CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



137 



organization, upon a proposed amendment to 

 the Constitution. It is a mockery. If there 

 was communication between the other world 

 and this, or with the ashes of the illustrious 

 dead who have been so long since borne to 

 their graves, the enormity of such a proposition 

 would be enough to reanimate their ashes and 

 to make their illustrious persons turn over in 

 their tombs. Is the extravagance of this day 

 and generation of ours to have no bounds ? I 

 ask you, Mr. President (Mr. Frelinghuysen in 

 the chair), an advocate of all these anomalous 

 and revolutionary movements, by what author- 

 ity can the Senate of the United States proceed 

 to propose amendments to the Constitution, ex- 

 cluding the State of Georgia from her represen- 

 tation in the Senate ? I put it stronger than 

 that : what right has this Senate or this Con- 

 gress to exclude the other three States that I 

 have named from their representation in the 

 two Houses of Congress, and to undertake the 

 most important function of Government in the 

 United States ; and that is, to alter the funda- 

 mental law in their absence ? 



*' Sir, your amendments to the Constitution 

 are all void ; they are of no effect. They were 

 proposed by a mutilated Congress ; they were 

 proposed by a mutilated House of Representa- 

 tives and Senate. That mutilation at one time 

 was voluntary, but now, since it has been healed 

 by the submission and obedience of the insur- 

 gents to the Constitution and laws of the United 

 States, you have proceeded to continue it, to 

 enlarge it, to protect it indefinitely ; and with 

 all this violence done by you to the Constitu- 

 tion, and to the rights of the people and the 

 sovereign States of the United States to take 

 part in this important business of amending 

 the Constitution, you still continue the mockery 

 of your amendments. How ridiculous ! How 

 absurd!" 



On February 3d, the Senate, on motion of 

 Mr. Stewart, of Nevada, proceeded to the con- 

 sideration of the House resolution above-men- 

 tioned for an amendment of the Constitution, 

 as in Committee of the Whole. He moved to 

 amend the resolution by striking out the whole 

 of section one, and inserting, in lieu thereof, 

 the following : 



The right of citizens of the United States to vote 

 and hold office shall not be denied or abridged by the 

 United States, or any State, for any reason not equally 

 applicable to all citizens. 



A debate subsequently ensued, during which. 

 Mr. Morton, of Indiana, said : " Mr. President, 

 yesterday my colleague (Mr. Hendricks) ad- 

 dressed the Senate at some length, and was 

 followed in the same strain of remark by the 

 Senator from Connecticut (Mr. Dixon), to show 

 that the Republican party was committed by 

 the platform adopted at Chicago from taking 

 any action upon this subject. Yery much stress 

 was placed upon it by my colleague, as well as 

 the Senator from Connecticut, who, I believe, 

 repeated his argument this afternoon in several 



forms. It is insisted that the Republican party 

 committed itself to the doctrine that, so far as 

 suffrage in the loyal States was concerned, it 

 should be left entirely to the States. That reso- 

 lution, perhaps, went no further, and was in- 

 tended to go no further, than to define the con- 

 stitutional position of the party that, as the 

 Constitution now is, the regulation of suffrage 

 belongs to the several States ; but it certainly 

 was not intended to commit the party to the 

 doctrine that it would not at any time there- 

 after propose to change the Constitution upon 

 that subject. 



"Now, Mr. President, I propose to speak 

 for a few minutes in regard to the language of 

 this amendment. I will vote for the amend- 

 ment as it came from the House of Representa- 

 tives, or I will vote for the clause as reported 

 by the Judiciary Committee in the Senate if I 

 can get no better form ; but I desire to say that 

 it comes far short of what should now be the 

 action of Congress on this subject, in my opin- 

 ion. The resolution as it came from the House 

 and the amendment reported by the Committee 

 on the Judiciary are in substance the same, 

 differing somewhat in phraseology. The amend- 

 ment of our committee is : 



The right of citizens of the United States to vote 

 and hold office shall not be denied or abridged by the 

 United States, or any State, on account of race, color, 

 or previous condition of servitude. 



" It will be observed that this language ad- 

 mits or recognizes that the whole power over 

 the question of suffrage is vested in the several 

 States, except as it shall be limited by this 

 amendment. It tacitly concedes that the States 

 may disfranchise the colored people or any 

 other class of people for other reasons save and 

 except those mentioned in the amendment. 

 They cannot be disfranchised by reason of race, 

 color, or previous condition of servitude. In 

 other words, it leaves all the existing irregu- 

 larities and incongruities in suffrage. I have 

 entertained the idea that, when we came to 

 amend the Constitution upon this subject, we 

 ought to make suffrage uniform throughout the 

 United States ; that the same class of men 

 should be allowed in every State to vote for 

 President and Yice-President, and members 

 of Congress, and members of the State Legisla- 

 tures, that elect Senators ; that the same class 

 of men excluded in one State ought to be ex- 

 cluded in every other State. In other words, 

 I think suffrage ought to be uniform. 



" In the State of Indiana a man of foreign 

 birth, who has been in the United States one 

 year and in the State of Indiana six months, 

 and who has declared his intention to become 

 a citizen of the United States, is allowed to 

 vote for President, Vice-President, members 

 of Congress, and State officers. Just over the 

 line, in the State of Ohio, the same man would 

 ngt be allowed to vote unless he had been in 

 the country five years and had become fully 

 naturalized. Here is a class of men taking 

 % part in the government of the country in one 



