THE BASIS OF-REPRESENTATION--IN THE SENATE.
The Joint Resolution goes to the Senate --
Counter-proposition by Mr. Sumner -- He Speaks Five Hours --
Mr. Henderson's Amendment -- Mr. Fessenden -- Mr. Henry S.
Lane -- Mr. Johnson -- Mr. Henderson -- Mr. Clark's
Historical Statements -- Fred. Douglass' Memorial -- Mr.
Williams -- Mr. Hendricks -- Mr. Chandler's "Blood-letting
Letter" -- Proposition of Mr. Yates -- His Speech -- Mr.
Buckalew against New England -- Mr. Pomeroy -- Mr. Sumner's
Second Speech -- Mr. Doolittle -- Mr. Morrill -- Mr.
Fessenden meets Objections -- Final Vote -- The Amendment
Defeated.
The joint resolution, providing for amending the basis of
representation, having passed the House of Representatives on the last
day of January, 1866, the action of that body was communicated to the
Senate. The Civil Rights Bill at that time occupying the attention of
the Senate, Mr. Fessenden gave notice that unless something should
occur to render that course unwise, he would ask that the
consideration of the proposed constitutional amendment should be taken
up on the following Monday, February 5th.
On the second of February, Mr. Sumner gave notice of his intention to
move a joint resolution as a counter-proposition to the proposed
constitutional amendment. Mr. Sumner's resolution was as follows:
_Whereas_, it is provided in the Constitution that the
United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a
republican form of government; and whereas, by reason of the
failure of certain States to maintain Governments which
Congress can recognize, it has become the duty of the United
States, standing in the place of guarantor, where the
principal has made a lapse, to secure to such States,
according to the requirement of the guarantee, governments
republican in form; and whereas, further, it is provided in
a recent constitutional amendment, that Congress may
'enforce' the prohibition of slavery by 'appropriate
legislation,' and it is important to this end that all
relics of slavery should be removed, including all
distinction of rights on account of color; now, therefore,
to carry out the guarantee of a republican form of
government, and to enforce the prohibition of slavery.
"_Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives
of the United States of America in Congress assembled_, That
in all States lately declared to be in rebellion there shall
be no oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, or monopoly invested
with peculiar privileges or powers, and there shall be no
denial of rights, civil or political, on account of color or
race; but all persons shall be equal before the law, whether
in the court-room or at the ballot-box; and this statute,
made in pursuance of the Constitution, shall be the supreme
law of the land, any thing in the constitution or laws of
any such State to the contrary notwithstanding."
According to notice given by the Chairman of the joint Committee on
Reconstruction on the part of the Senate, the proposed constitutional
amendment came up for consideration on the fifth of February.
Mr. Sumner addressed the Senate in opposition to the measure. His
speech was five hours in length, and occupied parts of the sessions of
two days in its delivery. Mr. Sumner argued that the proposed
amendment would introduce "discord and defilement into the
Constitution," by admitting that rights could be "denied or abridged
on account of race or color," and that by its adoption Congress would
prove derelict to its constitutional duty to guarantee a republican
form of government to each State, and that having already legislated
to protect the colored race in civil rights, it is bound to secure to
them political rights also.
Concerning the Committee on Reconstruction and their proposition, Mr.
Sumner said: "Knowing, as I do, the eminent character of the
committee, its intelligence, its patriotism, and the moral instincts
by which it is moved, I am at a loss to understand the origin of a
proposition which seems to me nothing else than another compromise of
human rights, as if the country had not already paid enough in costly
treasure and more costly blood for such compromises in the past. I had
hoped that the day of compromise with wrong had passed forever. Ample
experience shows that it is the least practical mode of settling
questions involving moral principles. A moral principle can not be
compromised."
He thought the proposed change in the Constitution could not properly
be called an amendment. "For some time we have been carefully
expunging from the statute-book the word 'white,' and now it is
proposed to insert in the Constitution itself a distinction of color.
An amendment, according to the dictionaries, is 'an improvement'--'a
change for the better.' Surely the present proposition is an amendment
which, like the crab, goes backward."
This measure would not accomplish the results desired by its authors.
"If by this," said he, "you expect to induce the recent slave-master
to confer the right of suffrage without distinction of color, you will
find the proposition a delusion and a snare. He will do no such thing.
Even the bribe you offer will not tempt him. If, on the other hand,
you expect to accomplish a reduction of his political power, it is
more than doubtful if you will succeed, while the means you employ are
unworthy of our country. There are tricks and evasions possible, and
the cunning slave-master will drive his coach and six through your
amendment, stuffed with all his Representatives."
Drawing toward the close of his speech, Mr. Sumner gave the following
review of his remarks that had preceded: "We have seen the origin of
the controversy which led to the revolution, when Otis, with such wise
hardihood, insisted upon equal rights, and then giving practical
effect to the lofty demand, sounded the battle-cry that 'Taxation
without Representation is Tyranny.' We have followed this controversy
in its anxious stages, where these principles were constantly asserted
and constantly denied, until it broke forth in battle; we have seen
these principles adopted as the very frontlet of the republic, when it
assumed its place in the family of nations, and then again when it
ordained its Constitution; we have seen them avowed and illustrated in
memorable words by the greatest authorities of the time; lastly, we
have seen them embodied in public acts of the States collectively and
individually; and now, out of this concurring, cumulative, and
unimpeachable testimony, constituting a speaking aggregation
absolutely without precedent, I offer you the American definition of a
republican form of government. It is in vain that you cite
philosophers or publicists, or the examples of former history. Against
these I put the early and constant postulates of the fathers, the
corporate declarations of the fathers, the avowed opinions of the
fathers, and the public acts of the fathers, all with one voice
proclaiming, first, that all men are equal in rights, and, secondly,
that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the
governed; and here is the American idea of a republic, which must be
adopted in the interpretation of the National Constitution. You can
not reject it. As well reject the Decalogue in determining moral
duties, or as well reject the multiplication table in determining a
question of arithmetic."
