CONGRESS, UNITED 1 STATES. 



151 



|| has passed completely from the power 

 ..f tin- Legislature of tho State, and that after 

 ;.- State has nothing to do with it; it is 

 I liv its ratification for all time. I BO un- 

 wind tho Constitution ; and I do not wish 

 liv my vote hero to throw any doubt upon 

 that principle. I cannot imagine how any en- 

 li^liU-nctl court of justice, how any well-in- 

 Mructi-d judge, would ever come to any other 

 conclusion upon tho subject. The Constitution 

 tkvlares that amendments may be proposed by 

 Congress or by the States in convention, 

 ' which in either caso shall be valid to all in- 

 tents and purposes as part of this Constitution 

 when ratified by the Legislatures of three- 

 fourths of the several States'" 



Mr. Conkling, of New York, said : " I must 

 vote against it, first, because, as was said by 

 tho Senator from Illinois, there is bound up in 

 it, and ineradicable from it, a confession of the 

 power of a State to retract its assent given to 

 a constitutional amendment. I know of no 

 construction by which we can escape from 

 that conclusion involved in this amendment. 



" But, Mr. President, I shall vote against it for 

 a reason which, as I weigh the two together, is 

 much more important with me than the reason 

 from which I pass. I refer to the fact that this 

 amendment contains an avowal that, when we 

 recognize tho State of Virginia and admit her 

 to representation, she then is not a State of the 

 Union at all. Is it not so, sir ? Has Virginia 

 been out of the Union ? Has the Union been 

 dissolved so that Virginia was not in it ? That 

 I have never believed. The honorable Senator 

 before me (Mr. Pomeroy) says that he thinks 

 it has been. I take that supposition to test his 

 argument ; suppose the Union has been dis- 

 solved and the State of Virginia has heen out 

 of the Union, what, then, is the nature and qual- 

 ity of that act which we are about to do? Is 

 it not to bring back Virginia into the Union, 

 BO that she shall again be, as she once was, a 

 State, and a State of the Union ? The Senator 

 assents to that. Manifestly it follows. And 

 yet here comes a proposition which says that 

 Virginia shall not, even after the consummation 

 of that measure now pending, be a State in the 

 Union ; that when admitted she shall not have 

 that statehood, she shall not represent that 

 equality, she shall not illustrate and embody 

 that fact which exists, if it exists at all, in the 

 circumstance and the truth that she is a State 

 equal to the other States in the Union. On 

 tho contrary, tnke the caso as I understand it 

 and as the Senator from Kansas denies it to 

 be ; take the case as I think it was most aptly 

 stated by Mr. Lincoln, that Virginia was out of 

 her proper practical relations with the Union, 

 what, then, is the act which we are about to 

 perform ? " 



Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, said: "Mr. Presi- 

 dent, I am free to state, and I state distinctly 

 and with emphasis, that I believe this proposed 

 amendment of the Constitution is utterly void, 

 and that every amendment of tho Constitution 



that has been passed in tho last six or seven 

 years is utterly vokl and inoperative. In r.-- 

 lation to this particular am end went, ray first 

 position is that Virginia was coerced to ratify 

 the fifteenth amendment; that a condition un- 

 constitutional, coercive in its character, which 

 deprived* that State of its free will upon the 

 subject, was imposed upon Virginia by tho law 

 of Congress, upon tho motion of tho honor- 

 able Senator from Indiana (Mr. Morton), de- 

 claring that, before Virginia could be admitted 

 to representation in either House of Congress, 

 she should be required absolutely and uncon- 

 ditionally to accept the fifteenth amendment. 

 I say, sir, that such a condition as that avoids 

 the irct of ratification by Virginia. The time 

 will come when, before some forum, some tri- 

 bunal in the United States, that great question 

 will be made; and in my judgment that ques- 

 tion will be ruled in favor of the State and of 

 the freedom of the State, by coming to the 

 conclusion that her ratification was coerced 

 from her and is not binding on her. 



" But, Mr. President, I have another objection 

 to that and all these amendments, in my judg- 

 ment still more fatal; and it is this: when 

 Congress proposes an amendment to the Con- 

 stitution, every State in the Union must bo rep- 

 resented in the two Houses of Congress. Con- 

 gress cannot get together with a representation 

 in the Senate and in the House of Represent- 

 atives from two-thirds of the States and ex- 

 clude representation in both Houses from the 

 other third, and legitimately and constitution- 

 ally propose an amendment to the Constitution. 

 That is a universal principle of law, not only 

 of constitutional law, but of municipal law, as 

 the able lawyer from Oregon knows. When 

 there is a corporation with a special govern- 

 ment, a government consisting of a directory 

 of various members, and a part of this govern- 

 ment, a portion of this directory, excludes other 

 members of the directory from the transaction 

 of its business, every thing that the remaining 

 directors do is null and void. They have no 

 power to expel a part of the governing power 

 from tho board that governs, and then to per- 

 form the duties and exercise the powers of the 

 corporation as though its government was full 

 and complete. If they do so, there is no court 

 that has ever ruled upon that question which 

 has not decided that the exclusion of a part 

 of the directory from its business avoids every 

 thing that is done by the remaining members. 



" Well, now, sir, if that is true in relation to 

 the government of corporations for the trans- 

 action of private business, how much more true 

 it is in relation to governments, to constitutions, 

 to fundamental laws ! When the Constitution 

 provides expressly and plainly that two-thirds 

 of both Houses of Congress shall be required 

 to propose amendments to tho Constitution, is 

 that requisition, that prinoiple of the Consti- 

 tution, satisfied by the Senators and Represent- 

 atives from two-thirds of the States getting 

 together, excluding all the Senators and Rep- 



