130 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



ling, Oorbett, Davis, Fowler, Hamilton, Norton. Kice, 

 Saulsbury, Stockton, Thurman, Vickers, and Wil- 

 ley 15. 



ABSENT Messrs. Anthony, Boreman, Cameron, 

 Edmunds, Ferry, Howe, McCreery, Pool, Sprague, 

 Tipton, Trumbull, and Yates 12. 



So the amendment was agreed to. 



Mr. Thurman, of Ohio, said: "The State 

 of Georgia elected a Legislature under your 

 reconstruction acts. That Legislature per- 

 formed every single requirement of those acts. 

 So your President tells us in his message, 

 and so the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Trum- 

 bull), in the views that he published at the 

 last session of the Fortieth Congress, made 

 perfectly manifest by reference to official docu- 

 ments. The State, then, according to your 

 reconstruction laws, was entitled to the admis- 

 sion of its Senators and Representatives in Con- 

 gress. The House of Representatives admitted 

 its members in that branch of Congress. The 

 Senate did not ; it referred the credentials of 

 the Senators-elect to the Committee on the 

 Judiciary, and no action was taken finally upon 

 their credentials. 



"Here, then, was Georgia, having complied 

 with every requirement of the reconstruction 

 acts and having elected Senators and Represent- 

 atives and her Representatives admitted in the 

 other branch of the Fortieth Congress, and hold- 

 ing their seats until that Congress expired I 

 say Georgia did all that your acts required, 

 ratifying the fourteenth amendment among the 

 rest, and yet now it is proposed to take Georgia 

 in hand again ; and why to take her in hand ? 

 Two reasons have been given for it, and but two, 

 that I know of. One reason is, that her Legis- 

 lature, after she had complied with every requi- 

 sition of the reconstruction acts, decided that 

 colored men were not entitled to seats in that 

 Legislature, not entitled to hold office in Geor- 

 gia, and therefore the colored members were 

 expelled from their seats ; and in the next 

 place, that certain. persons held seats in that 

 body who were not entitled under the four- 

 teenth amendment of the Constitution to hold 

 seats. 



" First, in regard to the persons who held 

 seats who were disqualified under the fourteenth 

 amendment. I have looked at the testimony 

 before the Committee of the House of Repre- 

 sentatives on that subject, and nobody says 

 that there were any more than from three to 

 five of those men in a Legislature consisting, I 

 believe, of two hundred and nineteen members. 

 I suppose, then, even if those persons were dis- 

 qualified, although a committee reported that 

 they were not disqualified and the Legislature 

 decided that they were not disqualified, if you 

 xjouldigo behind their decision nobody would be 

 willing to overturn the government of Georgia 

 because out of the two hundred and nineteen 

 members of the Legislature four or five persons 

 disqualified under this amendment to the Con- 

 stitution had held seats in that body. 



" But then it is said that the negro members 



were expelled from that body. First, what is 

 the fact about that ? The leading Republican 

 of Georgia, the leading spirit in supporting 

 the reconstruction acts, as everybody knows, 

 was Governor Brown. He was the first man, 

 I believe, of any eminence in the State who took 

 ground in favor of the reconstruction acts. He 

 spoke, I believe, all over that State in their 

 favor ; and when the constitution was formed 

 he addressed the people at various times and in 

 various places in support of that constitution. 

 Everywhere that he spoke, as I am assured 

 and certainly once, for I have his speech in 

 my possession everywhere, in order to recom- 

 mend that constitution to the people of Geor- 

 gia, he told them he, one of the most eminent 

 lawyers of that State he, a man who had been 

 the Governor of that State he, the leader in 

 the reconstruction movement in that State 

 everywhere he told the people of that State 

 that if that constitution were adopted negroes 

 would he entitled to vote, but would not be 

 entitled to hold office. 



"The right to vote does not necessarily give 

 the right to hold office. "We all know that full 

 well. It was never better expressed than by 

 Mr. Justice Swayne, in the decision he deliv- 

 ered at Louisville, in which he sustained the 

 fourteenth amendment, when he said that the 

 political right to vote was one thing, the polit- 

 ical right to hold office was another thing. We 

 have known of States where every man could 

 vote, but where a man could not be a member 

 of the Legislature without having a certain 

 qualification. I think in New York under the 

 old constitution a man could not be a member 

 of the Senate without a freehold of a certain 

 prescribed value. It is BO in Delaware now. 

 The right to hold office, therefore, is one 

 thing, the right to vote is another thing ; and 

 this eminent lawyer, this head and front of 

 the Republican party in Georgia, this chief 

 advocate of the reconstruction measures, told 

 the people of Georgia everywhere, with the 

 weight of his name, that if they adopted 

 that constitution it would not confer upon the 

 negro any thing but the right to vote ; it would 

 not confer upon him the power to hold office. 



" "Well, sir, the people did adopt the constitu- 

 tion ; the Legislature assembled, and, as if they 

 had determined to submit to the will of the 

 dominant party in this country as far as pos- 

 sible, as if they had been determined to remove 

 all doubt about their good faith, they ratified 

 the fourteenth amendment before the colored 

 members were expelled, and they elected their 

 Senators before the colored members were 

 expelled. Both these things were done. Then, 

 you cannot complain. The Senator from Indi- 

 ana (Mr. Morton) when he was asked by the 

 Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Ferry) why 

 he insisted on their ratifying the fourteenth 

 amendment again, said that that was an unlaw- 

 ful Legislature. Unlawful why? Unlawful 

 because it had expelled the negroes? No such 

 thing, sir. Every negro had his seat there 



