CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



157 



Chief-Justice Marshall, in the case that I have 

 referred to, states several times the proposi- 

 tion that a power to organize, to create, on the 

 part of a State, imparts and carries with it a 

 power to preserve it's own organization. Then 

 every State having the exclusive power to or- 

 ganize its own State government, according to 

 the positions taken by Chief-Justice Marshall 

 in that case, each State government has the 

 power to preserve the State government which 

 it has the right to make. I say that for Con- 

 gress to interfere with the power of the States 

 to make their governments is as much usurpa- 

 tion of power as it would he for a State to at- 

 tempt to overthrow the Government of the 

 United States." 



The amendment to the amendment was re- 

 jected; there being, on a division yeas 6, 

 nays 38. 



Mr. Drake : " I move an amendment to the 

 amendment, to strike out all of section one of 

 the proposed article and insert : 



No citizen of the United States shall, on account 

 of his race, color, or previous condition of servitude, 

 be by the United States or any State denied the right 

 to vote or to hold office." 



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

 dent, I think the proposition of the Senator 

 from Missouri is open to the same objection 

 which lies against the amendment of the Com- 

 mittee on the Judiciary. If I understand it 

 rightly, there arises from it the same implica- 

 tion which is derived from the language of the 

 committee, namely, that although the United 

 States, that is, Congress, may not deny or 

 abridge the right to vote and hold office on 

 account of race, or color, or previous condition 

 of slavery, Congress may establish some other 

 test upon the ground that it is fairly implied. 

 Now, sir, I cannot vote myself for any such 

 thing." 



Mr. Drake : " I would inquire of the honor- 

 able Senator from Michigan if he conceives it 

 to be within the range of possibility in consti- 

 tutional construction that the express denial to 

 the United States or to any State of the right 

 to do one particular named thing could by im- 

 plication be held to be an affirmation of its 

 right to do another thing ? " 



Mr. Howard : " The question is entirely too 

 general in its terms, and does not admit of any 

 definite and exact answer. The clause sub- 

 mitted by the Committee on the Judiciary is 

 this: 



The rights 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. 



"As I understand it, the proposition of the 

 Senator from Missouri is tantamount to this. 

 Now, it appears to me very evident that if this 

 clause shall be adopted, there is granted to the 

 United States, by a plain, manifest indication, 

 the power to deny or abridge these rights for 

 some other and any other cause. I cannot give 

 it any other interpretation. I am not perfectly 



sure, however, that the proposition of the Sen- 

 ator from Missouri is liable to the same objec- 

 tion, because this is the first time I have heard 

 it." 



Mr. Drake : " The right to vote is an indi- 

 vidual right ; it does not belong to masses of 

 people, but it belongs to each individual. 

 When you frame a constitutional provision 

 which is to bear upon the right of the indi- 

 vidual and not upon the right of communities, 

 then I take it that almost every gentleman in 

 the Senate will at once recognize the propriety 

 of making the provision apply to the individual 

 directly, and not to masses. Every man who 

 goes to the polls goes upon his own individual 

 right to vote, and his right to vote cannot be 

 affected one way or the other by the right of 

 any mass of people of whom he may be one. 

 Therefore it is that I object so strongly to the 

 language of the House resolution, the putting 

 of these words at the end of the amendment, 

 'or class of citizens of the United States,' as if 

 my right to vote could by any possibility be 

 affected by the right of any other class of citi- 

 zens of the United States. It is a great deal 

 better to make it as strictly personal and indi- 

 vidual in its bearings as it can be made." 



Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont, said : " If I could 

 persuade myself that the amendment reported 

 by the committee does imply, as the Senator 

 from Missouri supposes, that there exists now 

 any citizen of the United States which is a 

 subject to which the sentence relates without 

 the right to exercise political privileges, then 

 most certainly I should think that it was a great 

 deal better than any amendment which did not 

 imply such an existing right, because I am one 

 of those, and I may as well say it now as ever, 

 who believe that the fourteenth amendment 

 which we have already adopted has under- 

 taken to secure to citizens of the United States 

 all the privileges and immunities that belong 

 to citizens as such, including, of course, and 

 comprehending all belonging to the class. 

 There is no qualification or limitation, but 

 words the most comprehensive possible in a 

 statute or in a constitution are used. I believe 

 that every citizen of the United States, in re- 

 spect to whom political rights can be asserted 

 at all, is entitled now to exercise political privi- 

 leges ; and therefore, if there is any man in the 

 United States who was before that amend- 

 ment entitled to exercise political privileges, 

 that amendment extended to all the citizens 

 similarly situated, without arbitrary and mere 

 fanciful distinctions, such as color, nativity, 

 education, or of religion, an equal right ; be- 

 cause if there is any vitality at all in that arti- 

 cle, which was so much studied here, and 

 which at last has commanded the assent of 

 three-fourths of the States, it is that it gave 

 the great and comprehensive word ' privileges ' 

 to all citizens alike, and that it made secure to 

 them privileges that belonged to the highest 

 class of community. 



"What I am calling the attention of the 



