JOINT RESOLUTION IN THE SENATE, TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION, DECEMBER 4,
1865.
Joint Resolution proposing an Amendment of the Constitution of
the United States.
_Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled_ (two thirds of both Houses
concurring), That the following Article be proposed to the Legislatures
of the several States as an Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States, which, when ratified by three fourths of such Legislatures,
shall become a part of the Constitution, to wit:--
“Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States which
may be included within this Union according to the number of male
citizens of the age of twenty-one years having in each State the
qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of
the State Legislature. The actual enumeration of such citizens shall be
made by the census of the United States.”
This was the first resolution of the session. It was read,
passed to a second reading, and ordered to be printed.
December 13th, on motion of Mr. Sumner, it was read a second
time, and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
June 20, 1866, in company with other resolutions proposing
Amendments to the Constitution, it was reported adversely by
Mr. Trumbull, and on his motion indefinitely postponed.
Meanwhile the proposition had entered largely into debate,
and had been discussed by Mr. Sumner.[7] It was superseded by
the provision on Representation in the Fourteenth Amendment
of the Constitution. When moved, June 6th, by Mr. Doolittle,
of Wisconsin, as a substitute for that clause, it was
rejected,--Yeas 7, Nays 31. The yeas were Messrs. Cowan, of
Pennsylvania, Davis, of Kentucky, Doolittle, Guthrie, of
Kentucky, Hendricks, of Indiana, Johnson, of Maryland, and
Riddle, of Delaware. It was no longer satisfactory to Mr.
Sumner, who hoped for something better. When brought forward by
him, it was in the nature of a tentative process.