CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



157 



ami ci]iial with reference to each other ns they 

 \cept so far as they hail l"->n 

 nvernraent of the United 

 or by fair implication. They 

 havc a ^ivat many rights important riirhts to 

 tin-in as people ami a* State-;. No taxes or 

 impo-i- ran In- imposed that are not equal 

 uh.iv. Kvery eiti/en of every Stato has 

 ime rL'ht to resort to the judiciary of the 

 rnitcd States as any citizen of any other State. 

 The riti/ons of every State have the same 

 right ami the States have the same right to be 

 hoard in the Electoral College upon an equal 

 footing with (lie other States. They have the 

 same right to be represented in the House of 

 Representatives ; they have the same right to 

 be represented in this chamber ; and Upon the 

 contingency of there being no popular election 

 of a President and the matter is referred, as the 

 Constitution provides, to the House of Repre- 

 sentatives to determine, in such a contingency 

 each State votes, and votes equally with all other 

 Si at os. Now, which of these rights can you 

 tako uway? Can you take away the right of 

 being heard in the Electoral College ? Nobody 

 will pretend that that can be done by making it 

 a condition of the admission of a State into the 

 Union. Can you provide that they shall not 

 be entitled to the benefit of the equality which 

 the Constitution says shall be preserved in the 

 exercise of the taxing power? Nobody will 

 pretend that. Can you take from them the 

 right to go into the courts of the United States, 

 to be represented in the House of Representa- 

 tives, to be heard, if the contingency happens 

 which renders it necessary, in the House of 

 Representatives in determining who shall be 

 the President of the United States, there being 

 a failure to decide that question by the popular 

 vote?" 



Mr. Brown : " We can take away from them 

 the right to do wrong." 



Mr. Johnson: "What is the right to do 

 wrong ? Let me tell the honorable member it 

 is wrong, in one sense, for the State of Rhode 

 Island to have two Senators here, and for the 

 Stato of New York to have but two. Why is 

 it not wrong? Is it right in the abstract, not 

 in the particular? If the honorable member 

 cannot say that it is right, then he admits that 

 it is wrong ? What is the wrong ? The wrong 

 here is said to bo the exclusion from the fran- 

 chi<e of certain of her citizens. Is it wrong to 

 exclude the female, who is not included in this 

 amendment? Is it wrong to exclude because of 

 age or because the parties have reached a cer- 

 tain age? That is not pretended by this amend- 

 ment. Is it wrong to enforce a property quali- 

 fication ? That is not pretended by this amend- 

 ment. Is it wrong to require any specific resi- 

 dence for the voter or for the party to be voted 

 for ? That is not included in this amendment. 

 Ami yet in each of such provisions the man 

 who is under twenty-one may, in one sense, be 

 said to sutt'er a wrong because he is denied a 

 right; the woman under or over twenty-one 



may bo said to suffer a wrong ; and the honor* 

 al-lo mi-mln r from Missouri i- evidently 

 opinion, and he ought to include th.m in this 

 amendment; because, it' 1 recollect aright, tin; 

 other day ho voted to admit the female* to 

 the right of suffrage upon the ground that that 

 was right. If it was right to admit them to ex- 

 ercise the suffrage here in the District of Co- 

 lumbia, it is right to admit them to exercise the 

 suffrage in the contemplated State of Nebraska ; 

 and being right, the failure to give it, if the hon- 

 orable member has the authority to give it 

 and he says he has is a wrong; and yet he 

 does not propose to redress that wrong. Upon 

 that point, then, I conclude with saying that 

 in my judgment there is nothing in the power 

 which we have to admit new States which justi- 

 fies our incorporating into the constitutions 

 which they present any such condition as is 

 contained in the amendment offered by my 

 friend from Missouri. 



" I now proceed, Mr. President, with the in- 

 dulgence of the Senate and yourself, to say a 

 word upon the other ground on which I under- 

 stand the power to adopt an amendment of 

 this description is placed, upon that part of the 

 Constitution of the United States which has 

 been termed very correctly the guarantee section 

 or the guarantee clause. If it can be maintained 

 under that clause, it can only be because a con- 

 stitution which denies to any of the citizens the 

 right to vote is not republican. That would 

 lead to very perilous consequences. What 

 State is there in the Union that admits every- 

 body to vote who has the age and the residence 

 which their laws require, even supposing they 

 have a right to prescribe age and residence ? 

 Not one, as far as I am advised. Which of the 

 States represented in the Convention of 1787. 

 and which afterward adopted through their 

 people the Constitution framed by that con- 

 vention, admitted all to vote who had the pre- 

 scribed age and residence? Not one. Most 

 of them required a property qualification, more 

 odious than any thing else, as the people after- 

 ward were taught to believe ; whether correctly 

 or not, I do not stop to inquire. Were they, 

 and are those States where it does now exist, 

 republican States ? Is the want of the universal 

 right of voting a want which makes the consti- 

 tution of the State where it exists other than 

 republican ? Or, to use the language of the 

 clause, does it cease to be of a republican form? 

 If it is not of a republican form now, it was not 

 then. 



" There must be some mode by which yon are 

 to ascertain whether any government is repub- 

 lican in point of form for this very obvious con- 

 sideration : the United States are to guarantee 

 each State a republican form of government. 

 My friend from Massachusetts says, and my 

 friend who offers this amendment says, that 

 to exclude the black man from voting shows 

 that the government is not republican in point 

 of form. Why ? Was he not excluded when 

 the Constitution was adopted in every State in 



