not entirely control its own laws with regard to the right of suffrage. Nordoes it make the slightest difference with regard to this that any abdication or abnegation of its power is voluntary. It may be said that it is proposed that the States shall voluntarily relinquish their power to control the subject of suffrage within their respective limits. Sir, suppose a State should voluntarily assume upon itself a foreign yoke, or declare by a majority of its own people. or even uy a unanimous vote, that it would prefer a monarchy, would the fact of its being voluntary at all affect the question whether it was still au independent republic?

Now, sir, it may be that the people of this country in their present condition of mind are ready to relinquish the power in the States of regulating their own laws with regard to suffrage; and if it should so prove, and the result should show that your own State (Ohio) and my State, (Connecticut,) having once or twice voted against extending the right of suffrage to the negro race, shouid now consent that a ceniral power should regulate that question, and should do this voluntarily and freely, nevertheless they would by that action lose their character as republican governments. And, sir, that is the reason why it was that in the formation of the Constitution of the United States there was an entire neglect to iuteifere in the slightest degree with the question of suffrage in the several States. Look through the Constitution as it was formed, arid you find no allusion whatever to the question of suffrage, except by reference to existing laws and qualifications in the then existing States. And why was that? We are not left in the dark upon that question. Was it because suffrage was not considered an important question? Was it not deemed of sufficient importance for the convention to consider and consult upon? We find, sir, that there were many propositions in the Convention which framed the Constitution of the United States to interfere with suffrage in the States. In the first place it was proposed to apply a variety of restrictions, among others a freehold qualification. I will barely refer, without tiring the Senate with a long reference upon that question, to what was said by Mr. Ellsworth, of Connecticut, on that subject:

Mr. Ellsworth thought the qualifications of the doctors stood on the most proper footing.”

That is, without being interfered with by the Constitution.

“The right of suffrage was a tender point, and strongly guarded by most of the State constitutions. The people will not readily subscribe tb the national Constitution if it should subject them to bo disfranchised."

And added:

The States are fho best judges of the circumstances and temper of their own people."

Thus, sir, Mr. Ellsworth was of opinion that the States being sovereign republics should be left to control and regulate that matter according to their own discretion.

We find that the question of suffrage and the interference of the General Government therewith in the States was fully discussed in the Federalist by iMr. Madison and Mr. Hamilton. Mr. Madison, in No. 52 of the Federalist, writes as follows:

The first view to bo taken of this part of the Government relates to the qualifications of the electors and the elected.

Those of the former are to be the samewifh those of the electors of the must numerous branch of the State Legislatures. The definition of the right of suffrage is very justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government. It was incumbent on the Convention therefore to define and' establish this right in the Constitution. To have left it open for the occasional regulation of the Congress would have been improper for the reason just mentioned. To have submitted it to the legislative discretion of the States would have been improper for the same reason; and for the additional reason that It would have rendered too dependent on the State governments that branch of the Federal Government which ought to be dependent on the people alone, lo 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, therelore, to bu the best that lay within their option. It must ho satisfactory to every State, beeauseit is conlonnable tothestandard already established orwhich may bu established by the State itself."

I read this from page 226 of the edition of the Federalist 1 hold in my hand, that of 1831. On page 236, in N o 54, Mr. Madison says further:

"It is a fundamental principle of the proposed constitution that as the aggregate number of Representatives allotted to the several States is to be determined byaBVderal rule, founded on the aggre ite number of inhabitants, so the right of choosing t his allotted number in each State is to bo exercised by such part of the inhabitants as the State itself may designate. The qualifications on which the right of Suffrage depend are not perhaps the same in any two States: In some of the States the difference is very material."

So far Mr. Madison. In No. 59, written by Alexander Hamilton, at page 255 of the same volume, I find the following words:

"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 premediated engine for the destruction of the State governments?"

That was the objection taken by Alexander Hamilton to the interference of the General Government in State elections except so far as was necessary to protect the very existence of the national Government, which required that the national Government should have power to interfere in the choice of Representatives and Senators as to the time, place, and manner of choosing them, leaving the question of the qualifications of the electors wholly to the States. He says:

"The violation of principle in this case required no comment."

What was the principle that would have been violated? It was the principle that an independent republic must necessarily control the question of suffrage in its own elections. This lies at the very foundation of all government, and it is therefore wholly impossible for any State to be an independentrepublicoran independent government in which the right of suffrage is controlled by an external power, whether by the consent of that State or against its consent. For that reason when it is proposed to amend the Constitution of the United States in this respect it is very questionable whether it is not an amendment which subverts the whole foundation and principle of the Government. Suppose an amendment were offered here to day proposing that this Government, instead of being a Republic, should be a monarchy; suppose it were proposed to strike out the clause of the Constitution guarantying a republican form of government to each State, and instead of that to insert a guarantee of a monarchy to each State. I do not know that this amendment would not be within the power of Congress to propose. The Constitution provides that Congress may propose such amendments as in its own judgment it shall think best and proper. If a proposition of that kind were made it is very true it might be objected "this goes to the foundation of your Government; this is not amendment; it is revolution, it is subversion." Can that not be said in this instance? Is the proposed amendment any more a fair carrying out of the intendment of the Constitution when it provides for its own amendment than it would be if it proposed directly to subvert the form of government, if it be true that the right of exercising and controlling the power of suffrage must necessarily exist, in a State or it ceases to be a Republic? Sir, when we view the question in this light it must be acknowledged that it rises far above the question of any mere detail as to suffrage; far higher in importance than the question even of abolishing slavery in the States; far higher than any proposition which has ever been made with regard to the amendment of the Constitution, because it is in its truest sense radical and revolutionary. It strikes at the very root and foundation of the Government; It removes its coiner stone, and changes the entire character of f lie State governments. Nor does it relieve this difficulty at all to say that the interference is not by this amendment perfect and complete; that some shadow of liberty is left to the States to control their own suffrage laws. The proposition submitted by the Committee on the Judiciary provides that no restriction on the right of suffrage shall be made by a State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It may be said that in all other respects the State is left free to prescribe its own restrictions. The first answer to that is that when you once begin to interfere with the right of a State to regulate for itself independently the question of what shall be the qualifications of the voter, you abandon the whole principle, it is not necessary to utterly subvert the power of the I State in this respect and make it wholly dependent upon a foreign—and when I use the word "foreign," I mean merely external—■ power outside of itself. But, sir, in this case it so happens that the very question upon which the public mind has mainly been agitated is the question of the extension of the right of suffrage in respect to race and color—1 should say, perhaps, mainly with respect to race. I do not acknowledge that in the State of Connecticut any man is disfranchised merely on account of his color, although the word "white" is used in the Constitution. It is precisely as if it had been said," none shall vote but those of the white race." That this is so shown by the fact that it excludes negroes and Indians. Certainly the Indian patriarch who once lived in the neighborhood of Norwich had as good a natural right to vote as any imported African, but in the State of Connecticut the right has always been claimed and exercised entirely to control the Indian race; to keep them in a state of tutelage; to refuse them even the power of making a contract, much more the power of governing the State. It was a question of race; it was not merely a question of color.

Although it may be said that in this caso the intention is not entirely to deprive the various States of the right to control their own suffrage laws, it so happens that in some of* those States most interested, as, for example, the State of Ohio and the State of Connecticut, this is the very question. It is therefore a subterfuge and an evasion to say," We do not interfere in any other respect," when there is no other respect in which it is possible to interfere, or in regard to which anybody ever proposed to interfere.

Having, as I think, shown the importance of this question, and that it is not merely a question of the qualification of voters, that it is in no sense a mere party question, that it is a question to which a statesman may well apply the best powers of his mind, I think 1 am sate in saying that a question of that importance, one so vital to the life and actual being and existence of the State governments, ought to be submitted to the people themselves for their action and decision.

