CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



249 



right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and 

 to institute a new Government, laying its foun- 

 dations on such principles and organizing its 

 powers in such form as to them shall seem most 

 likely to effect their safety and happiness.' And 

 in these four propositions we have an all-suffi- 

 cient guide to enduring peace and prosperity. 

 If in the legislation we propose, we regard these 

 self-evident truths, our posterity shall not only 

 enjoy peace, hut teach the world the way to 

 universal freedom ; hut if we fail to regard them, 

 God alone in His infinite wisdom knows what 

 years of agitation, war, and misery we may en- 

 tail on posterity, and whether the overthrow 

 of our Government, the division of our country, 

 and all the ills thus entailed on mankind, may 

 not be justly chargeable to u*. 



"My proposition is, that the Government of 

 the United States was instituted to secure the 

 rights of all the citizens of the country, and not 

 for the benefit of men of one race only ; and I 

 know not where to look for evidence that would 

 strengthen the conclusiveness of the mass of 

 proof I have thus adduced, embracing as it does 

 the action of the framers of all the State con- 

 stitutions but one, of the Congress for framing 

 Articles of Confederation, of the Convention 

 for framing the Constitution of the United 

 States, the acts of Congress in unbroken series 

 throughout the active life of a generation, and 

 the solemn obligations assumed by the executive 

 department of the national Government in the 

 exercise of the treaty-making power. If other 

 source of proof there be, it can only serve to 

 make assurance doubly sure. 



" Mr. Speaker, it is safe to assert that in every 

 State, save South Carolina, and possibly Virginia 

 and Delaware in which two States the question 

 of suffrage was regulated by statute and not by 

 constitutional provision negroes participated in 

 constituting the Convention which framed the 

 Constitution of the United States, and voted for 

 members of the State conventions to which the 

 question of its ratification was submitted ; and 

 as that Constitution contains no clause which 

 expressly or by implication deprives them of the 

 protecting power and influence of the instrument 

 they participated in creating, I may well say that 

 to secure internal peace by the establishment of 

 political homogeneity, and perpetuate it by the 

 abolition of political classes and castes whose 

 conflicting rights and interests will provoke in- 

 cessant agitation, and ever and anon, as the op- 

 pressed may be inspired by the fundamental 

 principles of our Government, or goaded by 

 wrongs excite armed insurrection, we need 

 adopt no new theory, but accept the principles 

 of our fathers, and administer in good faith to 

 all men, the institutions they founded, on them. 



" As a step to this, my amendment proposes, 

 not that the entire mass of people of African de- 

 scent, whom our laws and customs have degraded 

 and brutalized, shall be immediately clothed with 

 all the rights of citizenship. It proposes only to 

 grant the right of suffrage, inestimable to all men, 

 to those who may be so far fitted by education 



for its judicious exercise as to be ablo to read 

 the Constitution and laws of the country, in 

 addition to the brave men, who, in the name of 

 law and liberty, and in the hope of leaving their 

 children heirs to both, have welcomed the bap- 

 tism of battle in the naval and military service 

 of the United States, and who are embraced by 

 the amendment reported by the committee. 

 This, I admit, will be an entering wedge, by the 

 aid of which, in a brief time, the whole mass 

 improved, enriched, and enlightened by the 

 fast-coming and beneficent providences of God, 

 will be qualified for and permitted to enjoy 

 those rights by which they may protect them- 

 selves, and aid in giving to all others that near 

 approach to exact justice which we hope to 

 attain from the intelligent exercise of universal 

 suffrage and the submission of all trials of law 

 in which a citizen may be interested to the 

 decision of his peers as jurors. 



" Let us frankly accept Jefferson's test as to 

 the right of suffrage, and give it practical effect. 

 In a letter dated July 12, 1816, in discussing a 

 proposed amendment to the constitution of 

 Virginia, Mr. Jefferson said : 



"The true foundation of republican government is 

 the equal right of every citizen in his person and 

 property, and in their management. Try by this as 

 a tally, every provision of our constitution, and see 

 if it hangs directly on the will of the people. Keduce 

 your Legislature to a convenient number for full but 

 orderly discussion. Let every man who fights or 

 pays, exercise his just and equal right in their elec- 

 tion." Jefferson's Works, vol. vii., p. 11. 



"By adopting this sound test, which, be it 

 remembered, was the only one recognized by 

 the fathers, and adhering to it, our practice will 

 harmonize with our theories, and the repugnance 

 between the races will gradually disappear. 

 Wealth and power conceal many deformities, 

 and will make the black man less odious to all 

 than he now seems. Thus will consistent ad- 

 herence to principle give strength and peace to 

 our country. 



" But if, on the other hand, we ignore the 

 rights of these four million people and their 

 posterity, the demon of agitation will haunt us 

 in the future fearfully as it has in the past. The 

 appeals of these millions for justice will not go 

 forth in vain ; and the liberal, the conscientious, 

 the philanthropic, the religious, now that our 

 Christian church recognizes her long off- cast 

 child philanthropy, will be found in hostile array 

 against what the commercial and planting in- 

 terests will regard as the conservatism of the 

 day ; and though we find that we have buried 

 the slavery question, our peace will be disturbed 

 by the negro question constantly, and fearfully 

 as it has been by the struggle between slavery 

 and free labor. To which party ultimate victory 

 would be vouchsafed in such a controversy I 

 need not ask, as the nation acknowledges that 

 God still lives and is omnipotent. 



Mr. Eliot, of Massachusetts, offered the fol- 

 lowing substitute to the bill : 



Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert : 

 That the States declared to be in rebellion against 