Maintaining that "the rebel States are not republican governments,"
Mr. Sumner said: "Begin with Tennessee, which disfranchises 283,079
citizens, being more than a quarter of its whole 'people.' Thus
violating a distinctive principle of republican government, how can
this State be recognized as republican? This question is easier asked
than answered. But Tennessee is the least offensive on the list. There
is Virginia, which disfranchises 549,019 citizens, being more than a
third of its whole 'people.' There is Alabama, which disfranchises
436,030 citizens, being nearly one half of its whole 'people.' There
is Louisiana, which disfranchises 350,546 citizens, being one half of
its whole 'people.' There is Mississippi, which disfranchises 437,404
citizens, being much more than one half of its whole 'people.' And
there is South Carolina, which disfranchises 412,408 citizens, being
nearly two-thirds of its whole 'people.' A republic is a pyramid
standing on the broad mass of the people as a base; but here is a
pyramid balanced on its point. To call such a government 'republican'
is a mockery of sense and decency. A monarch, 'surrounded by
republican institutions,' which at one time was the boast of France,
would be less offensive to correct principles, and give more security
to human rights."
Of the Southern system of government he said: "It is essentially a
monopoly, in a country which sets its face against all monopolies as
unequal and immoral. If any monopoly deserves unhesitating judgment,
it must be that which absorbs the rights of others and engrosses
political power. How vain it is to condemn the petty monopolies of
commerce, and then allow this vast, all-embracing monopoly of human
rights."
Mr. Sumner maintained that the ballot was the great guarantee--"the
only sufficient guarantee--being in itself peacemaker, reconciler,
schoolmaster, and protector." The result of conferring suffrage upon
the negro will be, "The master will recognize the new citizen. The
slave will stand with tranquil self-respect in the presence of the
master. Brute force disappears. Distrust is at an end. The master is
no longer a tyrant. The freedman is no longer a dependent. The ballot
comes to him in his depression, and says, 'Use me and be elevated.' It
comes to him in his passion, and says, 'Use me and do not fight.' It
comes to him in his daily thoughts, filling him with the strength and
glory of manhood."
Most beneficent results, it was thought, would flow from such
legislation as that advocated by Mr. Sumner. "I see clearly," said he,
"that there is nothing in the compass of mortal power so important to
them in every respect, morally, politically, and economically--that
there is nothing with such certain promise to them of beneficent
results--that there is nothing so sure to make their land smile with
industry and fertility as the decree of equal rights which I now
invoke. Let the decree go forth to cover them with blessings, sure to
descend upon their children in successive generations. They have given
us war; we give them peace. They have raged against us in the name of
slavery; we send them back the benediction of justice for all. They
menace hate; we offer in return all the sacred charities of country
together with oblivion of the past. This is our 'Measure for Measure.'
This is our retaliation. This is our only revenge."
The following was the closing paragraph of Mr. Sumner's speech: "The
Roman Cato, after declaring his belief in the immortality of the soul,
added, that if this were an error, it was an error which he loved. And
now, declaring my belief in liberty and equality as the God-given
birthright of all men, let me say, in the same spirit, if this be an
error, it is an error which I love; if this be a fault, it is a fault
which I shall be slow to renounce; if this be an illusion, it is an
illusion which I pray may wrap the world in its angelic arms."
On the seventh of February, the subject being again before the Senate,
Mr. Henderson, of Missouri, moved to strike out the constitutional
amendment proposed by the committee and insert the following:
"ARTICLE 14. No State, in prescribing the qualifications
requisite for electors therein, shall discriminate against
any person on account of color or race."
Mr. Fessenden made a speech in favor of the report of the committee,
and in reply to Mr. Sumner. Referring to the subject of constitutional
amendments, Mr. Fessenden said: "Something has been said, also, on
different occasions, with reference to a disposition that is said to
prevail now to amend the Constitution, and the forbearance of Congress
has been invoked with regard to that venerable and great instrument. I
believe that I have as much veneration for the Constitution as most
men, and I believe that I have as high an opinion of its wisdom; but,
sir, I probably have no better opinion of it than those who made it,
and it did not seem to them, as we learn from its very provisions,
that it was so perfect that no amendment whatever could be made that
would be, in the language of the Senator from Massachusetts, an
improvement. Why, sir, they provided themselves, as we all know, in
the original instrument, for its amendment. They, in the very earliest
days of our history, amended it themselves."
The result of retaining the "Constitution as it is" would be this:
"The continuance of precisely the same rule, and the fostering of a
feeling which the honorable Senator from Massachusetts has well proven
to be contrary to the very foundation principles of a republican
government. There can be no question that such would be the result;
and we should have in a portion of the States all the people
represented and all the people acting, and in another portion of the
States all the people represented and but a portion of the people only
exercising political rights and retaining them in their own hands.
Such has been the case, and such, judging of human nature as it is, we
have a right to suppose will continue to be the case."
The measure proposed by the committee was not entirely satisfactory to
Mr. Fessenden. "I am free to confess," said he, "that could I
legislate upon that subject, although I can see difficulties that
would arise from it, yet trusting to time to soften them, and being
desirous, if I can, to put into the Constitution a principle that
commends itself to the consideration of every enlightened mind at
once, I would prefer something of that sort, a distinct proposition
that all provisions in the constitution or laws of any State making
any distinction in civil or political rights, or privileges, or
immunities whatever, should be held unconstitutional, inoperative, and
void, or words to that effect. I would like that much better; and I
take it there are not many Senators within the sound of my voice who
would not very much prefer it; but, after all, the committee did not
recommend a provision of that description, and I stand here as the
organ of the committee, approving what they have done, and not
disposed to urge my own peculiar views, if I have any, against theirs,
or to rely exclusively on my own judgment so far as to denounce what
honorable and true men, of better judgments than myself, have thought
best to recommend, and in which I unite and agree with them."
