CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



143 



I take it for granted that the practice of the 

 Government always will be, unless under very 

 extraordinary circumstances, to submit amend- 

 ments to the action of the Legislatures of the 

 several States. 



" But, sir, it will be wise and becoming also 

 for Congress to adopt some rule with regard 

 to the submitting of amendments to the Legis- 

 latures ; and what better rule can be adopted 

 by it than to submit them to the Legislatures 

 of the several States who shall be chosen next 

 after the amendment is submitted, the legisla- 

 tors who are chosen when the people under- 

 stand that the amendment is to be submitted 

 to them, and who act in selecting those legisla- 

 tors in full view of that consideration ? It is 

 true that in most, if not all of the States, one 

 branch of the Legislature has a more perma- 

 nent tenure of office than the other. 



" We know it is now disputed whether the 

 fourteenth constitutional amendment, as it is 

 called, has been adopted or not by the Legis- 

 latures of New Jersey, Oregon, and Ohio ; and 

 a similar question arises as to another State 

 which rejected it originally and afterward rat- 

 ified it. There must be some principle of law 

 applicable to this subject of ratification. Is it 

 possible that any gentleman can pretend that 

 ratifications are in order in the States at all 

 times until the subject of constitutional amend- 

 ment is disposed of, and that, on the other 

 hand, rejections are of no account ? Take the 

 case of the Legislature which rejected the 

 amendment. Was its subsequent ratification 

 legal ? Assume that ; and then attempt to as- 

 sume the other doctrine, and see what incon- 

 sistency you have assumed. 



" If this reasoning be true, in what condition 

 are we ? Why, sir, we are in this condition : 

 that you cannot have a constitutional amend- 

 ment rejected finally at all in the United States ; 

 rejections amount to nothing, because ratifica- 

 tions at some future time, ten, twenty, fifty, or 

 one hundred years hence, may give it validity ; 

 and, on the other hand, you insist that a ratifi- 

 cation, however obtained, under whatever cir- 

 cumstances of misapprehension or of haste or 

 of trick, or of fraud even, can never be with- 

 drawn by a State ; it is to be forever bound by 

 it. ^ You avoid all this field of debate by desig- 

 nating now, when you submit the amendment, 

 the Legislatures who are to pass upon your 

 amendment, who are to ratify or reject it. 



" This comprises what I desired to say upon 

 this point, with a single exception ; and that is, 

 to express my own opinion upon this question 

 which has been debated. My idea is this : that 

 an amendment proposed to Legislatures or to 

 conventions for ratification, until the time when 

 it has been ratified by three-fourths of the 

 States, is, of necessity, in its very nature, a 

 simple proposition, and nothing more ; that it 

 becomes a contract or compact between the 

 States at the moment when the last Legislature 

 or convention necessary to make up three- 

 fourths of the States has ratified and approved 



it. Until that time it is upon the same footing 

 as a proposition for a contract or agreement 

 between individuals which has not been ac- 

 cepted by both or by all the parties to be bound 

 by it, which is therefore binding upon none, 

 and assent to which may be withdrawn at pleas- 

 ure by any of the parties who are to be bound 

 by it after it shall have been duly adopted or 

 agreed upon. The States, so long as a consti- 

 tutional amendment is pending before them, 

 unratified by the requisite number of States, 

 are in the same condition in which individuals 

 would be where a proposition of contract or of 

 agreement between them was pending and 

 under consideration. No State, up to that 

 point of time when the amendment becomes 

 binding upon the State, becomes a contract or 

 a compact between it and the other States, can 

 possibly in law or in good faith or in good con- 

 science be bound by it. Its freedom of action 

 and its freedom of will remain to it, and it can 

 exercise that freedom of action and of will by 

 recalling its assent. And who can complain ? 

 "What State is injured ? No one can cry out 

 upon the State that it has violated good faith. 

 After three-fourths of the States have ratified 

 the amendment, it becomes a part of the Con- 

 stitution, and every State is bound by it. Of 

 course, no State can repeal the Constitution of 

 the United States, and its day of choice and of 

 volition has passed, and passed forever." 



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

 ident, It will not escape the attention of any 

 man that there is an anomaly in the Con- 

 stitution of the United States. While to 

 all other governments that I know of in the 

 world, properly called governments, pertains 

 the faculty of regulating and prescribing the 

 qualifications of voters, it is a very singular 

 fact that no such faculty belongs to the Gov- 

 ernment of the United States. The first 

 clause of the Constitution, although it does 

 not impart any power to the States in ref- 

 erence to the qualification of electors, recog- 

 nizes the undoubted fact that the States then 

 possessed the right to prescribe qualifications 

 for the electors within their own limits, and 

 authorizes those same electors to be the electors 

 of the Eepresentatives in Congress, and of the 

 electors of President and Vice-President^ so 

 that it has always been out of the power of 

 Congress, under the Constitution, to prescribe 

 who shall and who shall not vote for Repre- 

 sentatives in Congress or for electors of Presi- 

 dent and Vice-President. 



"In this respect the Government of the 

 United States is subject entirely to the action 

 of the State governments ; and herein consists 

 this strange anomaly. Certainly, ordinarily 

 speaking, the power of regulating suffrage 

 ought to pertain to the Government which is 

 to be affected by it. Our fathers, however, 

 did not see fit to grant to the Federal Govern- 

 ment any such authority ; and I believe the 

 present is the only attempt which has been 

 made, since the foundation of the Government, 



