CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



121 



..f the State, they will disfranchise, ..no 

 another, the colored men in every South- 

 -ttite. There is no security for colored suf- 

 thciv is no security for the whole work 

 .instruction, except by putting universal 

 ..:c in the Constitution and under the pro- 

 i (!' tlio laws of the United States." 

 Mr. Thiirman, of Ohio, said: " Mr. Presi- 

 dent, what I Leg to call tho attention of the 

 in i- this: that this is not a question 

 Dimply which concerns tho State of Georgia; 

 this is imt, as tho Senator from Missouri and 

 nator from Indiana seem to suppose, a 

 n>u of the merits or the demerits of the 

 people of Georgia; this is not a question as to 

 what conditions might properly be imposed 

 upon Georgia, if Georgia stood affected alone 

 liy those conditions; but this is a question 

 whether you shall impose an amendment to 

 the Constitution upon the entire people of the 

 United States by coercing Georgia into the 

 adoption of that amendment. The question is 

 whether you shall force that amendment on 

 the people of Ohio, notwithstanding their fifty 

 thousand majority against it, by coercing Geor- 

 gia against her will to adopt it. There is not a 

 member of the Senate who does not know 

 that, if Mississippi and Texas and Virginia and 

 _'ia were left to their free, unbiassed judg- 

 ment on this amendment, not one of those 

 States would adopt it, not one of them would 

 think of adopting it; and every Senator well 

 knows that, without the votes of all four of 

 those States, the amendment cannot become a 

 part of the Constitution. 



" What, then, is the effect of coercing Geor- 

 gia to adopt it? "When you strangle her, when 

 yon deprive her citizens of the free election 

 which tho Constitution gives them to say what 

 shall be a part of the Constitution of the 

 Union, when you force her vote into tho urn 

 to be counted in favor of the amendment, you 

 force that amendment on the people of Ohio, 

 on the people of Indiana, on the people of 

 Illinois, on the whole people, however much 

 they may be opposed to its adoption. My State 

 has voted upon the amendment ; her Legisla- 

 ture has voted upon it and rejected it ; and 

 when you compel Georgia against the will of 

 her people to adopt this amendment you nullify 

 the vote of the State of Ohio on this great 

 question of amending the Constitution. There- 

 fore, Mr. President, not simply in the name of 

 the people of Georgia, but in the name of all the 

 people, I protest against this mode of coercing 

 the people of the United States to adopt an 

 amendment to their Constitution. 



"The sole power that is given by the Consti- 

 tution to Congress is to propose amendments. 

 It is then for every State, of its own free will, 

 without coercion, without compulsion, to say 

 whether it will accept your proposition or not ; 

 and it is simply idle and frivolous to say that a 

 State freely and voluntarily accepts your prop- 

 osition of amendment to the Constitution 

 when you say in the same breath to the State, 



'If you do not accept it you shall have no 

 rights in this Union; you shall be taxed with- 

 out representation ; you shall be governed by 

 military instead of civil law ; tho civil courts 

 .shall be trampled down and drum-head court- 

 martials shall take their place ; every right 

 that is sacred to an American, every right that 

 is sacred to a freeman, shall be at tho mercy 

 of military tribunals and drum-head court- 

 martials unless you of your own free will, for- 

 sooth, of your free choice, forsooth, agree to 

 alter the fundamental law of the land.' 



" Call that free choice 1 Call that a free elec- 

 tion, accepting or rejecting an amendment to 

 the Constitution I Why, sir, I should be insult- 

 ing the understanding and intelligence of the 

 Senate if I were to discuss such a proposition 

 as that. No, sir ; you give no free choice to 

 Georgia; you give no free choice to any one of 

 these States when you attach these conditions ; 

 when you say to them, with your hand on their 

 throats, ' Accept this amendment or else con- 

 tinue to be deprived of the most sacred rights 

 of the American people.' 



"But, as I said before, it is not simply a 

 question as to Georgia ; it is a question as to 

 Ohio as well as to Georgia ; and your decision 

 on this proposition affects my State just as 

 much as it affects the State of Georgia; every 

 bit as much. If this is to become a part of 

 the Constitution, it will be a part of the Con- 

 stitution in Ohio as well as in Georgia." 



Mr. Sawyer, of South Carolina, said: "Mr. 

 President, we do not say to the people of 

 Georgia, by adopting the amendment which 

 has been proposed by the Senator from Indiana 

 to this bill, that they must ratify the fourteenth 

 and fifteenth amendments; that is not the 

 spirit of what we propose to say ; but we say 

 we want evidence that the people of the State 

 of Georgia are in such a condition, have so 

 far repented of their rebellion, and so far 

 changed their minds, that they are fit to be re- 

 ceived back into the family of States. We say 

 that the State of Georgia is not a State which 

 is in a condition to be received back after the 

 history of the last eight years, and especially 

 after the history of the last two years, unless 

 her people have come to that spirit and mind 

 which induce them to adopt the fourteenth 

 and fifteenth amendments. It is because we 

 want an index of their change of feeling and 

 change of purpose that we propose to insert 

 this condition." 



Mr. Bayard, of Delaware, said : " Mr. Presi- 

 dent, on the first day that this body convened 

 at the present session, a bill entitled ' An act 

 to perfect the reconstruction of the State of 

 Georgia' was introduced by the honorable 

 Senator from Indiana. On the 8th it was re- 

 ferred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and 

 reported back to this body with amendments 

 on the 13th. Here we stand on the morning of 

 the 16th to consider an act tho effect of which 

 simply is to remand that which this Congress 

 has called a State back to the condition of a 