After having given objections to limiting the basis of representation
to voters, Mr. Fessenden remarked: "And if you extend it to citizens,
or narrow it to citizens, you make it worse so far as many of the
States are concerned; for my honorable friends from the Pacific coast,
where there is a large number of foreigners, would hardly be willing
to have them cut off; and they have no benefit of political power in
the legislation of the country arising from the number of those
foreigners who make a portion of their population. The difficulty is,
that you meet with troubles of this kind every-where the moment you
depart from the principle of basing representation upon population and
population alone. You meet with inequalities, with difficulties, with
troubles, either in one section of the country or the other, and you
are inevitably thrown back upon the original principle of the
Constitution.
"It will be noticed that the amendment which we have thus presented
has one good quality: it preserves the original basis of
representation; it leaves that matter precisely where the Constitution
placed it in the first instance; it makes no changes in that respect;
it violates no prejudice; it violates no feeling. Every State is
represented according to its population with this distinction: that if
a State says that it has a portion, a class, which is not fit to be
represented--and it is for the State to decide--it shall not be
represented; that is all. It has another good point: it is equal in
its operation; all persons in every State are to be counted; nobody is
to be rejected. With the very trifling exception fixed by the original
Constitution, all races, colors, nations, languages, and denominations
form the basis.
"But, sir, the great excellence of it--and I think it is an
excellence--is, that it accomplishes indirectly what we may not have
the power to accomplish directly. If we can not put into the
Constitution, owing to existing prejudices and existing institutions,
an entire exclusion of all class distinctions, the next question is,
can we accomplish that work in any other way?"
Concerning the "counter-proposition" of Mr. Sumner, the speaker said:
"It is, in one sense, like a very small dipper with a very long
handle; for the preamble is very much more diffuse than the proposed
enactment itself. I looked to see what came next. I supposed that
after that preamble we should have some adequate machinery provided
for the enforcement and security of these rights; that we should have
the matter put to the courts, and if the courts could not accomplish
it, that we should have the aid of the military power, thus shocking
the sensibilities of my honorable friend from Indiana [Mr. Hendricks]
again. I do not know what good it does to merely provide by law that
the provisions of the Constitution shall be enforced, without saying
how, in what manner, by what machinery, in what way, to what extent,
or how it is to be accomplished. Why reënact the Constitution of the
United States and put it in a bill? What do you accomplish by it? How
is that a remedy? It is simply as if it read in this way: Whereas, it
is provided in the Constitution that the United States shall guarantee
to every State in the Union a republican form of government, therefore
we declare that there shall be a republican form of government and
nothing else."
Mr. Sumner had said, in his speech in opposition to the proposed
amendment, "Above all, do not copy the example of Pontius Pilate, who
surrendered the Savior of the world, in whom he found no fault at all,
to be scourged and crucified, while he set at large Barabbas, of whom
the Gospel says, in simple words, 'Now, Barabbas was a robber.'"
To this Mr. Fessenden responded: "Is it a 'mean compromise'--for so it
is denominated--that the Committee of Fifteen and the House of
Representatives, when they passed it, placed themselves in the
situation of Pontius Pilate, with the negro for the Savior of the
world and the people of the United States for Barabbas, as designated
by the honorable Senator. Why, sir, I expected to hear him in the next
breath go further than that, and say that with the Constitution of the
United States and the constitutions of the States the negro had been
crucified, and that now, by the amendment of the Constitution, the
stone had been rolled away from the door of the sepulcher, and he had
ascended to sit on the throne of the Almighty and judge the world! One
would have been, permit me to say with all respect, in as good taste
as the other."
In conclusion, Mr. Fessenden said: "I wish to say, in closing, that I
commend this joint resolution to the careful consideration of the
Senate. It is all that we could desire; it is all that our
constituents could wish. It does not accomplish, as it stands now,
all, perhaps, that it might accomplish; but it is an important step in
the right direction. It gives the sanction of Congress, in so many
words, to an important, leading, effective idea. It opens a way by
which the Southern mind--to speak of it as the Southern mind--may be
led to that which is right and just. I have hopes, great hopes, of
those who were recently Confederates; and I believe that now that they
have been taught that they can not do evil, to all the extent that
they might desire, with impunity, and when their attention is turned
of necessity in the right direction, the road will seem so pleasant to
their feet, or, at any rate, will seem so agreeable to their love of
power, that they will be willing to walk in the direction that we have
pointed. If they do, what is accomplished? In process of time, under
this constitutional amendment, if it should be adopted, they are led
to enlarge their franchise. That necessarily will lead them to
consider how much further they can go, what is necessary in order to
fit their people for its exercise, thus leading to education, thus
leading to a greater degree of civilization, thus bringing up an
oppressed and downtrodden race to an equality, if capable of an
equality--and I hope it may be--with their white brethren, children of
the same Father.
"And, sir, if this is done, some of us may hope to live--I probably
may not, but the honorable Senator from Massachusetts may--to see the
time when, by their own act, and under the effect of an enlightened
study of their own interests, all men may be placed upon the same
broad constitutional level, enjoying the same rights, and seeking
happiness in the same way and under the same advantages; and that is
all that we could ask."
On the following day, the discussion was continued by Mr. Lane, of
Indiana, who addressed the Senate in a speech of two hours' duration.
Mr. Lane seldom occupied the time of the Senate by speech-making, but
when he felt it his duty to speak, none upon the floor attracted more
marked attention, both from the importance of his matter and the
impressiveness of his manner.
