CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



287 



interpretation of it, evidently excluded, but if 

 there was any doubt on that question it would 

 be solved by reference to the second section of 

 the same article, which provides that 



The House of Representatives shall be composed 

 of members chosen every second year by the people 

 of the several States, and the electors in each State 

 shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of 

 the most numerous branch of the State Legislature. 



" Does the Constitution in any part of it say 

 what those qualifications are ? If the Constitu- 

 tion does not give to Congress the authority to 

 prescribe the qualifications for electors of the 

 most numerous branch of the State Legislatures, 

 and if the Constitution itself does not prescribe 

 those qualifications, it necessarily follows that 

 the only authority in relation to the qualifica- 

 tions of electors is the authority possessed by 

 the States. That is obvious, if there could be 

 any doubt on the subject, by another consider- 

 ation. What were the States before the Con- 

 stitution was adopted ? Had anybody a right to 

 say who were to vote for Representatives or Sen- 

 ators of the State Legislatures except the State ? 

 That is very clear; and when they agreed 

 to go into convention, and the people of the 

 States to whom the adoption of the Constitution 

 was submitted determined upon ratifying the 

 Constitution, and by so doing- made it a Con- 

 stitution of Government for the United States, 

 they not only in terms excluded any authority 

 to interfere with the qualifications of elec- 

 tors for members of the State Legislatures, but 

 guarded more effectually against it by providing 

 in one of the amendments that the powers not 

 delegated were to be considered as reserved to 

 the States or the people of the States respec- 

 tively. 



" Then, if it be true that the qualification which 

 an elector is to have to choose the most numer- 

 ous branch of the State Legislature is to be pre- 

 scribed by the State, what authority has Con- 

 gress to interfere with it, and what has been 

 the practical operation? I never heard it inti- 

 mated, until the intimation fell from the honor- 

 able member from Massachusetts, that any au- 

 thority under the Government of the United 

 States existed to that extent. What have the 

 Western States done ? Many of them have ad- 

 mitted to the right of suffrage other than citi- 

 "zens; they have given it to male inhabitants. All 

 of them almost and that statement is equally 

 applicable to some of the original States have 

 given it exclusively only to persons of a partic- 

 ular race, the white race, excluding the black. 

 New York does it ; Vermont does it ; Connect- 

 icut does it ; Michigan does it ; Illinois does it ; 

 Ohio does it ; Nevada does it ; California does 

 it; Maryland does it ; and nearly all the States; 

 and nobody ever supposed that they had not 

 the power to exclude the black race, or any 

 portion of the white race that they might think 

 proper in the exercise of their sovereign power 

 to exclude. In other words, the entire author- 

 ity is in the people of the State, and it is for the 

 people of the State to say who shall exercise 



the right of suffrage ; and it would be monstrous 

 to hold that, because they admitted or excluded 

 any portion of the people of their State into or 

 from the exercise of the right of suffrage, their 

 government was not republican in point of 

 form. 



" The honorable member from Massachusetts 

 has laid upon the table this morning an amend- 

 ment consisting of nine sections, which I have 

 read hastily, but I believe I understand their 

 result : the first is, that Congress alone has the 

 power to say who shall be permitted to reorgan- 

 ize the State governments ; the second is, that 

 in the exertion of that power it is to see that 

 the Constitution be republican in point of form ; 

 the third is, that it is not republican in point of 

 form, either because of the truths declared in 

 the Declaration of Independence or upon prin- 

 ciples of justice independent of those truths, 

 unless the blacks and the whites are given 

 equally the right of suffrage. That is a most 

 extraordinary doctrine, and where would it 

 lead if true ? Suppose the honorable member 

 got the State of Louisiana back under the author- 

 ity of an act of Congress such as he would draw, 

 saying to that people, ' You are authorized to 

 frame a constitution for yourselves provided 

 you will insert in it a clause that the right of 

 suffrage shall be exercised by the black as welt 

 as the white,' and they are admitted, does he 

 think it would not be in the power of the peo- 

 ple of Louisiana to change that afterwards? 

 What is Massachusetts authorized to do now ? 

 Will the honorable member deny that it would 

 be in the power of Massachusetts now to ex- 

 clude the black ? I suppose not ; and yet, if 

 by an act of Congress you place it out of the 

 power of the seceded States when they come 

 back, under the authority of that act, to change 

 the qualifications of electors, they will not come 

 back as the equals of Massachusetts. And yet 

 nothing is more plain than that the theory of 

 our Constitution is (no matter whether you con- 

 sider it as a national Government, a consol- 

 idated Government, or a consolidated Union) 

 that the States, with reference to the powers 

 that the original States possessed, are all equal. 

 With just as much propriety could you deny 

 to either of these States the authority to 

 come back unless they would surrender every 

 other sovereign right belonging to a State. 



" Now, Mr. President, the result to which I 

 come is, that if a State were brought back under 

 such a law as is suggested by the honorable 

 member from Massachusetts, it would not ac- 

 complish his purpose ; it could be changed the 

 next day. It is a very easy thing for the hon- 

 orable member from Massachusetts to say, and 

 for the State of Massachusetts to say, that the 

 negroes who are there, and who can read and 

 write, shall vote, because there are very few 

 there. It does not make a pin's difference 

 whether they vote or not, so far as the result 

 of their elections are concerned ; but if they 

 had thrown upon them the negro population 

 of Louisiana, lost in ignorance, divested more 