It has been said that the proposition is to deprive the people of the respective States of this power of controlling the right of suffrage within their own limits by their own consent, and that therefore their rights are not interfered with. How by their consent? Technically or in fact? I admit that technically this question is proposed to be submitted to the people of this country, but is it in point of fact? Is there any real submission? I beg leave, Mr. President, with all respect, to take your own State as an example, for it so happens that in consequence of the peculiar political character of that State at this moment, the present Legislature of Ohio, if this question were submitted to them, would not perhaps agree with your own sentiment on the subject or with that of a majority of the Congress of the United States. Would it be fair to submit a question of this character to the present Legislature of the State of Ohio? You would not think so if every Legislature had the same sentiments and had been elected a year and a half ago, and was still in existence. I ask any Senator whether it could be said that a Legislature with those sentiments thus elected upon other issues was a fair tribunal to express the sentiments of the people of that State upon a question of this character? It so happens that m other States the members of the Legislature entertain different views. They also were chosen without direct reference to this question. It may even be said that the Legislature of the State of Ohio was chosen with more reference to this question than the Legislatures of other States, because when that Legislature was chosen the question of colored suffrage was pending before the people of the State, and the people actually voted down the proposition by a majority of nearly fifty thousand votes. But notwithstanding that fact, which shows that the subject was under consideration, I still say that 1 cannot as a Senator declare that I believe it would be fair to submit a proposition of this character to the Legislatures of all the States having the same views as i lie Legislature of Ohio, chosen a year ami a half ago. That, sir, is what yea propose to do. because it happens that the Legislatures are in favor of your proposition. VVouId you do it if -they w there against -it?

A word further as to the question whether this is a submission to ihe people. When the Constitution was formed provision Was made *liat. amendments to it might be submitted to the Legislatures or to conventions in the various States. XDf course the intention was that Congress should select and judge as between these forms of submission; but can any man suppose that at. that period in the history of •Our country it was ever supposed that questions of amendments to the Constitution would •come to be party questions, submitted with party views, and to a party majority? I do not reproach anybody that that should now be the fact. It is, perhaps, a necessity of the case, and cannot well be otherwise; but when the Constitution was formed there was probably ■no anticipation of such a stare of things, and therefore when it. was proposed to submitquestions of amendment to Legislatures or conventions the meaning and intent was that the people should have an opportunity to act, that they should at least have an opportunity to elect those Legislatures or those conventions with reference to the consideration of die proposed amendments.

But suppose now you say that this question ■shall be considered by the Legislatures of the States, and not, by conventions. Then, from the very necessity of the case, you must place it before bodies actually chosen by the people before the question was presented. It is impossible, in Riy judgment, for Congress by any particular phraseology of their submission of the proposition, to prevent an existing Legislature Irons acting on a question submitted. The Legislature©! Ohio chosen two years ago, if this subject is submitted before they go out •of existence, have a right, to act on it. The Legislature of Connecticut now existing, if the proposition were submitted in season, might be •called together by the Governor and act upon it. You cannot prevent it. Therefore it seems to me that it isabsolutely essential, in order to get the action of the people on this question, that it should be submitted to bodies to be elected by themselves subsequently, to wit, conventions, because you cannot control the •question of submission to the Legislatures'.

But I was more particularly upon the point of the technical consideration of this question by the people. 1 think that the Senate of the United States in a question of this gravity and this importance ought, not to stand upon technicalities. They ought not to insist that a mere submission de jure shall be sufficient when there is no submission and can necessarily be no submission de facto, and there are peculiar reasons in the present case why such a submission should not be insisted upon.

The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Wilson] said yesterday that he had no doubt that the Republican party had lost, I think tie said, seven hundred and fifty thousand votes by this question of colored suffrage. I will not contend with him as to the number of votes they may have gained or lost, but I cannot but think as tie said, that that possibly was a reason why under his guidance and control and that of other distinguished Senators the Chicago Republican national convention not only ignored this question, but actually declared a doctrine utterly in opposition to this proposed amendment. That convention assembled last spring in Chicago. They were compelled to meet this question. It was one of those questions which could not be avoided. It would not do to say that suffrage should be granted in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, as they said the debt should be paid in accordance with the letter and spirit of the law. They were obliged to say something definite. It was true they could not satisfy my honorable friend from Massachusetts, [Mr. Sumner,] nor the Anti Slavery Standard. In that paper their course was very severely condemned, and I suppose my friend from Massachusetts would condemn it. But what did they say? Their resolution on this subject was read yesterday by the Senator from Indiana Mr Hendricks.] I will dwell upon it but for a single moment. •This is the Chicago resolution:

The guarantee by Congress of equal suffrageto 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 explicit. So much was. to be done by act of Congress. The resolution then proceeds:

"While the question of suffrage in all the loyal States properly belongs to the people of thoseStates." The honorable Senator from Nevada [Mr. Stewart] attempted to show that the true intent and meaning of this was that the subject 'should be left to the people of the States by a constitutional amendment. Why, sir, if he will look at this resolution for a single moment he will see that it makes a distinction which the proposed amendment to the Constitution does not make and cannot make between the several States. There was to be one mode of action as to the southern States and one mode as to the northern States. Can you do that by a constitutional amendment? The fact that the two are separated and divided conclusively proves that the convention had in view a different mode as to the two. Congress was to 111 interfere as to the one, the people of the northern States were to regulate as to the other. The people of all the States? By 110 means. The people of the States interested—the loyal States—had preserved their powers and rights inviolate, whereas the southern States had sacrificed theirs by rebellion, and it was therefore necessary for the General Government to interfere in their case. That was the plain meaning.

Ijhis is conclusive against the construction given to it by those who say that the object and end of the resolution was that Congress should propose an amendment to the Constitution of the United States by which the people might regulate it, for that amendment must include the whole country and cannot include merely a part of the States.

How was it understood in point of fact? I did not share very largely in the discussions during the last canvass, although I had very firm and decided convictions with regard to what ought to be done. In the discussions before the people in all the northern States the ground was taken by all the orators of the Republican party, almost without exception, that the question of suffrage was to be left to the States for their separate action. The honorable Senator from Ohio, [Mr. Sherman,] who had the kindness to send me his able speech; the honorable Senator from Missouri, [Mr. Henderson,] who did me the same favor; and other Senators, with the exception of the honorable Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sumner —every one of their great orators before the people in that exciting canvass took the ground that this question was to be left to the States in their separate State action, and if any constitutional amendment was to be made it was to be an amendment to the State constitutions made by the people of the respective States. I have some indistinct recollection that my colleague took the same ground. At any rate it was never claimed anywhere, in any newspaper from the New York Tribune down to the humblest organ of the party, that the intent and meaning of the resolution to which I have referred was that Congress at this session should propose a constitutional amendment to Legislatures chosen in November last. Why, sir, if it had been so your Legislatures would have been of a very different character, in my humble judgment.

Therefore 1 say that not only from the importance of this question as subverting the character of the Government, but also from the pledged faith of the great Republican party, acting in solemn council, declaring and promulgating its principles, stating to the people what would be its action in case it should receive a renewal of their confidence—in view of all this, I say that this Republican party is bound ia solemn honor, at least, to submit this question, in fact, to the people; to give them an opportunity to be heard upon the subject, Your convention, at least, said that it should be left to the people of the States. 1f you say now that you meantby "people" existing Legislatures, or Legislatures to be chosen on the day when General Grant was chosen, do you suppose that if this had been so understood the result would have been precisely what it was? I do not speak of party results; but would legislators have been chosen, precisely such as were chosen, if the people had supposed that the great question of the right of the States to continue their existence as independent republics was to be decided—a question far greater than the question whether a negro or a Chinaman shall vote?

