146 



CONGRESS, -UNITED STATES. 



right to vote and hold office like other citizens 

 of the United States, the amendment will be 

 carried by a handsome majority." 



Mr. Hendricks: "Mr. President, I did not 

 expect to add any thing to the remarks I made 

 upon the platform adopted by the ^Republican 

 party last year ; but I feel it proper to call the 

 attention of the Senator from Michigan to a 

 view that I take of that platform. It is very 

 clear that he and the distinguished Senator 

 from Massachusetts do not agree. They did 

 not agree last year, and when they stood side 

 by side upon the platform they could not have 

 agreed. There is in this platform a distinction 

 taken between the Northern and the Southern 

 States. There is in this platform claimed for 

 Congress the right to control suffrage in the 

 Southern States, the right to extend it to the 

 colored people there. That is what is claimed 

 in the first part of the resolution, that Congress 

 has the right to extend suffrage to the colored 

 people in the Southern States. As an opposite 

 idea to that, the last clause of the resolution de- 

 clares that the control of that subject properly 

 belongs to the people of the States in the 

 Northern States." 



Mr. Howard: " The loyal States." 



Mr. Hendricks : " That is the same thing, I 

 suppose. By loyal States you mean the States 

 that did not go into the rebellion States that, 

 in the language of the Senator from Michigan, 

 4 did not forfeit by rebellion their control of 

 the subject.' Then in the Southern States this 

 platform claims a right for Congress to confer 

 suffrage upon the colored people; in the North- 

 ern States it claims for the people of the States 

 the right to control that question * properly,' 

 not constitutionally." 



Mr. Howard: "Yes, constitutionally." 



Mr. Hendricks: "No, sir; the language is, 

 it belongs to the Northern States 'properly.' " 



Mr. Howard : " It belongs to them from an- 

 cient usage by prescription, if you please. It 

 was one of the original State rights. It was 

 not granted to the people of any of the States 

 by the Constitution. The Constitution found 

 it existing and recognized that right as existing 

 in the States." 



Mr. Hendricks: "Here is the language: 



While the question of suffrage in all the loyal States 

 properly belongs to the people of those States. 



" Now, if it properly belongs to the people 

 of the States to regulate suffrage, is it proper 

 for Congress to take it away ? If it belongs to 

 the people of the State of Indiana, how can all 

 the rest of the States united take it away from 

 them ? " 



Mr. Howard : " If the Senator will excuse 

 me, he asked whether it would be proper for 

 Congress to take it away. Sir, Congress is not 

 going to take it away. Congress cannot take 

 it away. What we are doing does not take 

 away the right of the States in this regard. If 

 that right is taken away, it must be taken away 

 by the American people represented in their 



various Legislatures, and in the form prescribed 

 by the fundamental law of the republic the 

 Constitution to which every citizen is sub- 

 ject and a party." 



Mr. Hendricks : " If it properly belongs to 

 a State, can twenty-seven States take it away 

 from that one State ? " 



Mr. Howard: "Yes." 



Mr. Hendricks : " Then it does not properly 

 belong to it ; it belongs to twenty-seven States. 

 It cannot properly belong to one State, because 

 of its State sovereignty, and at the same time 

 properly belong to twenty-seven States. The 

 one State is regulated by law, and the twenty- 

 seven States by constitutional amendment." 



Mr. Howard : " Will the honorable Senator 

 allow me to call his attention to the very lan- 

 guage of the article ? " 



Mr. Hendricks : " Certainly." 



Mr. Howard: "'While the question of suf- 

 frage in all the loyal States properly belongs 

 to the people of those States; ' not to each one." 



Mr. Hendricks : " Well, I will ask, can each 

 one of the loyal States control it by a constitu- 

 tional amendment? " 



Mr. Howard : " Undoubtedly." 



Mr. Hendricks ; " Without a constitutional 

 amendment? By a constitutional amendment? 

 Which does the Senator claim ? I ask his at- 

 tention. Does he claim that the Southern 

 States have no control over it any more, but 

 that the loyal States, in the form of a constitu- 

 tional amendment, may take the control of the 

 suffrage away from any one State ? Is that the 

 position of the Senator?" 



Mr. Howard : " My position I now repeat 

 it is, that while the rebel States were, so to 

 speak, de facto out of the Union, after they 

 had forfeited their political rights tinder the 

 Constitution, they were at the mercy and sub- 

 ject to the action of the Congress of the United 

 States; while they were in that condition they 

 could not, as against the will of Congress, reg- 

 ulate suffrage or do any thing else within the 

 limits of their own States as independent sov- 

 ereign States, as they are called ; but, after they 

 shall be remitted to their original condition as 

 States of the Union in pursuance of the regu- 

 lations and laws of Congress, and become rep- 

 resented in the two Houses of Congress, and 

 thus become reinstated as sister States of the 

 Union, they would, of course, have the same 

 right as the original loyal States, not only in 

 that respect, but in all others." 



Mr. Hendricks : "Mr. President, in the course 

 of this short debate the Senator from Michigan 

 has put two constructions upon this last clause 

 of his platform. In the first place, he said that 

 it meant that constitutionally it belonged to 

 each State. N"ow I understand him to say that 

 it belongs to all the loyal States in the aggre- 

 gate; that the people of all the loyal States 

 rightfully control it." 



Mr. Howard: "Three-fourths." 



Mr. Hendricks : "These two positions he has 

 occupied in the last twenty minutes. When 



