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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



a provision as this upon this bill that will have 

 any force whatever in regard to Virginia, you 

 can put such a provision upon a bill that will 

 have force in regard to Missouri, or Illinois, or 

 any other State. Therefore, with my imper- 

 fect knowledge, I took the liberty of saying 

 that I thought such a provision would be ut- 

 terly useless." 



Mr. Morton : " Now, Mr. President, do we 

 confess, by the adoption of this amendment, 

 that a State has a right to rescind the rati- 

 fication of an amendment to the Constitu- 

 tion at any time before its final ratification 

 by three-fourths of the States? We make 

 no confession of that kind. We have a right 

 to guard against an act of that kind, with- 

 out making such a confession. Sir, the rati- 

 fication of the fifteenth amendment is one 

 of the condititions of the reconstruction of 

 Virginia. We have a right to require it in 

 advance, and to protect ourselves against its 

 recission up to the time that the fifteenth 

 amendment becomes a part of the law of the 

 land. It is one of the conditions of recon- 

 struction, and, for one, I do not intend to be 

 cheated out of it. The State of New York 

 has rescinded her ratification. I do not be- 

 lieve that she has a right to rescind. But, sir, 

 I do not care about having the fifteenth amend- 

 ment hang upon a question of that kind. I 

 would rather that the ratification of the 

 fifteenth amendment should be so clear and so 

 perfect that no question of that sort will re- 

 main to be talked about by its enemies. Sir, 

 we shall have enough States without counting 

 New York." 



Mr. Trumbull: "If this amendment is 

 adopted which the Senator now advocates, 

 and Virginia should next month recall her 

 ratification of the fifteenth amendment, and 

 Virginia should then be put back territorially, 

 would he then insist that her ratification was 

 good." 



Mr. Morton: "If Virginia should rescind, 

 in violation of this amendment, and be put 

 back to her present condition, we will hold her 

 there until she does ratify the fifteenth amend- 

 ment again, or until she consents to abide by 

 her faith." 



Mr. Trumbull : " That was not my question. 

 My question was, where, then, would be the 

 fifteenth amendment? Do you not thereby 

 admit that her ratification of the amendment 

 is gone if you put her back in that way ? That 

 is my point." 



Mr. Morton: "I think not. I make no ad- 

 mission of that kind." 



Mr. Trumbull: "Then why hold her until 

 she ratifies again ? " 



Mr. Morton : " We simply hold the State as 

 security ; that is all." 



Mr. Trumbull: "Do I understand the Sena- 

 tor to say that he would hold her for security 

 for that which he has got ? Will he keep the 

 money and demand security too?" 



Mr. Morton: "We expect, Mr. President, to 



have the vote of Virginia for the fifteenth 

 amendment, independent of any attempted 

 breach of faith of that kind, and we give Vir- 

 ginia to understand by this amendment that, 

 if she shall attempt to play a trick upon us in 

 that way, she will lose her representation upon 

 this floor. As to what may be the mere legal 

 consequences following from that, it is unneces- 

 sary now to discuss ; but we say to her that, if 

 she attempts to play a trick of that kind upon 

 us, she is liable to lose her representation in 

 Congress and to be remanded back to her pres- 

 ent position. If we shall adopt this amend- 

 ment, then Virginia will never do any thing of 

 the kind ; we have perfect security that she 

 will not. She does not desire to lose her repre- 

 sentation in Congress after having once secured 

 it, and it would be security find that is the 

 way I use the word against such an act of 

 treachery as was performed by the State of 

 Georgia. 



" One word further, and I am done. The 

 Senator from Illinois talks about Virginia, 

 when once restored, as being upon the same 

 footing as the other States. In one sense that 

 will be true, but perhaps in another it will not 

 be true. I believe that, if we have a right to 

 reconstruct a State government that has been 

 destroyed by rebellion, we have aright to pro- 

 tect it after it has been reconstructed; that 

 the right to reconstruct implies the right to 

 protect the reconstructed State. If, after a 

 State government has been reconstructed, it 

 has a right to knock it down, and we have no 

 right to interfere to prevent it being knocked 

 down, but simply the right to set it up again, 

 then our power is imperfect ; but if we have 

 the power to reconstruct a State, to rees- 

 tablish a State government after it has been 

 once destroyed by a rebellion, then have we 

 not the power to protect that new govern- 

 ment, to continue it as a republican govern- 

 ment, to prevent it being knocked down with- 

 out requiring us to wait until it is knocked 

 down, and after that to set it up again? " 



Mr. Howard, of Michigan, said: "Mr. Presi- 

 dent, I wish to say one word on the subject 

 of the power claimed by some of the States 

 to retract their ratification of an amendment 

 to the Constitution of the United States. It 

 is in its very nature a serious question. I 

 should very freely vote for the amendment of 

 the honorable Senator from Missouri, if I did 

 not think at the same time I was recognizing 

 an extremely mischievous principle in refer- 

 ence to the power of the States. It seems to 

 me that the remarks of the honorable Senator 

 from Illinois, as to the concession which we 

 are making impliedly by adopting this amend- 

 ment, are very weighty and very important. 

 It seems to me that, by passing this amend- 

 ment, though it may be very necessary under 

 the circumstances I agree, we are yielding 

 the principle, for which we all on this side or 

 the Chamber contend, that when an amend- 

 ment of the Constitution has been once rati- 