Much of Mr. Lane's speech, on this occasion, was devoted to the
general subject of reconstruction, since he regarded the pending
measure as one of a series looking to the ultimate restoration of the
late rebel States. He was opposed to undue haste in this important
work. He said: "The danger is of precipitate action. Delay is now what
we need. The infant in its tiny fingers plays to-day with a handful of
acorns, but two hundred years hence, by the efflux of time, those
acorns are the mighty material out of which navies are built, the
monarch of the forest, defying the shock of the storm and the
whirlwind. Time is a mighty agent in all these affairs, and we should
appeal to time. We are not ready yet for a restoration upon rebel
votes; we are not ready yet for a restoration upon colored votes; but,
thank God! we are willing and able to wait. We have the Government, we
have the Constitution of the United States, we have the army and the
navy, the vast moral and material power of the republic. We can
enforce the laws in all the rebel States, and we can keep the peace
until such time as they may be restored with safety to them and safety
to us."
Of the measure proposed by the committee, Mr. Lane remarked: "This
amendment, as I have already endeavored to show, will do away with
much of the irregularity now existing, and which would exist under a
different state of things, the blacks being all free. So far as the
amendment goes, I approve of it, and I think I shall vote for it, but
with a distinct understanding that it is not all that we are required
to do, that it is not the only amendment to the Constitution that
Congress is required to make."
Mr. Lane expressed his opinion of Mr. Summer's "counter-proposition"
in the following language: "It is a noble declaration, but a simple
declaration, a paper bullet that kills no one, and fixes and maintains
the rights of no one."
Of Mr. Henderson's proposition, he said: "It is a simple amendment to
the Constitution of the United States, that no one shall be excluded
from the exercise of the right of suffrage on account of race or
color. That begins at the right point. The only objection to it is,
that its operation can not be immediate, and in the mean time the
rebels may be permitted to vote, and its adoption by the various State
Legislatures is exceedingly doubtful. I should not doubt, however,
that we might secure its adoption by three-fourths of the loyal States
who have never seceded; and I believe that whenever that question is
presented, the Supreme Court of the United States will determine that
a ratification by that number of States is a constitutional approval
of an amendment so as to make it the supreme law of the land. I have
no doubt about it.
"If the rebel States are to be organized immediately, the only
question is whether the right of suffrage shall be given to rebel
white men or loyal black men. The amendment of the Senator from
Missouri meets that issue squarely in the face. Whatsoever I desire to
do I will not do by indirection. I trust I shall always be brave
enough to do whatsoever I think my duty requires, directly and not by
indirection."
Mr. Lane, with several other Western Senators, had been counted as
opposed to negro suffrage, hence his advocacy of the principle gave
much strength to those who desired to take a position in advance of
the proposition of the committee.
In reply to an oft-reiterated argument that a war of races would
result from allowing suffrage to the negro, Mr. Lane remarked: "If you
wish to avoid a war of races, how can that be accomplished? By doing
right; by fixing your plan of reconstruction upon the indestructible
basis of truth and justice. What lesson is taught by history? The
grand lesson is taught there that rebellions and insurrections have
grown out of real or supposed wrong and oppression. A war of races!
And you are told to look to the history of Ireland, and to the history
of Hungary. Why is it that revolution and insurrection are always
ready to break out in Hungary? Because, forsooth, the iron rule of
Austria has stricken down the natural rights of the masses. It is a
protest of humanity against tyranny, oppression, that produces
rebellion and revolution. So in the bloody history of the Irish
insurrections. Suppose the English Parliament had given equal rights
to the Irish, had enfranchised the Catholics in Ireland in the reign
of Henry VIII, long ere this peace and harmony would have prevailed
between England and Ireland. But the very fact that a vast portion of
a people are disfranchised sows the seeds of continual and
ever-recurring revolution and insurrection. It can not be otherwise.
These insurrections and revolutions, which are but the protest of our
common humanity against wrong, are one of the scourges in the hands of
Providence to compel men to do justice and to observe the right. It is
the law of Providence, written upon every page of history, that God's
vengeance follows man's wrong and oppression, and it will always be
so. If you wish to avoid a war of races, if you wish to produce
harmony and peace among these people, you must enfranchise them all."
On the following day, February 9th, Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, occupied
the time devoted by the Senate to a consideration of this question
with a speech against the proposed amendment of the Constitution. Mr.
Johnson said that when the Constitution was framed there was no such
objection to compromising as now existed in the minds of some
Senators. "The framers of the Constitution came to the conclusion that
the good of the country demanded that there should be a compromise,
and they proposed, as a compromise, the provision as it now stands;
and that is, that, for the purposes of representation, a person held
in slavery, or in involuntary servitude, shall be esteemed
three-fifths of a man and two-fifths property; and they established
the same rule in relation to taxation. They very wisely concluded
that, as it was all-important that some general rule should be
adopted, this was the best rule, because promising more than any other
rule to arrive at a just result of ascertaining the number of
Representatives and ascertaining the quota of taxation."
Mr. Johnson did not think that the North needed such a provision as
this amendment to render her able to cope with Southern statesmanship
in Congress: "Are not the North and the statesmen of the North equal
to the South and the statesmen of the South on all subjects that may
come before the councils of the nation? What is there, looking to the
history of the two sections in the past, which would lead us to
believe that the North is inferior to the South in any thing of
intellectual improvement or of statesmanship? You have proved--and I
thank God you have proved--that if listening to evil counsels,
rendered effective, perhaps, by your own misjudged legislation, and by
the ill-advised course of your own population, exhibited through the
press and the pulpit, a portion of the South involved the country in a
war, the magnitude of which no language can describe--you have proved
yourselves, adequate to the duty of defeating, them in their mad and,
as far as the letter of the Constitution is concerned, their
traitorous purpose. And now, having proved your physical manhood, do
you doubt your intellectual manhood? Mr. President, in the presence in
which I speak, I am restrained from speaking comparatively of the
Senate as it is and the Senate as it has been; but I can say this,
with as much sincerity as man ever spoke, that there is nothing to be
found in the free States calculated to disparage them properly in the
estimation of the wise and the good. They are able to conduct the
Government, and they will not be the less able because they have the
advice and the counsels of their Southern brethren."
