“When men as patriotic and sincere as I am, and a great
deal wiser, sustain the Blaine Amendment, I am confounded,
and don’t know what to make of it. To my mind it is most
abhorrent, and I hope it will not receive the assent of
Congress.”
Rev. Rufus P. Stebbins, a Unitarian clergyman, wrote from
Portland, Maine:--
“You have fought a good fight. The Amendment proposed was
defeated. _Laus Deo!_ It was a blot too dark and foul to be
permitted to stain the Constitution. To speak of ‘race and
color’ in that instrument would be an insult to the men who
framed it.”