1 say, then, in solemn honor you are bound, and you cannot, as men of honor and of character, refuse to submit the question to the actual, genuine sense of the people, nor can you hide yourselves safely and honorably behind technicalities, and say that when the question is submitted to the Legislatures already chosen it is presumed to be submitted to the people.

Sir I do not wish to bring railing accusations against the leaders of the Republican party, but 1 beg leave to suppose a case. I beg leave to suppose that the Democratic party ia national convention had pledged itself by a solemn resolution to carry out a certain hue of policy; that upon that line of policy it had succeeded in carrying the popular vote, and had elected the honorable candidate for whom its members voted to the office of President of the United States. Suppose, for example, the pledge had been on the question of the national debt and the Democratic party had resolved in solemn convention that the debt should be paid in gold, and upon that pledge of their faith and honor the confiding people of the country, not believing it possible that a great party, an honored party, a party which had inherited the glory and the fame of Jefferson and Madison and Jackson, could violate its pledged word, and 111 that confidence had elected a President and a Congress and State Legislatures in accordance with the views of the Democratic party; suppose they had met here to day in the Senate of the United States, controlling it by more than a two thirds vote, and controlling also the House of Representatives, and in violation of their pledge had passed a resolution repudiating the public debt. What, would be said of them? Does it require a very great stretch of imagination to suppose that the leaders of a party who had thus violated their honor would have been held up to popular scorn and indignation; that tliey would have been stamped with infamy as violators of faith, as having obtained power by false pretenses, and that the leaders who devised and suggested such a palpable breach of faith would have been expelled by the common sentiment of mankind from the association of honest and honorable gentlemen throughout the world? Nor would any quibbling gloss or subtlety of interpretation by the leaders of the Democratic party, by which the words of the pledge were claimed to be complied with while its true spirit and meaning were violated, render the proceeding any the less contemptible, any the less worthy of the detestation of honest Sir, I have supposed the Democratic party to have been guilty of such an outrage. Mutate nomine, de te fabula narratur.

Change but the name

Of thee the tale is told."

Or in another form, more scriptural, "Thou art the man." Now, sir, in saying this I do not mean to say that the leaders of the Republican party, as individuals, intend to violate their pledges any more than I should be willing to believe the Democratic party capable of such an outrage. They scorn to violate any, the slightest implication, by which their honor is involved and pledged in private life; and so I trust they will do in public life. I would not be so offensive as even to suppose that the party in power would ever by any possibility violate knowingly and intentionally a pledge they had made to the whole people in their party platform; and still, Senators, this is the brink of the precipice upon which, in my judgment, you stand, if you refuse to submit this question in honor and in good faith to the actual vote of the people of the United States.

I think I may say more. I think you are pledge not to attempt to amend the Constitution of the United States on the question of suffrage in the States, but to leave it to the people of the States to amend, if they see fit, their own State constitutions. That is my belief as to the meaning of this resolution; but without insisting on this extreme view of the case, I only now say that you are at least under obligations to give the people an opportunity to say whether or not they are willing, by the adoption of this amendment, to subvert their old form of government and become subject provinces to an external power. There is no possible mode by which you can give them this opportunity except by submitting the question of the ratification of the amendment to conventions of the people, as proposed in the amendment which 1 shall offer.

Mr. President, I have already said that the question before the Senate is not merely a question of suffrage,- but that it goes to the very foundation of republican government and strikes at the power of the States to determine and establish, each for itself, the qualification of its own voters. It in important to bear in mind this distinction. There are in the State of Connecticut, and doubtless in all the States, many who are in favor of universal suffrage without distinction of race or color, who yet cling to the right of each State to decide as to the qualifications of its own voters. The pending constitutional amendment proposes to transfer this power from the States to the General Government by the consent of three fourths of the States; but the character of the Government is no less changed by this mode of effecting the alteration than if it were done by act of Congress. All the States will not consent to the change, and those States which do not thus consent will be deprived by external power of the essential characteristic of selfgovernment as completely as if the change were made by a more law of Congress.

Furthermore, those States which consent to the amendment are merely the artificers of their own ruin as coramunidesentilled to local self government They destroy freely and voluntarily, but yet they not the less destroy their character as independent States of this Union, liven the consent of a State, however freely rendered, would not prevent the necessary consequence, namely, the loss of the vital and essential element of self government consisting in the power of deciding freely, independently, and without appeal upon the qualifications of voters. Therefore it will be found that many advocates of negro suffrage will condemn and oppose this attempt to overthrow theStatsgovernmentsand reduce them to utter insignificance by the establishment of the principle involved in this amendment. They are unwilling to see the ancient Commonwealths which won our national independence and formed our national Government, together with their younger sisters who fill up the number of our United States, reduced from the proud position of independent, self governing republics to the humble and helpless condition of subject provinces whose people exercise the right of suffrage under conditions and regulations imposed by a central power.

For myself 1 can spt ak only for Connecticut. For a brief period 1 may still speak for her in this Senate Chamber: and for tier and her people I protest against this proposal to strip her of the distinguishing badge of her sovereignty, the chief remaining sign and evidence that she is still the proud republic which she has been for more than two hundred years, and I trust for untold centuries will continue to be. In her own good time and by her own will and pleasure she may, when she sees fit, extend, as she has heretofore, in the exercise of her undoubted and unquestioned right seeufitto deny, to the colored race the right of suffrage; meanwhile she inflicts on that race no wrong. If her constitution forbids their voting, her statutes also exempt them from all taxation. It is possible that she would sooner or later, if left to the exercise of her own generous and just convictions of duty, in view of the general enfranchisement of the black race, extend the same privilege to her own colored population, but I think 1 may safely say that her people will not willingly consent that her ancient laws on this subject shall be altered by the action of other States. Whatever she does in this regard she must do voluntarily and freely. When she' acts she must grant, or at least acknowledge and confer, a privilege; not like a galley slave be scourged to the performance of a neglected duty. For myself, I cannot conceive how any true son of Connecticut who cherishes her stainless honor and high renown, and feels a just pride in her illustrious history, can consent that she should be compelled by the action of any external power to strike from her constitution provisions relating to suffrage which she has deliberately established and persistently maintained. I trust no such humiliation is in store for that proud and patriotic State. Now, as ever, she is proverbial for her spirit of independence and for her unyielding resolution to manage her domestic affairs, civil andreligious, in her own way.

"For still her rr iy rocks tower above the sea

That crouches at her feet, a conquered wave.

'Tis a rough land, of earth, and stone, and tree,

Where brcathesnocastled lord oreabined slave,

Where thoughts, and tongues, and hands, are bold and free,

And friends will find a welcome, foes a grave;

And where none kneel save when to heaven they pray,

Nor even then, unless in their own way."

Mr. POMEllOY. Mr. President, I desire to have read for the information of the Senate, it not being strictly in order at this moment, an amendment which I shall propose at the proper time to this pending question before the Senate.

The PRESIDENT l pro tempore. The proposed amendment will be read if there be no objection.

There being no objection, the Chief Clerk read the amendment intended to be proposed by Mr. Pomeroy, as follows:

Strike out, in lines fourteen and fifteen, the words on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," and in lieu thereof insert'* for any reasons not equally applicable to all citizens of the United States;" so as to read:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote and hold office shall not be denied or abridged by the United StatesoranyStatefor aoyreasons notequally applicable to all citizens of the United States.

Mr. MORTON. With the permission of the Senator from Kansas, I will ask to have the amendment reported by the Committee on Representative Reform read for the information of the Senate.

Mr. STEWART. Relating to this subject?

Mr. MORTON. The amendment was submitted yesterday to that committee by the Senator from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Buckalew.]

