CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



125 





iMiMiiinls of Vermont, said : "Mr. 1'iv-i- 

 I entirely sympathize with the feeling of 

 ho ;iro desirous that this people of 

 Georgia : shall give some elliciriit proof of their 

 .-ml of their real republicanism. I 

 .11 republicanism in the more terlmi- 

 i-:il party >.-n-i-, but in the Jeffersonian sense, if 

 I may u>e such a phrase, in coining again into 

 UThood of States. But I confess I feel, 

 as I believe the committee felt unanimously, 

 that if we could attain that object, the adop- 

 tion of the fifteenth amendment and the ro- 

 adoption. if you please, of the fourteenth, by 

 .:U1 at : iv of that people, acting of their 

 own t'roe will without any thing that anybody 

 could call coercion or duress, it would bo emi- 

 nently desirable ; and desirable for the reason 

 that tin- position of Georgia has come to be in 

 tin- minds of a great many persons somewhat 

 different from that of the other States upon 

 whom we hare inposcd these conditions. 

 When I say 'States,' I do not mean political, 

 equal, complete communities, but should say 

 rather the people within the territorial limits 

 called States. Now, if we can attain by the 

 free will of the people of Georgia this result 

 and are sure of it, considering the somewhat 

 different position of that people as is claimed 

 by many, without inviting a controversy here- 

 after either in the halls of legislation or in the 

 forum which is only a little way from us, would 

 it not be very desirable to do so ? It seems to 

 me that it would." 



Mr. Saulsbury, of Delaware, said : " If 

 Georgia was a State in the Union, and if 

 three-fourths of the States that are in the 

 Union were to ratify a proposed amendment 

 to the Constitution of the United States which 

 destroyed the power of a State, a member of 

 the Federal Union, to control the manage- 

 ment of its own domestic and internal affairs ; 

 as, for instance, if a proposed amendment to 

 the Constitution goes so far as to say who shall 

 or who shall not vote for Governor of my State 

 or members of the Legislature of my State, 

 and if that proposed amendment is ratified by 

 three-fourths of the States acknowledged to be 

 in the Union, and does not receive the assent 

 of my State, the ratification by three-fourths 

 is absolutely null and void ; and for this rea- 

 son : because under our form of government 

 there must, of necessity, be limitations upon 

 the power of amendment, growing out of the 

 nature and character of our political institu- 

 tions. The States never meant, by giving to 

 fcbree-fonrths of Congress the power to ratify 

 a proposed constitutional amendment, to sur- 

 render all the power of internal government 

 within their own limits to the Federal Gov- 

 ernment. They never, in other words, gave 

 to three-fourths of the States the power to 

 destroy the State governments; and, whenever 

 three-fourths of the States go to such an ex- 

 tent as to say who shall vote for mere munici- 

 pal officers of a State, for State officers, they 

 go to the extent of saying who shall not vote, 



ami they go to the extent of saying that no 

 one shall vote at all ; and, when they can go 

 to that extent, they can go the extent of say- 

 ing there shall be neither executive, legislative, 

 nor judicial officers within a State. The power 

 of amendment contemplated by the Constitu- 

 tion is a power of amendment to perfect the 

 system, to develop the system, if you please, 

 in its operations, to make it more beneficial 

 for the common weal and prosperity of the 

 whole; but it never was intended to be a 

 power of amendment to destroy the very na- 

 ture of the Federal Government, or the natnre, 

 powers, and essential characteristics and rights 

 of the State governments. 



" Let us test it, sir. I ask you whether, if 

 two-thirds of Congress were to propose an 

 amendment, declaring that the powers of this 

 Government, legislative, executive, and judi- 

 cial, should not be vested in a Congress, in a 

 President, and in a judiciary, but should be 

 absolutely vested in the occupant of the "White 

 House at the present time, and, in the insanity 

 and madness of the hour, three-fourths of the 

 States were to ratify such a provision as that, 

 would such a ratification be binding on any 

 non-assenting State? No, sir; because the 

 ratification would be in conflict with the nature 

 and character of the Government to which the 

 States had assented, and contrary to the pur- 

 pose and objects for which the Government 

 was formed." 



Mr. Stockton, of New Jersey, said : " I hold, 

 with the distinguished Senator who has ad- 

 dressed the Senate at length this morning, that 

 these States have never been out of the Union, 

 that they could not go out of the Union, that 

 they have always been in the Union ; but I say 

 that, when you start on the theory of their 

 governments being provisional and military 

 governments, and then calling those military 

 governments, those temporary governments, 

 together, by the military commander of a di- 

 vision, to act upon a constitutional amend- 

 ment, you are depriving my State, and the 

 State of Ohio, and all the rest of the States 

 who have never been in rebellion, or tainted 

 with it, of their rights." 



Mr. Morton : " Inasmuch as the fifteenth 

 amendment is the vital p"oint in my amend- 

 ment, and the vital question of the hour, I am 

 willing to strike out the fourteenth amend- 

 ment, because I do not think it is to be 

 seriously affected in any way." 



Mr. Howard : " That is riirht." 



The Vice-President : "The Senator from 

 Indiana moves to amend his amendment, by 

 striking out tho words ' the fourteenth and ' 

 before ' fifteenth.' " 



Mr. Morton : " Mr. President, I think it is a 

 matter of vital importance to this nation that 

 the fifteenth amendment should be ratified; 

 and I think it very likely, in view of the con- 

 tingencies in several of the States, that the 

 final success of that amendment depends upon 

 the vote of Georgia. If we in the Senate to- 