In answer to the position that the Southern States were not possessed
of a republican form of government, Mr. Johnson remarked: "Did our
fathers consider that any one of the thirteen States who finally came
under the provisions of that Constitution, and have ever since
constituted a part of the nation, were not living under republican
forms of government? The honorable member will pardon me for saying
that to suppose it is to disparage the memory of those great and good
men. There was not a State in the Union when the Constitution was
adopted that was republican, if the honorable member's definition of a
republican government is the one now to be relied upon. A property
qualification was required in all at that time. Negroes were not
allowed to vote, although free, in most of the States. In the Southern
States the mass of the negroes were slaves, and, of course, were not
entitled to vote. If the absence of the universal right of suffrage
proves that the Government is not republican, then there was not a
republican government within the limits of the United States when the
Constitution was adopted; and yet the very object of the clause to
guarantee a republican government--and the honorable member's
citations prove it--was to prevent the existing governments from being
changed by revolution. It was to preserve the existing governments;
and yet the honorable member would have the Senate and the country
believe that, in the judgment of the men who framed the Constitution,
there was not a republican form of government in existence.
"The definition of the honorable member places his charge of
antirepublicanism as against the present forms of constitution upon
the ground of the right to vote. I suppose the black man has no more
natural right to vote than the white man. It is the exclusion from the
right that affects the judgment of the honorable member from
Massachusetts. Voting, according to him, is a right derived from God;
it is in every man inalienable; and its denial, therefore, is
inconsistent and incompatible with the true object of a free
government. If it be such a right, it is not less a right in the white
man than in the black man; it is not less a right in the Indian than
in the white man or the black man; it is not less a right in the
female portion of our population than in the male portion. Then the
honorable member from Massachusetts is living in an anti-republican
government, and he ought not to stay there a moment if he can find any
government which would be a government according to his theory. None
has existed since the world commenced, and it is not at all likely
that any will exist in all time to come; but if there is any such
government to be found on the face of the earth, let him leave
Massachusetts, let him hug that angelic delusion which he hopes will
encircle the whole world, and go somewhere, where he can indulge it
without seeing before him every day conclusive evidence that no such
illusion exists at home. Leave Massachusetts, I beg the honorable
member, just as soon as you can, or you will never be supremely
happy."
In conclusion, Mr. Johnson remarked, referring to the recent rebels:
"Let us take them to our bosom, trust them, and as I believe in my
existence, you will never have occasion to regret it. You will, if the
event occurs, look back to your participation in it in future time
with unmingled delight, because you will be able to date from it a
prosperity and a national fame of which the world furnishes no
example; and you will be able to date from, it the absence of all
cause of differences which can hereafter exist, which will keep us
together as one people, looking to one destiny, and anxious to achieve
one renown."
On Tuesday, February 13th, the Senate resumed the consideration of the
Basis of Representation. Mr. Summer proposed to amend the proviso
recommended by the committee--"all persons therein of such race or
color shall be excluded from the basis of representation"--by adding
the words "and they shall be exempt from taxation of all kinds."
Mr. Henderson, of Missouri, occupied the attention of the Senate,
during a considerable part of this and the following day, in a speech
against the proposition of the Committee of Fifteen, which he
considered a compromise, surrendering the rights of the negro out of
the hands of the General Government into the hands of States not fit
to be intrusted with them. In favor of his own amendment prohibiting
the States from disfranchising citizens on the ground of color, Mr.
Henderson said: "I propose to make the State governments republican in
fact, as they are in theory. The States now have the power and do
exclude the negroes for no other reason than that of color. If the
negro is equally competent and equally devoted to the Government as
the Celt, the Saxon, or the Englishman; why should he not vote? If he
pays his taxes, works the roads, repels foreign invasion with his
musket, assists in suppressing insurrections, fells the forest, tills
the soil, builds cities, and erects churches, what more shall he do to
give him the simple right of saying he must be only equal in these
burdens, and not oppressed? My proposition is put in the least
offensive form. It respects the traditionary right of the States to
prescribe the qualifications of voters. It does not require that the
ignorant and unlettered negro shall vote. Its words are simply that
'no State, in prescribing the qualifications requisite for electors
therein, shall discriminate against any person on account of color or
race.' The States may yet prescribe an educational or property test;
but any such test shall apply to white and black alike. If the black
man be excluded because he is uneducated, the uneducated white man
must be excluded too. If a property test be adopted for the negro, as
in New York, the same test must apply to the white man. It reaches all
the States, and not a few only, in its operation. I confess that, so
far as I am personally concerned, I would go still further and put
other limitations on the power of the States in regard to suffrage;
but Senators have expressed so much distrust that even this
proposition can not succeed, I have concluded to present it in a form
the least objectionable in which I could frame it. It will be observed
that this amendment, if adopted, will not prevent the State
Legislatures from fixing official qualifications. They may prevent a
negro from holding any office whatever under the State organization.
It is a singular fact, however, that to-day, under the Federal
Constitution, a negro may be elected President, United States Senator,
or a member of the lower branch of Congress. In that instrument no
qualification for office is prescribed which rejects the negro. The
white man, not native born, may not be President, but the native-born
African may be. The States, however, may, in this respect,
notwithstanding this amendment, do what the Federal Constitution never
did."
Mr. Henderson closed his speech with the following words: "The reasons
in favor of my proposition are inseparably connected with all I have
said. I need not repeat them. Every consideration of peace demands it.
It must be done to remove the relics of the rebellion; it must be done
to pluck out political disease from the body politic, and restore the
elementary principles of our Government; it must be done to preserve
peace in the States and harmony in our Federal system; it must be done
to assure the happiness and prosperity of the Southern people
themselves; it must be done to establish in our institutions the
principles of universal justice; it must be done to secure the
strongest possible guarantees against future wars; it must be done in
obedience to that golden rule which insists upon doing to others what
we would that others should do unto us; it must be done if we would
obey the moral law that teaches us to love our neighbors as ourselves;
in fine, it must be done to purify, strengthen, and perpetuate a
Government in which are now fondly centered the best hopes of
mankind."