The PRESIDENT F pro tempore. It will be read if there be no objection.

The Chief Ci ekk It is proposed to amend the resolution so as to make it read:

That the following articles bo proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as amendments to the Constitution of the United States; and the said articles, or either of them, when ratified by three fourths of said Legislatures, shall be validas part of the Constitution, namely.

And then to add as a new article:

A rtiole 16. The second clause, first section, seeoi d jruelo of tV o Constitution of the United States i sin.,1 be amended to read as follows: E ieh State shnd appoint, by a vote of the people th reof qualified lo vote for Representatives m Congress, a number oi electors equal to the whole number of Senators a I Representatives to which the State may be entitled m the Congress; but no Senator or Representative or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States shall be appointed an elector; and the Congress shall have power to prescribe the manner in which such electors shall be chosen by the people."

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. President, during the discussion of this question yesterday the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Wilson] made use of the following words, as reported in the Globe;

"There is not to day a square mile in the United States where the advocacy of the equal rights and privileges of those colored men has not been in the past and is not now unpopular."

And then he goes on to say that on every square mile the Republican party lost votes by its advanced views upon the question of equal rights. I only desire to reply to that in a word, as I did not have an opportunity then, that that is only one side view of this question. Let it be known in this country that the Republican party have abandoned the cause of the rights of man, of the rights of the colored men of this country, and instead of losing a few thousand votes, as the Senator from Massachusetts intimated, I apprehend that the party itself would not be worth preserving. The strength of the Republican party consists in its adherence to principle, and to that embodiment of its principles, equality of rights among men. Without that, I repeat, there would be no motive to sustain the party, and the party would not be worth sustaining. It is, to my mind, all that makes it valuable. It was that for which it was organized; and instead of being source of weakness it ie, in my opinion, a source of strength and power.

But I have had read the amendment which I propose to offer to the present constitutional amendment for the purpose of discussing this question still further. My amendment provides that no State nor the United States shall make any inequalities that are not equally applicable to all citizens. If you want a condition of intelligence, of education, of any quality that applies equally to all, it can be adopted by the States under the amendment that I have proposed. I shall now take it upon me in a few brief words to demonstrate the proposition that inequality of rights secured in either constitution or law is a source of weakness.

Mr. President, by this amendment I mean something more than an hour s delay in the passage of this joint resolution. To delay it is no pleasure to me; I am but too anxious for it to become part of the fundamental law. And I would not support this amendment to the amendment but from the conviction 1 entertain that the Constitution will be incomplete without it. Indeed, I hold it will be radically defective without this amendment. The great error of the past, when the Constitution was formed, grew out of inequalities among men, as itrespects their rights. Ithas been the contest of the century, and it finally culminated in a legal dogma, pronounced some years ago by one of the justices of the Supreme Court, that one class had no rights which the other was bound to respect. To deprive a citizen of any one right will tend to produce the extinction of all. And the right to take the least prepares, if not justifies, the way to take die whole. 1 know Senators are in haste to pass this resolution, but the opportunity does not often occur to amend the organic law of a nation. It may not come to us again in a lifetime, and what, is worth doing atallisworthdoingwell and right. I approach this question filled with distrust and some misgivings, knowing as I do that the views I entertain are not accepted and adopted as the accredited principles of the majority of this Senate with whom 1 act. But upon questions of private judgment and personal belief we are accustomed to extend the greatest liberality and to exercise that "charity which vaunteth not itself" and "is not puffed up" with immaculate self conceit but" bearethall things" and "never faileth." For the exercise of that charity I plead.' To an attractive entertainment I cannot invite you without premonitions of sure disappointment. A plain and honest effort to set forth the truth in faithfulness and with candor is all that I shall aspire to.

The fathers who framed our Constitution "sowed to the wind" when they admitted into that instrument the shadow of the substance, afterward claimed, that there could be a class of persons of which it would take five to make three of the average representative weight. Ajid in our day and tune "we reaped the whirlwind." I know they were not called slaves, but it matters not so much what a thing is called as what it means. It meant that they were to be held, each one, as but three fifths of a man for the purposes of representation. And that was the first inequality admitted into that immortal instrument which had on its title page those glorious words, radiant with light and promise to the lowly and oppressed:

"That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,"

This was a monstrous inconsistency, which has marred the beauty of that instrument as well as the peace and honor of the country for a hundred years.

Now, Mr. President, I do not want to strike upon such a rock again. We have hauled up the old ark of the Constitution for repairs, and I want above all other things to secure it against the possibility of the admission that there can be inequalities of rights among citizens. It matters not in what those inequalities consist; if they relate to and impair the rights of the citizen, even the poorest and the weakest, they are fatal and destructive to the safety and peace of the Government and to its character as a model of republicanism to the world, and also to the well beiBg of those whose rights are destroyed or abridged. Amend the Constitution to day and leave in the possibility of the rights of any of our citizens being insecure or destroyed or neglected, and you have perfected nothing. A contest will go on until we or some more faithful men who come after us shall complete the work neglected at this moment by us.

The work of reorganization, made a necessity by the war, cannot be perfected throughout the nation with the rights of any citizen imperfectly or partially secured. Complete justice, fairly secured equally to all, is the highest expediency and the only safety; and, tb ank God 1 to that complexion it must come at last." The period of the surrender of Lee and Johnston, terminating the existence of armed rebellion in this country, and the months following the assassination of President Lincoln, will evermore be held sacred, as it opened the era of reconstruction, not in the South alone, but throughout the North and the West. Having pulled down by fire and sword, by law and Constitution, it became a necessity to build up. The States having been disorganized and their governments overthrown, it was a work of no ordinary magnitude to build again the old waste places’’ and to "lay the foundations of many generations." The demoralization which led to disorganization grew out of a false conception of the rights and duties of the citizen, and injustice, organized into the Government and sustained as a system, soon worked its overthrow.

Gathering lessons from the past „it now becomes a most solemn duty to inquire how to lay the foundations of a government that will stand securely both as against its dissatisfied citizens within and its jealous and opposing enemies from without. To give strength and character to any form of government there must be entire fairness and equality among all its citizens subject to it. Injustice framed into" law or put into the Constitution is destined to work its overthrow. You can make an edifice of granite and marble stand upon the drifting sand sooner and better than you can found and maintain a Government whose foundations are not laid securely in impartial justice and in an equality of rights, obligations, and duties where the conditions are equal.

The framers of our form of republican government copied after no model. Indeed, there was no precedent in history, ancient or modern, for the American form of republican government. One thing, from their long and bitter experience, the athe surely intended to avoid, namely, placing the power of this Government into the hands of one man or one class of men, be it president, king, or cabinet. Indeed, this Government was ordained by and for tbe people: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, secure domestic tranquillity, provide for the corn irion defense, and to promote the general welfare, &a., do ordain and establish this Constitution and Government."

•The power of a Government must rest somewhere. And it became a most serious question where and who should be regarded as the safest depository of political power. The fathers said "the people," and all the people. If the few are safer than the many, then the fewer the better. And why not let the divine right of kings and cabinets be at once established, so that the work of the fathers upon this continent may speedily come to an end? But if the people are safer to guard the precious trust of government than any mere individuals, why not all the people? Why trust a part sooner than the whole? The safety of a Government, I apprehend, lies in the patriotism, loyalty, virtue, and love of man, as well as of God, in the hearts of the people. This is not alone found in schools or books or in men alone of family name and descent.

