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“Fighting* Boys in Blue” clubs and “Tanner” clubs. Leather 
aprons and capes were worn by members of the latter. The 
Democrats organized the “White Boys in Blue”.^- 
In the election, Grant and Colfax carried the state by ap- 
proximately ten thousand votes over Seymour and Blair. 
Seven out of eleven members of the House of Representatives 
elected were Republicans.^^ 
The year following, 1869, Congress adopted the last impor- 
tant reconstruction measure, the Fifteenth Amendment. The 
votes of the Indiana delegation in Congress followed strictly 
party lines, the Republicans supporting and the Democrats 
opposing the proposed change in the national Constitution. 
It was Oliver P. Morton who introduced the resolution into 
the Senate requiring that those states not yet admitted to 
representation should ratify the new amendment as an added 
condition of re-admission. 
The Fifteenth Amendment was submitted to the Indiana 
legislature near the close of the session in March, 1869. After 
a caucus, seventeen Democratic senators and thirty-seven 
Democratic representatives resigned, thus destroying a quo- 
rum, which consisted of two-thirds of each house.^^ In the 
special election which followed to fill the vacancies the mem- 
bers who had resigned were all re-elected. A special session 
of the legislature was called for the ostensible purpose of 
securing the necessary appropriations.^® It convened on 
April 8. However, the amendment was brought up again in 
the Senate on May 13. Several senators again resigned, and 
others present refused to vote.®® The amendment was de- 
clared adopted. The following day the Democratic members 
of the House again resigned. Nevertheless, the amendment 
was voted on and passed. It was held that two-thirds of the 
remaining representatives constituted a quorum and could 
legally ratify the amendment.®^ 
The Democratic opposition came largely from the southern 
part of the state. Two years later, the Democrats were in 
the majority in the state legislature. Senator Hughes, of 
Bloomington, offered a resolution proposing a convention of 
32 Terre Haute Express, August 26, 1868. 
Tribune Almanac for 1869, 70, 71. 
34 Brevier Legislative Reports, X, 591-593. 
Senate Journal, Special Session, 1869, 3. 
3s Brevier Legislative Reports, XI, 224, 225. 
3^ Foulke, Life of Oliver P. Mon-ton, II, 113. 
