CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 





public niin.l. They were practical men, and 



. ,\ iih r. 'fereuce to the history and experi- 



,.f mankind. They wore not mctaphy-i- 



i-o not reformers in tin- modern 



MOM of tin' term; they wore men who 



political action upon the experience of 

 mankind and upon those practical reflections 

 with refcrciire to men and things in which they 

 hail indulged in active life. They placed Mif- 

 iheii upon the broad common-sense prin- 

 ciple that it should ho lodged in and exercised 

 by thoM- who could use it most wisely and most 

 safely and most evidently to serve the great 

 ends for which government was instituted. 

 They had no other ground than this, and their 

 work shows that they proceeded upon it, and 

 not upon any abstract or transcendental notion 

 of human rights which ignored the existing 

 facts of social life. 



" Now, sir, the objection which I have to a 

 largo extension of suffrage in this country, whe- 

 ther by Federal or State power, is this: that 

 t la-ruby you will corrupt and degrade elections, 

 and probably lead to their complete abrogation 

 hereafter. By pouring into the ballot-boxes of 

 the country a large mass of ignorant votes, and 

 - subjected to pecuniary or social influence, 

 you will corrupt and degrade your elections and 

 lay the foundation for their ultimate destruction. 

 That is a conviction of mine, and it is upon that 

 ground that I resist both negro, suffrage and fe- 

 male suffrage, and any other proposed form of 

 suffrage which takes humanity in an unduly 

 broad or enlarged sense as the foundation of an 

 arrangement of political power." 



Mr. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, followed, say- 

 ing : " Form yself, sir, -after giving consider- 

 able reflection to the subject of suffrage, I have 

 arrived at the conclusion that the true base 

 or foundation upon which to rest suffrage in 

 any republican community is upon the family, 

 the head of the family ; because in civilized so- 

 ciety the family is the unit, not the individual. 

 What is meant by ' man ' is man in that relation 

 whore he is placed according to nature, to rea- 

 son, and religion. If it were a new question, 

 and it wore left to me to determine what should 

 be the true qualification of a person to exercise 

 the right of suffrage, I would fix it upon that 

 basis that the head of a family, capable of sup- 

 porting that family, and who had supported the 

 family, should be permitted to vote, and no 

 other. 



" While I know that the question is not a 

 new one; while it is impossible for me to treat 

 it as a new question because suffrage every- 

 where lias been extended beyond the heads of 

 families, yet the reason, in my judgment, upon 

 which it has been extended is simply this : if 

 certain men have been permitted to vote who 

 were not the heads of families, it was because 

 tln-y were the exceptions to the general rule, 

 and because it was to be presumed that if they 

 were not at the time heads of families they 

 ought to be, and probably would be. I say that 

 according to reason, nature, and religion, the 



family is the unit of human tocicty. So far OB 

 the ballot is concerned, in my judgment it rep- 

 resents this fundamental elein . ilized 

 society, the family. It therefore should be cut 

 by the head of the family, and according to rea- 

 son, nature, and religion, man is the head of 

 the family. In that relation, while every man 

 i' king, every woman is queen; but upon him 

 devolves the responsibility of controlling the 

 external relations of his family, and those ex- 

 ternal relations are controlled by the ballot; 

 for that ballot or vote which ho exercises goes 

 to choose the legislators who are to make the 

 laws which are to govern society. Within the 

 family man is supreme ; he governs by the law 

 of the family, by the law of reason, nature, 

 religion. Therefore it is that I am not in favor 

 of conferring the right of suffrage upon wo- 

 man." 



The motion to strike out the word " male " 

 was lost by the following vote : 



YEAS Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Buckalew, Cow- 

 an, Foster, Nesmith, Patterson, Riddle, and Wade 9. 



NATS Messrs. Cattell, Chandler, Conness, Cres- 

 well, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Edmunds, Fessenden, 

 Fogg, Frelinghuysen, Grimes, Harris, Henderson, 

 Hendricks, Howard, Howe, Kirkwood, Lane, Morgan, 

 Merrill, Norton, Poland, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Ross, 

 Saulsbury, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, 

 Trumbull, Van Winkle, Wifiey, Williams, Wilson, 

 and Yates 37. 



ABSENT Messrs. Cragin, Fowler, Guthrie, John- 

 son, McDougall, and Nye 6. 



Mr. Dixon, of Connecticut, then offered the 

 following amendment : 



Provided, That no person who has not heretofore 

 voted in ! District shall be permitted to vote un- 

 less he shall be able, at the time of offering to vote, 

 to read and also write his own name. 



He then said: "Mr. President, the amend- 

 ment which I have offered provides that no 

 person not heretofore a voter shall be author- 

 ized by this bill to vote who is unable to read 

 and also to write his own name. I have offered 

 it not with the intention of obstructing, but in 

 the hope of aiding the passage of the bill. I in- 

 tend to vote for it if thus amended. I may be 

 permitted to say that I have always, whenever 

 an opportunity has 'been presented, voted to 

 extend suffrage irrespective of color. I thus 

 voted when the question was raised in the ter- 

 ritorial bills of recent sessions. Once, I think, 

 in the Legislature of Connecticut and twice at 

 the polls I have voted to erase the word ' white ' 

 from the constitution of my own State. My 

 opinions on the subject have not changed. I 

 still believe that color or race should not be the 

 test of the right of voting. I would deny to no 

 man the right of voting solely on account of 

 his color ; but I doubt the propriety of permit- 

 ting any man to vote, whatever his race or color, 

 who has not at least that proof of intelligence 

 which the ability to read and write fumi-he-. 

 It is true, as the Senator from Massachusetts 

 remarked yesterday, that there are instances 

 in which remarkable intelligence is found in 

 men who can neither read nor write, yet these 