The safety of a good Government is secured when it rests near to the hearts of good men and women—the people—whether wise or unwise, whether learned or unlearned, in books or schools. The very instinct of virtue and a love of human kind, binding indissolubly the citizen in the one bond of equality of rights, where liberty is secured in the law and the law made, upheld, and executed by the citizen, now forms and cements to some extent this national Government, which will tower in its magnificence and stand forever, provided that in this work of reconstruction we allow no injustice, no inequality among citizens, 110 proscription of rights, either civil or political. It is worthy of an inquiry here, and without proceeding further, who are the citizens under our Government entitled to the high prerogative of forming and upholding the civil Government? I answerin the language of the fundamental law, article fourteen of the amendments to the Constitution of the United States, section one:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, shall be citizens, &c., and no State shall make any law abridging the rights of citizens."

The citizens, then, of the United States are the body politic possessing the power of the Government and alone the basis of its strength and power. We might inquire, if the question admitted of doubt, whether it is a source of weakness or strength in a Government ordained like ours to make inequalities among her citizens who have forfeited no rights and been convicted of no crime.

The irresistible tendency of modern civilization is in the direction of the extension of the right of suffrage, and not at all toward proscription. The day when a few men did the voting and governing for the many has gone by. Seven hundred thousand colored men were enfranchised in a day, and they have not disappointed the reasonable expectations which were entertained by them. They were unlearned and, for the most part, ignorant men. But instinct is wiser than logic. The negro has blended and is lost sight of in the man. Manhood suffrage is now held to be the native and the inherent right of every male citizen of a prescribed age; and some there are who claim the enfranchisement of negro and rebel together. But is there no injustice in completing the work of reconstruction upon such a basis? Are not the men ami the women citizens of the Republic alike? And how can there be in a just Government an equality of citizens with a proscription of rights? I mean, of any of their rights:

For whatever link you strike from Nature s chain, Tenth or ten thousandth, you break the chain alike."

And as tlie strength of a chain is only equal to the weakest link, so the strength of this Government is tested, to failure when any of its links are sundered and alienated. Any man who supposes that you can disfranchise any innocent citizen, with the lights of the past blazing in his face, has become blind, and will not or cannot read the lessons of experience. The ballot is its own instructor. It is an educator. It teaches, and it speaks a language, and that for human rights. It is the great vindicator and protector of individual and personal, no less than of national honor and character. But human nature, claiming its rights, has no sex; the mind and the soul have no render, and there is no blending of the responsibility of one citizen into that of another. Sir, the criminal for himself or herself goes alone to dungeon or scaffold. To his own master he standeth, -falleth; and by no ingenuity or contrivance can the responsibility of one citizen be shifted upon the shoulders of another. In the primary and individual capacity must each speak, vote, pray, believe, love, hate, live, and die for himself or herself alone. Stamped upon every soul is an individual character and individual responsibilities which can neither be laid asideuor transferred to another. In this respect no one can have a representative character. In this ordeal each one stands lor himself, and no one for another. These are the duties of this life which cannot be discharged by proxy. You are your own free agent, but you have no power of substitution, aud it cannot be delegated. These are duties pertaining to one s self alone, and it is monstrous to talk of one person voting or representing anotherinthe unorganized aud primary state. As well may he live another s life, or die another s death.

I now propose to speak of what I consider to be the essential matter in the proposition to extend or regulate the elective franchise in our Government. I prefer, on the whole, to do this by an amendment to the Constitution rather than by a congressional enactment, even if the question of the power of Congress was admitted, because the fundamental law is the place to rest the question of fundamental rights, and when put into the Constitution it is beyond the reach of party legislation and removed from party politics. Unlike a law, it is unrepealable.

Now, if this question of suffrage is to be settled, and settled by the law of the Constitution, it is of the highest importance that it be settled upon the right basis and upon one entirely in harmony with the genius and spirit of* our Government and institutions. I only claim the logical sequence of our political organization. All other Governments save ours have their privileged men or classes and their unprivileged; some are citizens, others are mere subjects; one class control public affairs, the other bear its burdens with voices silenced. But 111 this Government, ordained by the people, the citizens, their right to administer it should not be questioned. And how can this Government be administered but by the ballot? Laws are made and executed by the representatives of the ballot. An elective officer is but a consolidated ballot; one person exercising the voice and will of And how did the citizen obtain this power in our Government, or how was it exercised by one class and denied to others? Citizenship was not obtained by colonial charters, for then would their rights have perished with the charters themselves; not by any hereditary right 01- title, for all such were forbidden i ti the Constitution; not by successfully wielding the sword in battle, for then would it have been confined to warriors alone. How, then, was it obtained? I answer: it was given iu the fundamental law when the Government ■was ordained for" all men" who are possessed of the" inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." And the word "men" is as comprehensive as the word "people," for they all had the same title to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The right of self government springs from the consent of the governed, and there can be no just mind that will consent that a part shall exercise the will of the whole. Such an act would be a palpable usurpation of power and only one step removed from the right of a king or despot to rule; because if you desert the principle of equality of rights and circumscribe them to a part, that principle would not be violated if you proscribed still more and lodged the power finally in one man. And if by virtue of citizenship all are not entitled to the ballot as the source of power and rights, then none are; for power to deprive one extended would deprive all; and if you admit the existence of the power, you must not deny its exercise to any extent.

I now come to this point to say that to deprive any citizen of the right of suffrage is a violation of the principles of our Government as it was ordained, and is a blow direct at the Government itself. I have studied this form of government to no purpose if its logic does not lead me to universal and impartial suffrage. The Constitution places all the powers of the Government in the people who ordained it, (and it resided in them in any event;) but while they delegated the exercise of certain powers to departments, State and national, still they held the reins of modification of all that was delegated, and provided for the exercise of that right. Ileuce it is that I can say that this is not only no" white man s Government," but it is no male Government; and it is a historical fact that in the early days of our history both colored men and white women were admitted to the ballot upon precisely the same terms as white men. This was done in some instances, but their number being few does not affect the principle. If you admit but one woman to vote or one negro it is a confession that there is no legal bar to all.

Citizenship is of birthright or of choice in onr form of government, and the ballot is one of the rights admitted, ay, conceded, and cannot be conferred. Who gave any class the right to monopolize the elective franchise? If a majority, however large, can strike down one right not forfeited then they can another, and hence, as 1 have said, all. So that if you admit the doctrine of legal disfranchisement you cannot stop short of admitting that the power exists to strike down all rights. It may be said this will allow not only but require that minors and even children should be entitled to vote. To this I reply that a right may exist where the person is not entitled to the exercise of the right until a prescribed period. A child is entitled to the right of walking, marrying, and inheriting property; still it must wait for development to exercise that right. When we become members of society under a n organized form we consent to the regulation tion of the exercise of our rights, but not to their extinction.

I will cheerfully comply with all regulations respecting the time, manner, and place of voting, as well as the age and residence required, when made equally applicable to all citizens; but a man who will not resist a law of disfranchisement has lost the spirit of his manhood. Such a one deserves to have no rights if he dare not maintain them. The citizen who will tamely submit to one robbery will soon be prepared to welcome all. When you have taken away the ballot you have left nothing secure.

Do not tell me that the rights of one class of citizens are safe in the hands of another, that the men will take care of the rights of the women. The rights of individuals allied to you may be or may not be safe, but of a class they never can be.