Mr. Clark, of New Hampshire, addressed the Senate on the pending
measure. He made the following interesting historical statements: "As
the traveler who has passed a difficult road, when he comes to some
high hill looks back to see the difficulties which he has passed, I
turn back, and I ask the Senator to turn back, to consider what
occurred, as I say, about six years ago. In the session of 1859-60, in
the old Senate-chamber, a bill was brought into the Senate of the
United States by the then Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Brown], who
was chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia, a place
which my friend from Maine [Mr. Morrill] now so worthily fills--a bill
in aid of the education of the children of this District. The bill
proposed to grant certain fines and forfeitures to the use of the
schools, and also proposed to tax the people ten cents on every
hundred dollars of the property in this District for the purpose of
educating the children. That bill proposed to tax the white man and
the black man alike; and fearing that the property of the black man
would be taxed to educate the child of the white man, I proposed an
amendment to the bill, that the tax collected from the black man
should go to educate the black man's child.
"There was also a further provision of the bill, that if the District
raised a certain amount of money for the education of the children,
the Government of the United States would appropriate a like amount
from the Treasury. If, for instance, you raised $20,000 by taxes on
the people in the District, the Government should pay $20,000 more, to
be added to it for the education of the children of the District. I
moved the amendment that no child whose father paid any portion of
that tax for the education of the children should be excluded from the
benefit of it, be he white or black; but that there might be no
inconvenience felt, I agreed to an amendment that the black child
should not be put into the same school with the white child, but that
they should be educated in different schools to be provided for them;
but if the black man paid for educating the children of the District,
his child should be educated. There was at once an outcry, 'Why, this
is social equality of the two races; this is political equality;' and
they would not consent that the black child should be educated, even
with the money of the black father. That amendment was declared to be
carried in the Senate of the United States, and after declaring it was
carried, the Senate adjourned, and after the adjournment, the chairman
of that committee, Mr. Brown, appealed to me personally if I would not
withdraw it. I said to him, 'No, I would never withdraw it; if you tax
the black man, the black man should have a part of the money that you
raise from him to educate his child.'
"After some days, the bill came up again in the Senate of the United
States, and the Senator from Mississippi, the chairman of the
Committee on the District of Columbia, got up and in open Senate
appealed to me, 'Will the Senator from New Hampshire withdraw that
amendment?' 'Never, Mr. President.' 'Then,' said the Senator from
Mississippi, 'I will lay the bill aside, and will not ask the Senate
to pass it;' and so the whole scheme failed, because they would not
consent that the money of the black man should educate his own child,
and they could not vote it to educate a white child.
"Now I turn back to that time six years ago, and I mark the road that
we have come along. I mark where we struck the chains from the black
man in this same District, whose child you could not educate six years
ago; I mark, in this Senate, at this very session, that we have passed
a bill in aid of the Freedmen's Bureau to secure to him his rights in
this District; I mark that all through this nation we have stricken
off the chains of the slave and secured to the slave his rights
elsewhere in the Union; and we have now come to the height of the
hill, and are considering whether we will not enfranchise those very
black men through all the country."
In favor of granting political rights to the negro, Mr. Clark made the
following remarks: "Mr. President, the question of the negro has
troubled the nation long. His condition as a slave troubled you; and
his condition as a freedman troubles you. Are you sick, heart-sick of
this trouble? and do you inquire when will it end? I will tell you.
When you have given him equal rights, equal privileges, and equal
security with other citizens; when you have opened the way for him to
be a man, then will you have rendered exact justice which can alone
insure stability and content.
"Sir, if I ever did hold that this Government was made or belonged
exclusively to the white man, I should now be ashamed to avow it, or
to claim for it so narrow an application. The black man has made too
many sacrifices to preserve it, and endangered his life too often in
its defense to be excluded from it. The common sentiment of gratitude
should open its doors to him, if not political justice and equality.
"Mr. President, my house once took fire in the night-time; my two
little boys were asleep in it, when I and their mother were away. The
neighbors rushed into it, saved the children, and extinguished the
flames. When I reached it, breathless and exhausted, the first
exclamation was, 'Your children are safe.' Can you tell me how mean a
man I should have been, and what execration I should have deserved, if
the next time those neighbors came to my house I had kicked them out
of it? Tell me, then, I pray you, why two hundred thousand black men,
most of whom volunteered to fight your battles, who rushed in to save
the burning house of your Government, should not be permitted to
participate in that Government which they helped to preserve? When you
enlisted and mustered these men, when your adjutant-general went
South, and gathered them to the recruiting-office, and persuaded them
to join your ranks, did he, or any one, tell them this was the white
man's Government? When they came to the rendezvous, did you point to
the sign over the door, 'Black men wanted to defend the white man's
Government?' When you put upon them the uniform of the United States,
did you say, 'Don't disgrace it; this is the white man's Government?'
When they toiled on the march, in the mud, the rain, and the snow, and
when they fell out of the ranks from sheer weariness, did you cheer
them on with the encouragement that 'this is the white man's
Government?'
"When they stood on picket on the cold, stormy night to guard you
against surprise, did you creep up and warm their congealing blood
with an infusion of the white man's Government? When, with a wild
hurrah, on the 'double-quick,' they rushed upon the enemy's guns, and
bore your flag where men fell fastest and war made its wildest havoc,
where explosion after explosion sent their mangled bodies and severed
limbs flying through the air, and they fell on glacis, ditch, and
scarp and counterscarp, did you caution them against such bravery, and
remind them that 'this was the white man's Government?' And when the
struggle was over, and many had fought 'their last battle,' and you
gathered the dead for burial, did you exclaim, 'Poor fools! how
cheated! this is the white man's Government?' No, no, sir; you
beckoned them on by the guerdon of freedom, the blessings of an equal
and just Government, and a 'good time coming.'
