162 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



Hoag, Hotchkiss, Ingersoll, Alexander II. Jones, Mc- 

 Carthy, Jesse H. Moore, Morrissey, Mungen, Poland, 

 Porter, Sanford, Schenck, Slocum, Joseph S. Smith, 

 William J. Smith, Worthington C. Smith, Strick- 

 land, Eugene M. Wilson, and Witcher 28. 



In the Senate, on February 10th, the House 

 bill for the admission of Mississippi to repre- 

 sentation in Congress was taken up for consid- 

 eration. 



Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, said : " Mr. Presi- 

 dent, I deem it incumbent on me, as the organ 

 of the committee reporting this bill, to state to 

 the Senate the condition of Mississippi at this 

 time. In pursuance of the act which was 

 passed in April last, authorizing the President 

 of the United States to submit the constitu- 

 tions of Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas, to a 

 vote of the people, and to submit them either 

 in whole, or to submit separate clauses of the 

 various constitutions, as he should think prop- 

 er, to a vote of the people, the constitution 

 formed by a convention of the people of the 

 State of Mississippi was submitted to the vot- 

 ers of that State on the 30th of November, 

 1869, and four clauses of that constitution 

 were submitted separately to the voters of the 

 State. Of the four clauses submitted, three 

 were rejected and one was retained. 



"I will read to the Senate the separate 

 clauses which were submitted to the voters of 

 that State, and then will give the vote upon 

 adopting or rejecting them, so that the Senate 

 will see exactly what was submitted to the 

 voters of the State, what was left out, and 

 what was retained in the constitution. I have 

 the constitution here, which, however, was 

 passed upon by Congress at its session in April 

 last. Congress was satisfied with the consti- 

 tution at that time, and directed it to be sub- 

 mitted in the manner I have already stated. 

 The first of the distinct clauses which were 

 submitted by the President to a separate vote 

 was a part of section three of article seven. 

 It is a part of the oath that the constitution re- 

 quired to be taken by the voters. It reads as 

 follows : 



That I am not disfranchised in any of the pro- 

 visions of the acts known as the reconstruction acts 

 of the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses, and that 

 I admit the political and civil equality of all men ; 

 so help me God : Provided. That if Congress shall at 

 any time remove the disabilities of any person dis- 

 franchised in the said reconstruction acts of the said 

 Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses, and the Legis- 

 lature of this State shall concur therein, then so 

 much of this oath, and so much only, as refers to the 

 . said reconstruction acts shall not be required of such, 

 person so pardoned to entitle him to be registered. 



"The vote upon the adoption or rejection of 

 that oath 'which I have just read to the Senate 

 was, in favor of retaining it, 2,206 ; for its re- 

 jection, 87,874. It was rejected, the Senate 

 will observe, by an almost unanimous vote of 

 the voters of the State of Mississippi. Section 

 five of the same article was also submitted to a 

 separate vote. That section declares : 



No person shall be eligible to any office of profit 

 or trust, civil or military, in this State, who, as a 



member of the Legislature, voted for the call of the 

 convention that passed the ordinance of secession, 

 or who, as a delegate to any convention, voted for or 

 signed any ordinance of secession, or who gave vol- 

 untary aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement, 

 to persons engaged in armed hostility to the United 

 States, or who accepted or attempted to exercise the 

 functions of any office, civil or military, under any 

 authority or pretended government, authority, pow- 

 er, or constitution, within the United States, hostile 

 or inimical thereto, except all persons who aided re- 

 construction by voting for this convention, or who 

 have continuously advocated the assembling of this 

 convention, and shall continuously and in good faith 

 advocate the acts of the same ; but the Legislature 

 inay remove such disability : Provided^ That nothing 

 in this section, except voting for or signing the or- 

 dinance of secession, shall be so construed as to ex- 

 clude from office the private soldier of the late so- 

 called Confederate States army. 



" The vote upon the adoption of that clause 

 of the constitution was 2,390 in its favor, and 

 against it 87,253 ; so it will be seen that this 

 prescriptive provision, prohibiting the holding 

 of office by persons who had been engaged in 

 the rebellion, was voted down by the decisive 

 vote of 87,000 to 2,000. 



" Section five of article twelve of the con- 

 stitution was also submitted to a separate vote. 

 That section is in these words : 



The credit of the State shall not be pledged or 

 loaned in aid of any person, association, or corpora- 

 tion ; nor shall the btate hereafter become a stock- 

 holder in any corporation or association. 



" The vote upon that was, in favor of retain- 

 ing it, 70,427; against it, 20,834; so that the 

 provision remains as a part of the constitution. 



" A part of the oath prescribed in the twen- 

 ty-sixth section of article twelve of the con- 

 stitution for members of the Legislature and 

 State officers was also submitted to a separate 

 vote by direction of the President. The part 

 thus submitted reads as follows : 



That I have never, as a member of any convention, 

 voted for or signed any ordinance of secession ; that 

 I have never, as a member of any State Legislature, 

 voted for the call of any convention that passed any 

 such ordinance. 



" The vote upon that clause was, in favor of 

 its retention, 2,170, and against it, 88,444; so 

 that this prescriptive provision was also re- 

 jected by an almost unanimous vote. These 

 were the four separate clauses which were 

 submitted to the people of that State, three of 

 which were rejected, and the one prohibiting 

 the pledging of the credit of the State to cor- 

 porations was retained. The vote upon the 

 residue of the constitution was : in favor of its 

 adoption, 103,735, and against it, 9,955 ; mak- 

 ing a total vote of 114,690. Less than 10,000 

 out of the entire number voted against the 

 constitution which is now presented as the 

 constitution of Mississippi. So it will be seen 

 that Mississippi comes here with a constitution 

 ratified by an almost unanimous vote, and the 

 proscriptive features which were put into the 

 constitution by the convention which assem- 

 bled have been voted put of it by, I am happy 

 to say, a very decisive vote. I think that we 

 owe much of the good feeling which now exists in 