The property and character of your own wife and child may be safe in the hand s of the husband and father j but would you trust the property and character of all other women and children in his hands? There are instances where one man may safely speak, vote, and act for a whole community; but would you organize and administer a government upon such a theory? Anything short of entire enfranchisement is as destructive of the theory of our Government as it is dangerous and destructive of individual rights. When one right is destroyed the way is prepared to lose all. I would urge all citizens, by all that is valuable in liberty and desirable in the pursuit of happiness, to maintain and demand that equality of rights and those means of their defense which to a free man are better than an army with banners. I urge it by all that is valuable in a republican form of Government and by all that is dear to human life under it. Citizens who will submit to disfranchisement tamely deserve their fate, no matter whether they be men or women; and the men who demand it and deny the ballot are only one step removed from tyrants. As I would not be a slave, so I would not make a slave; and the man who would do or be either under our form of government does not merit the condition of a freeman." He ought," as .it has been said, "with garters, ribbons, and stars upon him, to be bolted with a golden chain to the blazing pavement of some palace court yard, that when his lord and master goes out to hunt of beasts or m en he may be there— the slave—to crouch down and let his majesty vault from his shoulders to the saddle," for he does not deserve to breathe the pure air nor to drink the cool springs of a free country. He ought to live where darkness curtains the heavens, and frosts and winter enchain the earth I Thenceforth and forever let him dwell where man is not honored nor woman loved! But 1 maintain and defend the right of the ballot to be in the hands of the citizen by virtue of his manhood and not of sex. It was man who was created a "little lower than angels," and not males I "In the image of God created He him,’’ but male and female created He them "and He called their name Adam." It is said, "I will destroy man," not males, "from off the face of the earth," by a deluge. But seven souls were saved that the generations of men might live upon the earth, and by men is meant mankind, and of this one blood are all the nations; and these nationalized here have a right to all that inherits to a free American citizen. These rights, 1 repeat, inhere to his manhood and are as inalienable as his immortality. 1 care not if he may have come to us from the center of dark, fettered Asia, from the plains of long abused Africa, from the snows of Siberia or the heat of the tropics, he is a man, and hence a brother, entitled to all the rights that are inalienable in man and to all he can possess and attain by the honest labor of his hands or by the powers of his mind.

In this work of reorganizing States we should look North and West as well as South. The robbery of the ballot for men—I mean male citizens—is perpetrated now in more than half of what are called the loyal States, and the prejudice of caste, of race, and color, that child of the devil, is rampant in all the States. This reconstruction should now begin in the fundamental law, and be applied to all the States and extend through all departments of the national Government and then the State governments, and through society at large, the schools and churches, and through politics and religion. Let this country in this way elevate humanity and honor God.

I trust this nation has been founded, and of late preserved from dissolution, for high and noble ends. It is the only free Government on the earth that is expanding and growing with reasonable hope of being indissoluble and perpetual. Since it was founded other nations have been going to decay or changing their form. No sooner was our national authority established and vindicated than the imperial form of government, which rn the hour of our trial undertook to subdue a foothold in the republicof Mexico-, subsided and retired. AndL, as never before, can we say this land shall be an asylum for the oppressed of all nations who are longing and struggling to break the links of steel which enchain them. But our superiority over other nations is lost if we perpetuate in the Constitution cruel inequalities of rights among the citizens of the .Republic. Alt that make other Governments oppressive and hateful is the proscription and inequality among •their citizens. And what right have we to go counter to the tendencies of the highest civilization of this age, to the lessons of history, and to the voice of passing events now being pressed upon our attention. The Constitution is to day under our molding hand. As the wax to theseal, the impress given to it by Congress in this amendment will remain as its permanent character for the years to come. We ought to despise ourselves, as we shall be despised in history, if we fail to meet this emergency by an adequate and liberal amendment to the Constitution which shall secure to posterity what the fathers thought they had "ordained" one hundred years ago. The Government then elevated to citizenship three million people, and ten years ago thirty millions, and to day nearly forty millions; and yet it is not clearly defined by the law of the Constitution that all the citizens have and shall have the power in their own hands to maintain and defend those inherent rights to preserve which "Governments were ordained" among men.

I ask the ballot for woman, not on account of herweakness or on account of her strength; not because she may be above or below a man; that has nothing to do with the question. 1 ask it because she is a citizen of the Republic, amenable to its Ia s taxed for its support, and a sharer in its destiny. There are no reasons for giving the ballot to a man that do not apply to a woman with equal force. She may use it or neglect it, as many men do; still it should be hers whenever she chooses to exercise the right. This would tend to its elevation and purification; for when the sacredness of the ballot is preserved it would not soil a woman s heart, baud, or dress, or the place of voting any more than when she uses the Bible and the prayer book in the congregation of humble worshipers. In all the walks of life, retired or public, she adds grace, elegance, and purity to every step of her pathway, to every work of her hand, and to every love of her heart. I am for the enfranchisement fully and without restrictions of every man in the land who has the rights and discharges faithfully the duties of a citizen of the Republic, no matter how depressed or oppressed he may have been. The way of his elevation is by the way of the ballot, and that should be as fixed and as .settled as the fundamental law itself. But 1 would put in the form of law precisely the same provision for every woman in the land; for it is as safe in her hands as in his; it will be used with as much intelligence and with as good results. And besides all that, the distinctive character of our republican Government on the basis of the original design can be perpetuated in no other way. The highest justice is the only safety. Let it come, then, by one comprehensive amendment striking out all inequalities among citizens, and the dream of the fathers of a free and pure Republic shall be realized, and there shall be peace throughout the land and good will among men.

Mr. President, when John Stuart Mill unrolled his petition in the British Parliament a few years since it was found to bear the names of those English men and women whose very thoughts were an inspiration to the civilization of the age. Jt asked for the enfranchisement of woman, and, upon a vote taken, seventythree members voted for it. Thousands of our own countrymen and women have passed their petitions to the bar of this Senate, through me, that woman might have the ballot in this Government of the people; and in obedience to I their ten thousand voices I ask a vote upon my amendment, and I shall move at a proper time a call for the yeas and nays upon it. I leave the wisdom of this vote to the judgment of history, and will cheerfully meet the verdict of posterity.

Mr. MORTON. Mr. President, I desire to speak for a few minutes on the amendment reported this morning from the Committee on Representative Reform, which we hope to have considered in connection with the report from the Committee on the Judiciary. I will ask the Secretary now to read the amendment proposed.

The Chief Clerk read as follows:

Art. 16. The second clause, first section, second article of the Constitution of the United States shall bo amended to read as follows: 44 Each State shall appoint, by a vote of the people thereof qualified to vote for Representatives in Congress, a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States shall bo appointed an elector; and the Congress shall have power to prescribe the manner in which said electors shall b& chosen by the people."

Mr. MORTON. As the Constitution now stands the mode of choosing a President is left entirely to the Legislatures of the several States. The fact that the people vote for President and Vice President is not derived from the Constitution of the United States, butfrom the action of various State Legislatures. The Constitution provides that—

Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the same may be entitled in the Congress."

I believe the State of South Carolina from the time of the formation of the Constitution up to the rebellion selected electors by the Legislature. The question of the election of President and Vice President was never submitted to the people of that State; and what was done in the State of South Carolina may be done in any State in the Union. It is always in the power of a State Legislature, just in advance of a Presidential election, to repeal the State law by which the people are called upon to vote for President and Vice President,, and by the Legislature itself to choose the electors who shall cast the vote of that State in the Electoral College. I think that theie cannot be two opinions now upon the question that this is a blemish and a defect in the national Constitution. The election of a President and Vice President should be referred to the people.

It is proposed by this amendment that the people of each State shall appoint the electors, and that the Congress may determine the manner in which these electors shall be appointed. The effect of this amendment is to take away from the Legislatures of the several States the great power which they now have, and which may under certain circumstances be a most dangerous power, and which might bring on civil war and revolution where a Legislature, finding itself in a minority, and unwilling that the people of the State shall vote directly for President and Vice President, may, as it has the power now, repeal the law by which the people can vote at all for these officers and select electors who shall cast the vote of that State. In the desperation of party and in the contingencies of politics such a great power as this should not be left to the Legislature of any State; and while we are engaged in the business of amending the Constitution we should now provide that the people of the several States shall themselves appoint these electors, and that the power shall not be left in the hands of the Legislatures. The concluding portion of the amendment is in these words:

"And the Congress shall have power to prescribe the manner in which such electors shall bo chosen by the people."

