204 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



shall bear to the whole number of male citizens not less than twenty- 

 one years of age." 



This section can easily be seen to be far less radical than the 

 original resolution. According to it if a very small proportion or as 

 Stevens more strongly put the case, " If one of the injured race was 

 excluded, the state should forfeit the right to have any of them rep- 

 resented." But this modified section would permit a considerable 

 abridgement of the suffrage without any serious loss in representa- 

 tion. A certain amount of discrimination could be indulwd in 

 safely. Stevens, in fact, was very bitter towards those who had 

 caused the failure of the first resolution in the Senate. He declared 

 the defeat due to the "united forces of self-righteous Republicans 

 and unrighteous Copperheads * * * the large stride which we 

 in vain proposed is dead; the murderers must answer to the suffer- 

 ing race * * * ^ load of misery must sit heavily upon their 

 souls." * * * (') 



As was expected, the modified form of this section proved less 

 obnoxious to some and although many felt that it was thoroughly 

 unsatisfactory, it passed both Houses in the slightly amended form 

 in which it now stands. 



The first section of the resolution met with but little opposition 

 although the form was modified and some additional clauses were 

 inserted before it was finally adopted. The Civil Eights Bill was 

 designed to afford a plan by which the central government could carry 

 out its obligations to guarantee to the freedman the privileges and 

 immunities of citizenship. This section simply incorporated in the 

 Constitution the general principle that all persons born or naturalized 

 in the United States were to have unabridged all that citizenship 

 involved. 



There was one proposition in the original resolution in which 

 the prejudice and fear of the radical Northerner cropped out most 

 emphatically. It proposed that " until the fourth day of July, in 

 the year 1870, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insur- 

 rection should be excluded from the right to vote for Representatives 

 and for President and Vice-President of the United States." 



(') Congrressional Globe, 39th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 2459-60. 



