180 



CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



of said States, by the constitution or ordinance there- 

 of, shall have passed, or have so nearly arrived before 

 the passage of this act, that there shall not be time 

 for the Legislature to assemble at the period fixed, 

 such Legislature shall convene at the end of twenty 

 days from the time this act takes effect, unless the 

 Governor-elect shall sooner convene the same. 



SEO. 3. And be it further enacted, That the first sec- 

 tion of this act shall take effect as to each State, ex- 

 cept Georgia, when such State shall by its Legisla- 

 ture duly ratify article fourteen of the amendments 

 to the Constitution of the United States, proposed by 

 the Thirty-ninth Congress, and as to the State of 

 Georgia, when it shall m addition give the assent of 

 said State to the fundamental condition hereinbefore 

 imposed upon the same ; and thereupon the officers 

 of each State, elected and qualified under the consti- 

 tution thereof, shall be inaugurated without delay; 

 but no person prohibited from holding office under 

 the United States, or under any State, by section 

 three of the proposed amendment to the Constitution 



changed ; and to render this principle perma- 

 nent and to secure it against any change of 

 lic opinion, you incorporate in your law 



'fundamental conditions.' You 

 are not content to exercise your powers for the 

 present time alone. You now command the 

 field of action. You hold a vote in the two 

 Houses of Congress which renders you, so far 

 as the enactment of laws in this Government 

 is concerned, supreme. For the time being 

 your will dictates law to the United States. 

 But you are not satisfied with this. You pro- 

 pose to take from the men of future times the 

 power and authority to change your work, at 

 all events, in those States of the South which 

 are concerned in your present legislation. Yon 

 propose to reach out your hands, from these 



of the Unitei States, known as article fourteen, shall Halls in which you sit as the Eepresentatives of 

 be deemed eligible to any office in either of said the people and of the States, into the States of 

 States, unless relieved from disability, as provided the South, and to stamp upon the constitutions 



of those States, upon their local frames of 

 government, an impress of your will which 

 shall remain unchangeable in all future time by 

 any voluntary action of the political commu- 

 nities in which these constitutions are estab- 

 lished. And why do you do this? You do 

 this, sir, in order to secure to the colored adult 

 men of the South, not the right of suffrage for 

 the moment, nor as an experiment of their 

 capacity in free government, but to secure it to 

 them against the shifting and changing opin- 

 ions of future times, against the experience of 

 future times, against any possibility that it 

 shall be narrowed and made to conform to the 

 experience and necessities of those States as 

 they may be developed hereafter. This is 

 very extraordinary legislation, the like of it 

 unknown at least in our own history, and I do 

 not know that any example to warrant it is 

 known in the history of any free State. 



But what else do you attempt to secure by 

 this and other bills and by prior laws? Appar- 

 ently apprehensive that your new political 

 bodies so established in the Southern States 

 will receive direction, will he to a great extent 

 controlled by the intelligent population that 

 are resident there of your own race, you have 

 proceeded from time to time to disfranchise 

 them to a great extent, and now by this bill 

 make firm and effectual that disfranchisement 

 which is most proscriptive and intolerant. 

 Such is the character of tins measure consid- 

 ered in connection with the measures which 

 have preceded it, and of which it is the culmi- 

 nation. 



" Now, sir, can any one doubt your object ? 

 Perhaps you have not avowed it to-yourselves. 

 You may have shrunk back from the self-ac- 

 knowledgment of the truth. But what is the 

 truth ? It is that to a great extent all this has 

 been done and this crowning measure is to be 

 passed, in order that you may retain that power 

 in the Government of the United States which 

 you now possess, in order that that which you 

 have grasped by the consent of the people and 

 under peculiar circumstances in our political 





states, unless renevea irpm aisaouity, as proviueu. 

 in said amendment ; and it is hereby made the duty 

 of the President, within ten days after receiving offi- 

 cial information of the ratification of said amendment 

 by the Legislature of either of said States, to issue a 

 proclamation announcing that fact. 



The preamble was then adopted, as follows : 



Whereas, the people of North Carolina, South Caro- 

 lina, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, have, 

 in pursuance of the provisions of an act entitled " An 

 act for the more efficient government of the rebel 

 States," passed March 2, 1867, < and the acts supple- 

 mentary thereto, framed constitutions of State gov- 

 ernment which are republican, and have adopted said 

 constitutions by large majorities of the votes cast at 

 the elections held for the ratification or rejection of 

 the same. 



Mr. Williams, of Oregon, proposed to add to 

 the amendment, adopted on his motion, the fol- 

 lowing words : " unless relieved from disabil- 

 ity as provided in said amendment," meaning 

 the fourteenth article, which was agreed to. 



Mr. Buckalew, of Pennsylvania, said: "We 

 have come to the end of this debate, and I un- 

 derstand that this hill is to he passed, to be sanc- 

 tioned, at least by a vote of the Senate, and to 

 be sent to the House of Eepresentatives for 

 its concurrence in the amendments which we 

 have adopted. Now, what is this bill ? A few 

 words upon that, and I shall close. It is a bill 

 to admit these States to a renewed represen- 

 tation. We have already admitted two of the 

 original eleven engaged in the rebellion. Ten- 

 nessee was admitted soon after the termination 

 of the great struggle, and recently we have 

 passed a bill for the renewal of representation 

 to Arkansas. Six are now to he added, and 

 I believe there are three with reference to 

 which no action has yet been taken in Congress, 

 but in regard to which action may he expected 

 hereafter. 



" What is this bill ? It is to sanction a reor- 

 ganization of the Southern States, or of a ma- 

 jority of them, upon two principles: first, that 

 the entire adult negro population shall vote not 

 only at the first election which shall give the 

 new political institutions of the State their 

 form, but in all subsequent elections so long 

 as the constitution of the State remains un- 



