CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



227 



itimio until some other Congress maybe 

 of opinion that it has ceased. Mr. President, is 

 that our duty/ I speak it \vitli p.-rfeef pi 

 If it ! in our judgment right to institute the 

 I ism, is it not our duty to say when it 

 shall 068H6, it' we do intend that it shall CCOSO 



at.v 



I'he presidential election is near at hand. 

 Two years will soon dapst-. Keep the States 

 under military rule, and however true it may 

 be that they would bo entitled to representa- 

 tion in the electoral college, they will not be 

 permitted to hold such an eK-ction until the next 

 presidential contest is at an end. Some military 

 satrap will tell them, ' It is my pleasure that 

 you shall remain as you are until that contest 

 is determined.' And such things may possibly 

 operate upon politicians. But, in the mean 

 time, what is the condition of the Southern 

 -, and by retroaction the condition of the 

 loyal States? The South, humbled in one 

 sense, subdued and tyrannized over, have no 

 motive for exertion; the North, not knowing 

 certainly what the future may bring forth, is 

 unwilling to step forward to the aid of the 

 South ; and every thing stands as it now is, in a 

 condition almost as sad and as forlorn as it was 

 at the moment the rebellion ended. "What 

 effect is that to have upon us all ? What effect 

 upon the public credit? What effect upon our 

 good name abroad? Ten million Americans, 

 whose fathers fought for constitutional liberty 

 and adopted a form of Constitution which they 

 believed would forever secure it, are placed by 

 a portion of their descendants under the exclu- 

 sive control of the military. It is a confession 

 to the world that our institutions are a failure. 

 I will say with the honorable member for Wis- 

 consin (Mr. Doolittle) that such a proposition 

 as this made anywhere, more particularly in a 

 land where freedom was supposed to be per- 

 manently fixed, seems to shock the moral sense 

 of every American or student of history." 



Mr. Howard, of Michigan, said: "Mr. Presi- 

 dent, I wish to state, in a few words, my reasons 

 for voting against this amendment. I do not 

 intend to occupy unnecessarily the time of the 

 Senate, but there are certain considerations ad- 

 dressing themselves to my mind, to which I in- 

 vite the attention of the friends of this measure, 

 and of the Republican members of the Senate. 



" In the first place, this amendment is a com- 

 plete departure from the action of the Com- 

 mittee on Reconstruction, so far as the right of 

 suffrage is concerned. That committee, after 

 having considered the subject referred to them 

 for some eight months, made their report to 

 the Senate ; indeed, they made several reports, 

 but in not one of their reports did they pro- 

 to interfere by the legislation of Congress, 

 or in the form of an amendment of the Consti- 

 tution, with the right of suffrage within the 

 States. They have carefully abstained from all 

 attempt to interfere with that very sacred 

 right. They thought it not worth while to in- 

 termeddle, and I think they acted wisely. The 



Senate itself, by repeated votes, has sanctioned 



that course. The whole subject has been dis- 

 cussed with great fulnc-s and clearneM before 

 the peopled iinni: th- last congressional election*, 

 and the people have very generally understood 

 that it is not the purpose of Congress to inter- 

 meddle with the right of the State to regulate 

 the suffrage of its citizens. The amendment 

 now before us proposes a different policy. It 

 proposes in direct terms that we shall interfere 

 in regulating the suffrage of citizens in the 

 rebel States, a thing from which the committee 

 industriously and cautiously abstained. The 

 amendment proposes as follows.; 



That when the constitutional amendment proposed 

 as article fourteen, by the Thirty-ninth Congress, 

 shall have become a part of the Constitution of the 

 United States, and when any one of the late so-called 

 Confederate States shall have given its assent to the 

 same, and conformed its constitution and laws there- 

 to in all respects, and when it shall have provided by 

 its constitution that the elective franchise shall be 

 enjoyed by all male citizens of the United States, 

 twenty-one years old and upward, without regard to 

 race, color, or previous condition of servitude, ex- 

 cept such as may be disfranchised for participating 

 in the late rebellion, or for felony at common law, 

 and when said constitution shall have been submitted 

 to the voters of said State, as thus defined, for rati- 

 fication or rejection, and when the constitution, if 

 ratified by the vote of the people of said State, shall 

 have been submitted to Congress for examination 

 and approval, s'aid State shall, if its constitution be 

 approved by Congress, be declared entitled to rep- 

 resentation in Congress, and Senators and Repre- 

 sentatives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking 

 the oath prescribed by law, and then and thereafter 

 the preceding sections of this bill shall be inopera- 

 tive in said State. 



" Now, sir, that provision contemplates a sort 

 of coercion, to be exercised through an act of 

 Congress upon the State to constrain it, in order 

 to get into Congress, to admit the black popula- 

 tion to vote. I dislike to attempt such inter- 

 ference, although I admit that in laying down 

 the preliminary rules with a view to the read- 

 mission of those States, Congress has plenary 

 power to prescribe those or any other conditions 

 demanded by the public welfare. 



" Secondly, Mr. President, I object to this 

 amendment, because if it shall become a law, 

 and if the rebel States shall proceed under it to 

 amend their constitutions and to extend the 

 elective franchise, it is practicable for. each one 

 of them, should this or the next Congress 

 change the present apportionment, to send to 

 the Fortieth Congress a full quota of Repre- 

 sentatives according to the numbers of the 

 population of the State, including blacks as 

 well as whites; and this we all know will aug- 

 ment the number of Representatives from the 

 rebel States by at least twenty. 



44 It will go further; it will enable these same 

 rebel States, within the next two years, to ap- 

 point an additional number of presidential elec- 

 tors to which they will not otherwise be enti- 

 tled under the amendment of the Constitution. 

 It will increase their number in the electoral 

 colleges, in proportion to the number of their 



