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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



one years of age, the right to vote for any of 

 the officers specified in the fourteenth amend- 

 ment, in my judgment that State should be 

 denied representation in this House in the pro- 

 portion which it denies the riiiht of voting to 

 any of its male citizens otherwise qualified. 



u Turning to the Constitutions of the States, 

 we find that Massachusetts and Connecticut 

 disqualify citizens on educational grounds. I 

 !'iii not i. r >inir to criticise the wisdom of those 

 States. I am not standing here to attack 

 either of those States or any others ; and let 

 me say in passing that the question of educa- 

 tion is becoming one of the paramount ques- 

 tions of the present time. Thoughtful men, 

 who are anxious for the perpetuity of our in- 

 stitutions, who are looking to the future wel- 

 fare of this republic, are scanning closely the 

 Constitution to find whether or not there are 

 any powers in it authorizing Congress to take 

 control of the whole subject of education for 

 the nation and for all the States of the nation. 

 But let me say that while Massachusetts and 

 Connecticut have imposed an educational 

 qualification which debars certain citizens in 

 those States from voting for the officers enu- 

 merated in section 2 of the fourteenth amend- 

 ment, Massachusetts, Delaware, Georgia, New 

 Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Ten- 

 nessee, Texas, and Virginia have added a prop- 

 erty qualification, either in regard to the amount 

 of property which the voter shall possess, or 

 in regard to the payment of poll-taxes, or 

 county, State, or municipal taxes. 



" Let me call attention somewhat to the ef- 

 fect of this in regard to representation in this 

 House. The State which I have the honor to 

 represent in part upon this floor sends here 

 under the apportionment act of 1872 thirty- 

 three Representatives. In the last election of 

 those Representatives the total vote for Rep- 

 resentatives in Congress in each of those thirty- 

 three districts was not less than 23,000 ; and 

 in the Erie district, where the highest vote was 

 cast, there was a little upward of 45,000 votes 

 cast for candidates for Representative in this 

 House. 



"Now turn to the State of Rhode Island. 

 Rhode Island in the last presidential election 

 cast 29,210 votes, all told, for the presidential 

 electors, and both of the members from the 

 first and second congressional districts of that 

 State had had cast for them and for their op- 

 ponents all told in both of those districts only 

 28,964 votes. That is the aggregate of both 

 districte. In twenty -three of the congressional 

 districts of the State of New York there was a 

 larger vote than 28,964 cast for congressional 

 candidates in each and every one of those 

 twenty-three congressional districts. 



"Now, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from 

 New York [Mr. Cox], chairman of the Com- 

 mittee on the Census, asks, in regard to the 

 effect of the fourteenth amendment, a question 

 which I think should receive an answer at this 

 time and in this place. 



" The first question which arises under this second 

 section of the fourtet'nth amendment is, \Vhat is a 

 denial or abridgment of the right to vote as contem- 

 plated i Must it l>c by law or by individuals ? \V liat 

 constitutes u denial or abridgment if otherwise than 

 by law ? What is the amount of private force and in- 

 timidation, or the kind of device or frnud, which con- 

 stitutes a denial or abridgment? The lust act of 

 apportionment was passed on the 2d of February, 

 Is?'.'. It did not pretend to settle this or anything 

 else as to this fourteenth amendment. It re-enacted 

 the clause of the Constitution, and fixed the power 

 which must deny or abridge. 



" It says ' should any State ' deny or abridge. It 

 does not say person or community or other organism ; 

 BO that, in so far as any interpretation may be drawn 

 from the law of 1872, the only constraint on suffrage 

 must be from the State and by legal enactment. No 

 practical application has been made of the constitu- 

 tional clause or the law. It has been hitherto a dead 

 letter. Nor is it possible now, with any known data 

 ascertamable with reasonable accuracy, to apply either 

 the Constitution or the law to the apportionment. 



"Now, let me say, sir, that the answer to 

 the question asked by the chairman of the 

 Committee on the Census has been given by 

 the Supreme Court of the United States at the 

 October term in 1879, in the matter of the 

 Commonwealth of Virginia and J. D. Coles, 

 petitioner. That was a writ of habeas corpus, 

 coming up from the State of Virginia, in re- 

 gard to a county judge in one of the counties 

 of that State, who was charged with having 

 refused to select jurors under the provisions of 

 the recent amendments to the Constitution of 

 the United States. 



"The Supreme Court in rendering judgment 

 Justice Strong delivering the opinion holds 

 in regard to that the following, to which I par- 

 ticularly ask the attention of the House. In 

 speaking of these recent constitutional amend- 

 ments, and the legislation necessary to carry 

 them into operation, the court observes, ' All of 

 the amendments derive much of their force 

 from this latter provision.' That is, the pro- 

 vision existing in Congress to pass appropriate 

 legislation to enforce them : 



" It is not said the judicial power of the General 

 Government shall extend to enforcing the prohibi- 

 tions and to protecting the rights and immunities 

 guaranteed. It is not said that branch of the Govern- 

 ment shall be authorized to declare void any action of 

 a State in violation of the prohibitions. It is the 

 power of Congress which has been enlarged. Con- 

 gress is authorized to enforce the prohibitions by 

 appropriate legislation. Some legislation is contem- 

 plated to make the amendments fully effective. 

 Whatever legislation is appropriate, that is adapted to 

 carry out the objects the amendments have in view 

 whatever tends to enforce submission to the prohibi- 

 tions they contain, and to secure to all persons the en- 

 joyment of perfect equality of civil rights, and the 

 equal protection of the laws against State denial or in- 

 vasion, if not prohibited is brought within the do- 

 main of congressional power. Nor does it make any 

 difference that such legislation is restrictive of what 

 the State might have done before the constitutional 

 amendment was adopted. 



" And let me say here, all these constitu- 

 tional qualifications or limitations which exist 

 in these ten States I have named, I believe 

 without exception, unless in the case of one or 

 two of them, were passed before the adoption 