This does not require Congress in the first instance to prescribe the manner in which these electors shall be chosen by the people, but gives to Congress the right to do it if it shall see proper to do so. I call the attention of the Senate to the fact that that provision of this amendmentis in substance the same power which Congress now has to provide the means by which Representatives shall be chosen by the people. I will read that clause of the Constitution: 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 as to the places of choosing Senators."

In other words, Congress now has the power, so far as Representatives are concerned, to provide the times, places, and manner of holding elections; and this amendment gives to Congress the power to prescribe the manner in which the people shall choose these electors; so that the power proposed to be conferred upon Congress in regard to presidential electors is substantially the same that Congress now has in regard to the choice of Representatives by the people.

I make this explanation with a view to a remark made perhaps by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sumker] yesterday upon that point. The committee carefully examined and compared the two powers, and we think they are precisely the same, although the words are not the same. The phraseology in the amendment proposed by the committee I think is better than that which exists in the fourth section of the first article of the Constitution in regard to Representatives. This, Mr. President, is all; I have to say in regard to this amendment. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I ask the Senator from Indiana whether the committee s attention in examining this subject was called to the question whether under the fourth section of the first article, giving Congress the power of prescribing the manner of holding elections of Representatives, Congress has or has not the right to make a registry law regulating the election of Representatives?

Mr. MORTON. Well, sir, I should think, off hand, that Congress had.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I agree with the Senator as to that, and that is a subject which may be of importance.

Mr. MORTON. And I think under the amendment presented Congress, having the right to prescribe the manner in which electors shall be chosen by the people, would have the right to provide for a registry law for the choice of electors; in other words, I think the two powers are substantially the same, although the language is different.

Mr. FERRY. Mr. President

Mr. DIXON. Will my colleague allow me to offer the amendment of which I gave notice?

Mr. FERRY. Certainly.

Mr. DIXON. I move to amend the recital in the proposed amendment by striking out the words "the Legislatures of" and inserting the words "conventions in," and also where the word "Legislatures" occurs in the second place to insert the word'• conventions" in lieu of it. I find that the Constitution merely refers to "conventions." When the Constitution was first submitted for ratification it was submitted by the seventh article to conventions, not saying how they should be chosen, implying of course that they should be chosen by the laws of the State. I do not think it is necessary to provide how they shall be chosen.

ThePRESlDENTprotempore. Theamendment will be read.

The Chief Clerk read the amendment, which was in line four to strike out the words" the Legislatures of," and to insert "conventions in and in line six to strike out the word "Legislatures" and insert "conventions;" so that the joint resolution will read:

That the following article be proposed to conventions in the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of tbo United States, which, when ratified by three fourths of said conventions, shall be valid as part of the Constitution, &u.

Mr. DIXON. When the vote is taken on that amendment I wish it to be taken by yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. DAVIS. I am in favor of the principle both of the amendment of the Senator from Indiana and of the amendment of the Senator from Connecticut as abstract propositions; but I will not vote for them at this time in this assembly. If the State of Kentucky was excluded by force and violence from representation in the Sen teof the United States I should deem that the whole residue of the Senate would not have the constitutional right to propose an amendment to the Constitution. Well, sir, there are three States in the Union that are as much entitled to representation at this time in the Senate as any State that is represented in it that are violently and by force excluded from representation in the Senate—Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas.

Mr. TRUMBULL. How about Georgia?

Mr. DAVIS. The case is worse in relation to Georgia, because she is represented in the House of Representatives, and the extraordinary anomaly of her exclusion from representation in the Senate is presented. Was there ever such a condition of things in the world in a deliberative assembly that .represented the power of a regular and well organized Government?

I will state what I understand to be the principle of the Constitution in relation to amendment, and I ask the attention of the honorable Senator from Kansas for one moment to the proposition. The great leading idea of the amendment which he proposes is, that no citizen of the United States should have any right whatever that every other citizen is not entitled to share. Do I understand the honorable gentleman s idea?

Mr. POMEROY. My idea is that civil and political rights belong to all citizens alike; I do not mean the rights of private property.

Mr. DAVIS. We understand each other. Now, I lay down the proposition with more distinctness, with more truth and philosophy than the honorable Senator s proposition, that every State in the Union is entitled under our Constitution to all the rights and privileges that any or every other State is entitled to. Here is the State of Virginia, with all her illustrious history and with all of her revolutionary reminiscences, excluded by force atid violence from her just representation in the Senate of the United States. Here is the State of Mississippi in the same predicament. Here is the State of Texas in a like predicament. Here is the State of Georgia in a sort of hybrid condition, neither flesh nor fowl, neither fish nor bird, fully represented, I believe, in the other branch of Congress and without a voice in this assembly r bly of the conscript fathers of the nation; and in this condition of things the Senate of the United States undertakes the burlesque of gravely amending the Constitution of the United States!

Sir, 1 say it is not competent for the Senate of the United States to act in this state of its organization upon a proposed amendment to the Constitution. It is a mockery. If there .was communication between the other world and this, or with the ashes of the illustrious dead who have been so long since borne to their graves, the enormity of such a proposition would be enough to reanimate their ashes and to make their illustrious persons turn over in their tombs. Is the extravagance of this day and generation of ours to have no bounds? 1 ask you, Mr. President, (Mr. FREUNGHurSEjr in the chair,) an advocate of all these anomalous and revolutionary movements, by what authority can the Senate of the United States proceed to propose amendments to the Constitution excluding the State of Georgia from her representation in the Senate? I put it stronger than that: what right has this Senate or this Congress to exclude the other three States that I have named from their representation in the two Houses of Congress, and to undertake the most important function of Government in the United States; and that is, to alter the fundamental law in their absence?

Mr. PO MERO Y. If the Senator will permit me to interrupt him, I will state that what I said was that the equality of citizens not convicted of crime was the same, and so of the equality of i he States. li they have been faithtui in their relations to the Government they are entitled to perfect equality. They may have forfeited it, as the citizen may, by crime.

Mr. -DAVis. Where is the law of forfeiture, I will ask the honorable Senator? lead it. Let us know the law of forfeiture.

Mr. POMEROY. It consists in the relation that, one State bears to another.

Mr. DAVIS. And who is to judge of that relation?. Where is the tribunal to decide it? What legal or constitutional sanction has it? How do you get it into court? How do you prepare the action that involves thatquestion? How do you have that action decided? What is the power to render judgment upon that question of relationship, and how is it to be enforced 1

Mr. POMEROY. It was decided after a contest of four years, at the time of the surrender of Lee.

Mr. DAVIS. Does the Constitution recognize the sword as deciding any question under it? Is there any principle of constitutional law that is referred to the bloody arbitrament of the sword? No, sir. The Army in time of war makes no law, no Constitution in this coun-

Mr. POMEROY. The Senator told us the other day that in the presence of arms the laws were silent. This was a question decided by arms and where the laws were silent.

Mr. DAVIS. Doesthe Constitution say that its provisions are silent in the midst of arms? No, sir. That was a powerful expression, not of sentiment but of fear, by Cicero when Pompey s soldiers were present in the Forum. There is no such maxim, no such principle, no such monstrosity in our system. Here we have a Government of law founded upon a Constitution and law subordinate to that Constitution. Among the principles of the Constitution is this: that one State of the Union has as much power, as much right to proceed in all of its processes in the important business of altering the fundamental law as any other State. Where States are in insurrection, where they are making flagrante hello against the Government of the United States, you can not in that condition of things proceed to alter the Constitution at all. You must first reduce the insurgent States to obedience to the Constitution and the anthorityof the United States, and then you may proceed to amend your Constitution. You cannot do it under any other state of case.