"'White man's Government, 'do you say? Go to Fort Pillow; stand upon
its ramparts and in its trenches, and recall the horrid butchery of
the black man there because he had joined you against rebellion, and
then say, if you will, 'This is the white man's Government.' Go to
Wagner. Follow in the track of the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth, as they
went to the terrible assault, with the guns flashing and roaring in
the darkness. Mark how unflinchingly they received the pelting iron
hail into their bosoms, and how they breasted the foe! See how nobly
they supported, and how heroically they fell with their devoted
leader; count the dead; pick up the severed limbs; number the wounds;
measure the blood spilled; and remember why and wherefore and in whose
cause the negro thus fought and suffered, and then say, if you can,
'This is the white man's Government.' Go to Port Hudson, go to
Richmond, go to Petersburg, go anywhere and every-where--to every
battle-field where the negro fought, where danger was greatest and
death surest--and tell me, if you can, that 'this is the white man's
Government.' And then go to Salisbury and Columbia and Andersonville,
and as you shudder at the ineffable miseries of those dens, and think
of those who ran the dead-line, and were not shot, but escaped to the
woods and were concealed and fed and piloted by the black men, and
never once betrayed, but often enabled to escape and return to their
friends, and then tell me if 'this is a white man's Government.'
"In ancient Rome, when one not a citizen deserved well of the
republic, he was rewarded by the rights of citizenship, but we deny
them, and here in America--not in the Confederate States of America,
where, attempting to found a government upon slavery and the
subjection of one race to another, it would have been fitting, if
anywhere, but in the United States of America, the cardinal principle
of whose Government is the equality of all men. After these black men
have so nobly fought to maintain the one and overthrow the other, when
they ask us for the necessary right of suffrage to protect themselves
against the rebels they have fought, and with whom they are compelled
to live, we coolly reply, 'This is the white man's Government.' Nay,
more, and worse, we have refused it to them, and allowed it to their
and our worst enemies, the rebels. Sir, from the dim and shadowy
aisles of the past, there comes a cry of 'Shame! shame!' and pagan
Rome rebukes Christian America.
"But not chiefly, Mr. President, do I advocate this right of the black
man to vote because he has fought the battles of the republic and
helped to preserve the Union, but because he is a citizen and a
man--one of the people, one of the governed--upon whose consent, if
the Declaration of Independence is correct, the just powers of the
Government rest; an intelligent being, of whom and for whom God will
have an account of us, individually and as a nation; whose blood is
one with ours, whose destinies are intermingled and run with ours,
whose life takes hold on immortality with ours, and because this right
is necessary to develop his manhood, elevate his race, and secure for
it a better civilization and a more enlightened and purer
Christianity."
On the 15th of February, Mr. Sumner presented a memorial from George
T. Downing, Frederick Douglass, and other colored citizens of the
United States, protesting against the pending constitutional amendment
as introducing, for the first time, into the Constitution a grant to
disfranchise men on the ground of race or color. In laying this
memorial before the Senate, Mr. Sumner said: "I do not know that I
have at any time presented a memorial which was entitled to more
respectful consideration than this, from the character of its
immediate signers and from the vast multitudes they represent. I hope
I shall not depart from the proper province of presenting it if I
express my entire adhesion to all that it says, and if I take this
occasion to entreat the Senate, if they will not hearken to arguments
against the pending proposition, that they will at least hearken to
the voice of these memorialists, representing the colored race of our
country."
Mr. Williams, of Oregon, argued in favor of the resolution reported by
the committee as the best measure before the Senate. He was for
proceeding slowly in the work of reconstruction. In his opinion,
neither the negro nor his master was now fit to vote. Upon this point
he said: "It seems to me there can be little doubt that at this
particular time the negroes of the rebel States are unfit to exercise
the elective franchise. I have recently conversed with two officers of
the Federal army from Texas, who told me that there, in the interior
and agricultural portions of the State, the negroes do not yet know
that they are free; and one of the officers told me that he personally
communicated to several negroes for the first time the fact of their
freedom. Emancipation may be known in the towns and cities throughout
the South, but the probabilities are that in the agricultural portions
of that country the negroes have no knowledge that they are free, or
only vague conceptions of their rights and duties as freemen. Sir,
give these men a little time; give them a chance to learn that they
are free; give them a chance to acquire some knowledge of their rights
as freemen; give them a chance to learn that they are independent and
can act for themselves; give them a chance to divest themselves of
that feeling of entire dependence for subsistence and the sustenance
of their families upon the landholders of the South, to which they
have been so long accustomed; give them a little time to shake the
manacles off of their minds that have just been stricken from their
hands, and I will go with the honorable Senator from Massachusetts to
give them the right of suffrage. And I will here express the hope that
the day is not far distant when every man born upon American soil,
within the pale of civilization, may defend his manhood and his rights
as a freeman by that most effective ballot which
"'Executes the freeman's will
As lightning does the will of God.'"
Concerning the amendment proposed by Mr. Henderson, Mr. Williams said:
"All the impassioned declamation and all the vehement assertions of
the honorable Senator do not change or affect the evidence before our
eyes that the people of these United States are not prepared to
surrender to Congress the absolute right to determine as to the
qualifications of voters in the respective States, or to adopt the
proposition that all persons, without distinction of race or color,
shall enjoy political rights and privileges equal to those now
possessed by the white people of the country. Sir, some of the States
have lately spoken upon that subject. Wisconsin and Connecticut,
Northern, loyal, and Republican States, have recently declared that
they would not allow the negroes within their own borders political
rights; and is it probable that of the thirty-six States, more than
six, at the most, would at this time adopt the constitutional
amendment proposed by the gentleman?"
Notwithstanding the temporary darkness of the political sky, Mr.
