130 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



there, I have no doubt. That the rights and 

 liberties of the people are safer with this pow- 

 er in the control of the States than in the con- 

 trol of the Federal Government, I certainly be- 

 lieve. 



" And, sir, without meaning any disrespect 

 to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 

 Boutwell), I must say that it seems to me that 

 his bill and resolution for the amendment of 

 the Constitution, and his 'cumulative reme- 

 dies,' as he styled them, for the evils which ex- 

 ist, in his judgment, with reference to the per- 

 sons who ought to exercise the right of suffrage, 

 are &felo de %e. If the power exists in the Fed- 

 eral Government to pass this bill, whether 

 under any one or all the provisions referred to, 

 then I admit that Congress has the right to 

 control the whole question of suffrage and the 

 qualification of electors for all officers, State 

 and national. There can be no reason for its 

 entering the State and determining the qualifi- 

 cation of those who are to elect the officers 

 named in the bill, that will not apply to every 

 officer of the State, so far as the question of 

 power is concerned. The electors of President 

 and Vice-President are' not named in section 

 four of the first article. The power claimed, 

 therefore, under the word 'manner' in this 

 section can no more apply to them than to the 

 Governor of the State or any other State offi- 

 cer. So that if it covers electors it may as well 

 cover, and does as necessarily cover, all that is 

 contemplated by the amendment proposed by 

 the joint resolution. The amendment is, then, 

 worse than useless. -If it be necessary for the 

 purpose it contemplates, it must be a most 

 pregnant admission that the bill is unconstitu- 

 tional." 



Mr. Beck, of Kentucky, said : " This singu- 

 lar anomaly is presented for the first time in 

 the history of this, or, I suppose, of any other 

 country. The States are asked to so enlarge 

 the grant of powers in the Constitution as to 

 enable Congress, by appropriate legislation, to 

 enforce the right of any citizen of the United 

 States to vote in any State, regardless of race, 

 color, or previous condition of slavery, the 

 constitution and laws of the State to the con- 

 trary notwithstanding. The proposition ask- 

 ing for the grant of power from the States, by 

 whom alone, when thus proposed, it can be 

 granted through their Legislatures, admits upon 

 its face that the power to grant or refuse to 

 grant the proposition or request of Congress is 

 lodged in the States, and that, if they refuse to 

 transfer it, Congress has no right to exercise 

 it ; and yet, before the proposition has received 

 the sanction of a single State, Congress pro- 

 poses, by the bill now under consideration, to 

 exercise all the power which the proposed 

 amendment would give it, and which, for aught 

 we know, every State may refuse to surrender 

 when the proposition is submitted to them. 

 The reputation of the majority of the Judiciary 

 Committee of this House will not be promoted 

 in the eyes of the civilized world by the seri- 



ous presentation of such anomalous and incon- 

 sistent propositions. To ask States to grant 

 powers, and at the same time to exercise them 

 in spite of the constitutions and laws of the 

 States who are asked to make the grant, is, it 

 seems to me, too absurd for grown men seri- 

 ously to consider. If we have the power now, 

 the proposed amendment to the Constitution 

 is folly. If such an amendment is required to 

 confer the power upon us, the proposed law is 

 the grossest and most shameless usurpation 

 and oppression. 



"When the distinguished gentleman was 

 goading his party on with the lash of necessity, 

 and telling them it was top late to look back 

 that their only safety lay in consummating the 

 revolution they had inaugurated I could un- 

 derstand him ; but when he urged that both 

 the amendment and the law were indispensable, 

 because the party was divided in opinion as to 

 where the power now was, I hardly think he 

 .was intelligible to himself. 



" The idea that this is a nation that the na- 

 tional Congress is vested with all power neces- 

 sary to preserve whatever a majority of Con- 

 gress may consider the life of the nation, which, 

 properly speaking, now means the life of the 

 radical party, was urged with a vehemence 

 only equalled by the contempt with which the 

 idea that this is a Union of coequal, confeder- 

 ated States was scouted and sneered at. 



" Whatever stress may be laid on the lan- 

 guage of the preamble, the fact remains that 

 we are living under a Constitution framed by 

 States, ratified by States, and which has been 

 and can be only amended or altered which is 

 the better word when applied to the present 

 and the last so-called amendment by States. 

 We are in no sense a nation, and whenever we 

 become so we will be a centralized despotism 

 in some form. The United States of America 

 will have ceased to exist; anarchy or empire 

 will have come. Nothing short of separate, 

 independent State governments can manage 

 and control the great, diversified, widely-sepa- 

 rated, and often conflicting interests of this 

 people. Perhaps the best way to determine 

 who framed the Constitution is to ascertain 

 who has the power to alter and amend it, as it 

 can hardly be supposed that its framers would 

 transfer to a power other than its maker the 

 power under the guise of amendments to alter 

 and destroy it. How can it be amended ? The 

 Constitution says : 



Only by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the 

 several States, or by conventions in three-fourths 

 thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification 

 may be proposed by the Congress. 



" This Congress, of course, prefers and pro- 

 poses the former, for the very obvious reason 

 that it does not desire nor intend that the peo- 

 ple of the States shall have any right to delib- 

 erate or decide on the propositions, choosing 

 rather to trust their partisans in the State Le- 

 gislatures, all of whom have been elected al- 

 ready, without reference to and without any 



