CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



185 



their separate organizations not inconsistent 

 therewith, but must not incorporate any prin- 

 ciples in conflict with those great rights, priv- 

 ileges, and immunities. What are those rights, 

 privileges, and immunities? Without exclud- 

 ing others, three are specifically enumerated 

 life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

 These are universal and inalienable. It follows 

 that every thing necessary for their establish- 

 ment and defence is within those rights. You 

 grant a lot or easement in the midst of your 

 estate ; you thereby grant the right of way to 

 it by ingress and egress. Disarm a commu- 

 nity and you rob them of the means of defend 

 ing life. Take away their weapons of defence, 

 and you take away the inalienable right of 

 defending liberty. This brings us now directly 

 to the argument by which we prove that the 

 elective franchise is a right of the Declaration, 

 and not merely a privilege, and is one of the 

 rights and immunities pronounced by that in- 

 strument to be 'inalienable. 7 



"If^ as our fathers declared, 'all just gov- 

 ernment is derived from the assent of the gov- 

 erned ; ' if in federal republics that assent can 

 be ascertained and established only through 

 the ballot, it follows, that to take away that 

 means of communication is to take away from 

 the citizen his great weapon of defence and 

 reduce him to helpless bondage. It deprives 

 him of an inalienable right. This clearly 

 proves that the elective franchise ranks with 

 'life' and 'liberty' in its sacred, inalienable 

 character. But, while the Declaration clearly 

 proves what the intention then was, the action 

 of the Convention in framing the Constitution 

 of the United States, it seems to me, bar- 

 tered away for the time being some of those 

 inalienable rights, and, instigated by the hell- 

 ish institution of slavery, suspended one of the 

 muniments of liberty. Having thus shown 

 that the elective franchise is one of the inalien- 

 able rights of man, without which his liberty 

 cannot be defended, and that it was suspended 

 by the arbitrary Constitution of 1V89, let us 

 see if that suspension has been removed, so as 

 to leave our hands unrestrained in restoring 

 its full vigor while still acting under the Con- 

 stitution. That right appertains to every citi- 

 zen. But while this suspension existed the 

 natural love of despotism induced communi- 

 ties to hold that each State might fix the qual- 

 ifications, rights, and deprivations of its own 

 citizens. 



" The fourteenth amendment, now so happily 

 adopted, settles the whole question and places 

 every American citizen on a perfect equality, 

 so far as merely national rights and questions 

 are concerned." 



Mr. Spalding, of Ohio, said : " Mr. Speaker, 

 I do not wish to occupy much of the time of 

 the House; but I desire to remark that only 

 last October I was called upon as a citizen of 

 Ohio to vote upon a proposition to amend the 

 constitution of that State by inserting a pro- 

 vision giving the right of suffrage to the free 



black man equally with the white man. I not 

 only voted cheerfully for that proposition, but 

 I used all my influence with my fellow-citizens 

 in my section of the State to induce them to 

 ingraft that provision upon our State constitu- 

 tion. It was unsuccessful. We were in ad- 

 vance of the sentiment of our people ; they 

 voted down the proposition by forty thousand 

 majority. Now, I would like to see the mem- 

 ber of Congress from the State of Ohio who 

 would have the boldness to vote for the pas- 

 sage of this bill, which, in my judgment, cuts 

 directly across the Constitution of the United 

 States, and, in fact, derides the action of the 

 people of my State in refusing to insert in their 

 constitution of State government a provision 

 granting this general right of suffrage to the 

 blacks as well as the whites. 



" Sir, I believe the day may come when our 

 Constitution, the great charter of our liberties, 

 shall be so amended that all free people may 

 vote. God hasten the day when that right 

 may be so extended ! But, sir, so long as the 

 Constitution remains as it is, I will sooner suf- 

 fer my right arm to drop from its socket than 

 vote for any such bill as that now before us. 

 And, in saying this, I am bold to affirm that I 

 speak the sentiments of a large majority of my 

 colleagues on this floor, irrespective of party. 

 I should regard the passage of this bill at this 

 hour as the death-knell of our hopes as a polit- 

 ical party in the approaching Presidential can- 

 vass." 



Mr. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, said : " Mr. 

 Speaker, I have no hope that this bill will be 

 adopted by this Congress. I will gladly give 

 it my vote when brought to that test, and in 

 doing so will, in my judgment, act strictly 

 within the letter and intent of the Constitu- 

 tion, and but exercise a power which the 

 framers of the Constitution and the members 

 of the State conventions that accepted it knew, 

 they had embodied in it. 



" The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Spalding) 

 hastened to announce, as did my colleague 

 from the Washington district (Mr. Lawrence, 

 of Pennsylvania), that the question of colored 

 suffrage is not a party question. . I admit and 

 deplore the fact that it is not, for the Republi- 

 can party is founded upon the theory of the 

 equality of man before the law, and the fact 

 that the consent of the governed is the only 

 legitimate basis for government. Those are 

 accepted party doctrines, and I take it for 

 granted that those members of the Republican 

 party who deny the colored citizens' right to 

 vote, like the leaders of the Democratic party, 

 deny the humanity and the immortality of the 

 great mass of mankind, for the majority of the 

 human race are of those shades of complexion 

 and that character of blood to which, while 

 asserting the equal rights of man, they deny 

 equality before the laws. 



" I regret that the Republican party has not 

 risen to the height of applying its principles as 

 a test to all questions, and carrying them into 



