“While the honorable Senator from Massachusetts argued, and
argued with great force, that every man should have that
right, and that he should only be subject to disabilities
which he could overcome, his argument, connected with the
other principle that he laid down, and the application of
it that he made, that taxation and representation should go
together, would just as well apply to women as to men; but
I noticed that the honorable Senator dodged that part of
the proposition very carefully.”
He criticized the substitute offered by Mr. Sumner, when the
latter remarked:--
“Last Friday this Senate solemnly declared, that, under
the Constitutional Amendment abolishing Slavery, it had
power to decree the equal rights of all persons everywhere
throughout the United States, without distinction of
color. The moment that was declared, I said to friends
about me that the duty of Congress was fixed with regard
to political rights also. If Congress can decree equality
in civil rights, by the same reason, if not _a fortiori_,
it can decree equality in political rights; and as the
preamble to my proposition recited two reasons or moving
causes, one the guaranty clause, and the other the
Constitutional Amendment, I felt it my duty, acting upon
the vote of the Senate, to insist that the declaration of
equality for all should be coextensive with the Republic,
claiming as I do under the guaranty clause that it operates
within all the States where there has been a lapse of
government, and that under the Constitutional Amendment it
operates everywhere within the limits of the Republic.”
In confining the guaranty clause to States that had “lapsed,”
Mr. Sumner was cautious not to make his proposition too
broad, although his judgment was that it was applicable to
all the States, and authorized a prohibition by Congress of
unrepublican provisions in any State.
Mr. Fessenden said: “The Senator says we may secure it in the
States which have lapsed. That is a new phrase, but perhaps it
is as good as any other.” But he was unwilling to accept this
power.