CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



141 



j.rind|>'- is impound, unsafe, dangerous in a 

 . Miminitv, and I cannot vote tor it. 

 ta intimated Unit frhe freed men will vote 

 mi questions now pending before the 

 They, as it is asserted, know enough 

 to kii(-\v their f'r'u-iicls and they will vote right. 

 That means, I suppose, that at the present time 

 men \\-uiild cast ballots such as the honor- 

 - nator from Massachusetts and I would 

 tlie same time, if we were authorized to 

 i tin- same place; and it means that men 

 like him and others in whom these people might 

 confidence would put ballots into the 

 hands of those of them who cannot read, and 

 tell tin-in what the character of those ballots 

 was. in order that they might deposit them in 

 the ballot-boxes and have the benefit of their 

 So far as the results are concerned at 

 once and immediately it might be well; but 

 when we are making a law in regard to suffrage 

 we are not taking the part of men who areelee- 

 tiiuu-i Ting for a particular canvass; we are 

 making a law which should have in it wisdom, 

 which should have in it strength, and which is 

 entitled, at least as far as we can -judge, to re- 

 main perpetually on our statute-book. In that 

 state of things, I say, and I think history veri- 

 t'u-s the assertion, that it would be entirely un- 

 safe to give to men whom we can influence to do 

 right now a power which years, and possibly 

 ages, after will be in the same hands, during 

 all which time they will be subject to evil influ- 

 ences, and far more likely to do wrong than to 

 do right." 



Mr. Cowan, in reply, said: ''If I have one 

 thing to suggest to my brethren, above all 

 others, which I would wish to impress upon 

 them, it is that they ponder well the speech to 

 which they have just listened. The honorable 

 Senator from Connecticut has depicted the con- 

 sequences of the introducing to this great privi- 

 lege, the ballot, of large masses of ignorant peo- 

 ple. He has shown the consequences which 

 have heretofore happened to the country from 

 allowing such classes of people to exercise the 

 franchise. He has told you, Mr. President, that, 

 to this the late rebellion has been owing, lie 

 has told you that it is attributed to the fact that 

 the masses of the Southern people were so en- 

 tirely ignorant that they were to be led away 

 into rebellion by ambitious leaders, and that 

 thus were brought upon the country such perils 

 as it has recently undergone. 



" If that be true, if such consequences follow 

 from conferring the elective franchise on people 

 of this character, is it not the plainest proposi- 

 tion imaginable that if you undertake to set up 

 any barrier, that if you undertake to correct 

 the evil which you anticipate, if you undertake 

 to guard against that which you say has hap- 

 pened, and which will most likely happen again, 

 your barrier ought to be effective, it ought to be 

 that which would restrain, that which would 

 K> ']> back and limit. There is where I differ 

 \viththehonorable Senator from Connecticut. 

 He says that to provide that the voter shall read 



and write his own name is each a barrier, that 



\\itli that we may be secure; that if, j, 

 stance, the Confederate in gray had been univer- 

 sally able to read and write his name, therefore 

 \vc >hould have hud no rebellion, then for. .),,!, n 

 0. Calhoun would have had no followers, the 

 doctrine of nullification would have no advo- 

 cates, the doctrine of secession would have had 

 no disciples, the doctrine of primary State allegi- 

 ance would have had no argument. 



" Mr. President, I have very great and very 

 grave doubts about all these things. The con- 

 clusion he arrives at is to me a non tequitur. 

 "Whether the southern masses could read and 

 write their names, or whether thoy could read 

 and write generally, and whether they were in- 

 telligent generally, I am by no means prepared 

 to say that all these things would not have 

 happened, perhaps happened in greater inten- 

 sity than they have happened. I am not so 

 certain that all these doctrines, pernicious as 

 they have been, plausible as they were, fortified 

 as they were by argument, by logic, and by, 

 perhaps, the highest form of skill and learning 

 in statesmanship, would not have been worse if 

 the constituency had been as intelligent as that 

 of the honorable Senator from Connecticut. 

 But, sir, when he proposes here to vote for a 

 lull to give the- right of suffrage to men far 

 lower even than the Confederate masses, men 

 who had condescended to be the slaves and the 

 servants for hundreds of years of that same 

 people ; when he proposes to confer the right 

 of suffrage upon them, and to expose us to all 

 the dangers which he alleges are sure to follow 

 this kind of ignorant constituency I say, when 

 he proposes to do that, and then has set up this 

 barrier of being able to read and write a man's 

 own name as a sufficient protection, I cannot 

 agree to it." 



Mr. Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, said : 

 "But we have got to determine the question 

 now, whether we will give the right of suffrage 

 or not, and with what qualifications. I confess 

 that I have listened to the debate on this ques- 

 tion of a reading qualification with great inter- 

 est. There are clearly two sides to it. The 

 argument in favor of insisting upon the ability- 

 to-read test is, that making the prize of the bal- 

 lot contingent upon the ability to read would 

 be a "powerful stimulus to induce the colored 

 citizen to learn to read. His pride, his shame, 

 his ambition, his fear of degradation, would all 

 urge him to learn to read. But, sir, there is 

 another side to the question ; and it seems to 

 me, when we consider all the difficulties there 

 are in applying this reading test, that the argu- 

 ment is in favor of universal suffrage. The 

 argument in favor of making the right to vote 

 universal is, that the ballot itself is a great edu- 

 cator; that by its encouraging the citizen, by 

 its inspiring him, it adds dignity to his character 

 and makes him strive to acquire learning; se- 

 condly, that if the voting depended on learning, 

 no inducement is extended to communities, un- 

 favorable to the right of voting in the colored 