But the present condition of things is incomparably stronger than that. Here there is no war; there is no rebellion; there is no insurgent in arms against the authority of the Government of the United States. All have submitted. The law reigns supreme, except so far as it is violated by the machinery of the party in power. At any rate, the insurgents have all submitted. They are no longer in resistance to the laws of the United States or its author ity. They have been vanquished in battle, and they have submitted in the best and noblest faith that ever was professed by a discontented people who had l been warring on the Government of their, country and all of its authority. Now, when peace and order reign, except so far as they are disturbed by the revolutionary movements of the party in power; when, if they were disposed to perform their functions under and according to the Constitution there would not be a ripple upon the surface of our great political sea, but it would be as placid and as transparent as a mirror, as peaceful as though there was not a breeze stirring—when this is the condition of things you have a right to claim the representation and the presence of the representation, both in the House of Representatives and. the Senate, from every State in the Union. They are anxious to be represented: craving, beseeching, praying, adjuriug you to allow them to be represented"; and yet you still, by lawless force, keep them out of your councils, and in their absence, under the operation of this force, you proceed to alter the lundauiental law, the Constitution of our common Government, when that Constitution gives to all the States the free and penect right to take part in this important business.

Sir, your amendments to the Constitution are all void; tht y are of no effect. They were proposed by a mutilated Congress; they were proposed by a mutilated House of Representatives and Senate. That mutilation at one time was voluntary, but now, since it has been healed by the submission and obedience of the insurgents to the Constitution and laws of the United States, you have proceeded to continue it, to enlarge it, to protect it indefinitely; and with all this violence done by you to the Constitution, and to the rights of the people and the sovereign States of the United States to take part in this important business of amending the Constitution, you still continue the mockery of your amendments. How ridiculous! How absurd!

Sir, these amendments of the Constitution, your Freedmen s Bureau bill, your civil rights bill, and all your monstrous and unconstitutional laws will be decided in the course of a few years by the sovereign people of the United States of America in their paramount power and sovereignty, to be null and void, mere debris that you have thrown over the Constitution. They will be swept away from it. You are now indulging a dream of power as did Belshazzar before the inscription appeared upon the wall of his palace. That inscription will come to you. You will be weighed in the balance and you will be found wanting, and another Cyrus will sweep you from power. Mr. President, I do not expect to live many years, but 1 expect to live to see the day of that deliverance of our country and of our glorious Constitution. When 1 have seen that day I shall then be prepared to exclaim, Simeon like, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace." But I want to see that day; and I do not care who the deliverer is. If the honorable Senator from New Yoi k [Mr. Conkling] would undertake that office he would find me an humble follower, and there would be no one more devoted to him in that mission than myself. Sir, tyranny in any form is never long submitted to by the mass of the people. They may be unable at the time to redress their wrongs and to overthrow the power that oppresses them, but hope springs eternal in their breasts, and they strive and strike on until eventually they do their work. That work is ahead of the people of the United States. They are going to undertake it in earnest, and when they do so their power will be found resistless; and all the efforts that this or any other party accidentally in possession of power in the Government may make to stay the progress of this only sovereign power in our land will be put under foot.

Mr. FERRY. Mr. President, I desire to make some remarks both upon the amendment offered by my colleague and upon the proposition reported by the committee. I prefer, however, not to go on this afternoon, and will give way if any Senator will move an adjournment.

Mr. RAMSEY. I make that motion, that the Senate adjourn.

Mr. WILSON. I move to take up Senate bill No. 811. It will take but ten or fifteen minutes to dispose of it, and it is very important that it should be acted upon.

Mr. STEWART. I hope the Senator will withdraw that motion. I desire to know whether we can have an agreement or an understanding to take the vote on the constitutional amendment. If we cannot have such an understanding, we ought to sit it out tonight and not allow an adjournment until it is disposed of. We want to dispose of it this week.

Mr. HENDRICKS. I hope the Senator will not make us sit it out to night

Mr. RAMSEY. With the consent of the Senator from Connecticut, I made a motion to adjourn in order that he might have an opportunity to speak on this subject to morrow The PRESiDiNG OFFiCER, (Mr. Feelikghutsen in the chair. j i he motion of the Senator from Massachusetts can only be entertained by unanimous consent. If any objec. tion iainterposed the bill cannot be considered.

Mr. RAMSEY. I have moved that the Senate adjourn.

Mr. WiLSON. I hope the Senator will withdraw that motion to allow this bill to be considered.

Mr. RAMSEY. I should be glad to do it, but the Senator from Connecticut desires aa adjournment m order that he may have the floor to morrow

Mr. WILSON. The Senator from Connecticut will not object to our doing this kind of business.

Mr. FERRY. I cannot allow the constitutional amendment to be displaced without the consent of the Senator from Nevada who reported it.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. A single objection carries the bill of the Senator irotn Massachusetts over.

Mr. RAMSEY. At the instanceof the Senator from. Connecticut, I have submitted a motion to adjourn.

Mr. WiLSON. I will say to the Senator from Nevada that the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. FebetJ has the floor and desires to speak ou the constitutional amendment, but he does not wish to do so to day Now, sir, 1 have been trying here for four or five days to get ten or fifteen minutes to pass a bill that it is important to pass, and which will save a little money. 1 do not know that 1 ought to say that; but it is important to pass it; and 1 am told by the chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs in the House of Representatives that that committee cannot be called at this session, and it is important to send the bill to the House that they may take it from the table there and secure action. I ask the Senate to give me ten or fifteen minutes to pass it.

Mr. STEWART. I should like to knowabout how many desire to speak on this proposed constitutional amendment, so that we can have some little understanding about it, because on next Monday the chairman of the Finance Committee is going to antagonize his bills. I understood from the Senator from Wisconsin that the Senator from Delaware [Mr. Bayard] desires to speak.

Mr. RAMSEY. I rise to a point of order. Was I in order in moving an adjournment a few moments ago?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Thatmotion is always in order.

Mr. RAMSEY. I made it some time ago, at the instance of the Senator from Connecticut, who desires to speak to morrow and not toThe question being put on the motion to adjourn, a division was called for; and there were—ayes twenty seven

Mr. WILSON. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I presume it can be understood

Mr. HENDRICKS. Is it in order to debate this question?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Debate is not in order.

Mr. WILLIAMS. I wish, Mr. President

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Debate is not in order. The yeasand nays are demanded on the motion to adjourn.

Mr. ANTHONY. I ask unanimous consent to make a statement. I think the Senate all want to do the same thing; they wish to allow the Senator from Massachusetts to pass his bill and then adjuurn.

The yeas and nays were ordered; and being taken, resulted—yeas 21, nays 29; as follows: YEAS—Messrs. Buckalew, Cameron Davis Dixon, Doolittle, Drake, Fowler. Frelinghuysen, Hendricks. Kellogg, McCreery, Morton, Norton, Patterson of .Tennessee, Ramsey, Robertson, Thayer, Van Winkle. Vickers, Wndc, and Wbyte—21.

NAYS—Messrs. Abbott. Anthony, Cattell, Ckandler, Cole, Ccr khnx Conness, Coi bett Cragin. Fessendon, U„ms, Henderson, Howe, Morgan, Morrill of Maine, Morrill of V imont, Osborn, Patterson otNew Hampshire, Pool, Rice, Sawyer, Stewart. Sumner, Irumbull Warner, Welch, Willey, Williams, and Wii on—29

AB ENP Messrs. Bayard, Edmunds, Ferry, Grimes, Harlan, Howard, McDonald, Nye, Pomeroy, Ros, Sautebury, Sherman, Speucer, Sprague, Tipton, and Yates—IS.

So the Senate refused to adjourn.