Williams saw brilliant prospects before the country. "This nation,"
said he, "is to live and not die. God has written it among the shining
decrees of destiny. Inspired by this hope and animated by this faith,
we will take this country through all its present troubles and perils
to the promised land of perfect unity and peace, where freedom,
equality, and justice, the triune and tutelar deity of the American
Republic, will rule with righteousness a nation 'whose walls shall be
salvation and whose gates praise.'"
At the close of this speech, the Senate being about to proceed to a
vote upon the pending amendment, it was proposed to defer action and
adjourn the question over to the following day, for the purpose of
affording an opportunity for speeches by Senators who were not
prepared to proceed immediately. Mr. Fessenden, who had the measure in
charge, protested against the delays of the Senate. "This subject,"
said he, "has dragged along now for nearly two weeks. If members
desire to address the Senate, they must be prepared to go on and do so
without a postponement from day to day for the purpose of allowing
every gentleman to make his speech in the morning, and then adjourning
early every evening. We shall never get through in that way. I give
notice to gentlemen that I shall begin to be a little more
quarrelsome--I do not know that it will do any good--after to-day."
On the day following, Mr. Hendricks delivered a speech of considerable
length in opposition to the constitutional amendment. After having
maintained that the proposition did not rest the right of
representation upon population, nor upon property, nor upon voters,
Mr. Hendricks inquired: "Upon what principle do Senators propose to
adopt this amendment to the Constitution? I can understand it if you
say that the States shall be represented in the House of
Representatives upon their population; I can understand it if you say
that they shall be represented upon their voters; but when you say
that one State shall have the benefit of its non-voting population and
another State shall not, I can not understand the principle of equity
and justice which governs you in that measure. Sir, if it does not
stand upon a principle, upon what does it rest? It rests upon a
political policy. A committee that had its birth in a party caucus
brings it before this body, and does not conceal the fact that it is
for party purposes. This measure, if you ever allow the Southern
States to be represented in the House of Representatives, will bring
them back shorn of fifteen or twenty Representatives; it will bring
them back so shorn in their representation that the Republican party
can control this country forever; and if you cut off from fifteen to
thirty votes for President of the United States in the States that
will not vote for a Republican candidate, it may be that you can elect
a Republican candidate in 1868."
Mr. Hendricks thought that "this proposition was designed to
accomplish three objects: first, to perpetuate the rule and power of a
political party; in the second place, it is a proposition the tendency
of which is to place agriculture under the control and power of
manufactures and commerce forever; and, in the third place, it is
intended, I believe, as a punishment upon the Southern States."
In reference to changing the basis of representation as a punishment
for the Southern States, Mr. Hendricks said: "Now that the war is
over; now that the Southern people have laid down their arms; now that
they have sought to come again fully and entirely into the Union; now
that they have pledged their honors and their fortunes to be true to
the Union and to the flag; now that they have done all that can be
done by a conquered people, is it right, after a war has been fought
out, for us to take from them their political equality in this Union
for the purpose of punishment? The Senator from Maine, the chairman of
the committee, says that the right to control the suffrage is with the
States, but if the States do not choose to do right in respect to it,
we propose to punish them. You do not punish New York for not letting
the foreigner vote until he resides there a certain period. You do not
punish Indiana because she will not allow a foreigner to vote until he
has been in the country a year. These States are not to be punished
because they regulate the elective franchise according to their
sovereign pleasures; but if any other States see fit to deny the right
of voting to a class that is peculiarly guarded and taken care of
here, then they are to be punished."
Referring to the speech of the Senator from New Hampshire, Mr.
Hendricks asked: "Had the white men of this country a right to
establish a Government, and thereby a political community? If so, they
had a right to say who should be members of that political community.
They had a right to exclude the colored man if they saw fit. Sir, I
say, in the language of the lamented Douglas, and in the language of
President Johnson, this is the white man's Government, made by the
white man for the white man. I am not ashamed to stand behind such
distinguished men in maintaining a sentiment like that. Nor was my
judgment on the subject changed the day before yesterday by the
lamentations of the Senator from New Hampshire, [Mr. Clark,] sounding
through this body like the wailing of the winds in the dark forest,
'that it is a horrible thing for a man to say that this is a white
man's Government.'
"Mr. President, there is a great deal said about the part the colored
soldiers have taken in putting down this rebellion--a great deal more
than there is any occasion for, or there is any support for in fact or
history. This rebellion was put down by the white soldiers of this
country."
Criticising sentiments toward the South, expressed by Senators, Mr.
Hendricks said: "We hear a good deal said about blood now. Yesterday
the Senator from Oregon [Mr. Williams] criticised the President for
his leniency toward the South. A few days ago, the Senator from Ohio
[Mr. Wade] made a severe criticism on the President for his leniency,
and my colleague asks for blood. Mr. President, this war commenced
with blood; nay, blood was demanded before the war. When the good men
and the patriotic, North and South, representing the yearning hearts
of the people at home, came here, in the winter and spring of 1861, in
a peace congress, if possible to avoid this dreadful war, right then
the Senator from Michigan [Mr. Chandler] announced to his Governor and
the country that this Union was scarcely worth preserving without some
blood-letting. His cry before the war was for blood. Allow me to say
that when the Senator's name is forgotten because of any thing he says
or does in this body, in future time it will be borne down upon the
pages of history as the author of the terrible sentiment that the
Union of the people that our fathers had cemented by the blood of the
Revolution and by the love of the people; that that Union, resting
upon compromise and concession, resting upon the doctrine of equality
to all sections of the country; that that Union which brought us so
much greatness and power in the three-quarters of a century of our
life; that that Union that had brought us so much prosperity and
greatness, until we were the mightiest and proudest nation on God's
footstool; that that grand Union was not worth preserving unless we
had some blood-letting!"
Mr. Chandler, of Michigan, replied: "The Senator from Indiana has
arraigned me upon an old indictment for having written a certain
letter in 1861. It is not the first time that I have been arraigned on
that indictment of 'blood-letting.' I was first arraigned for it upon
this floor by the traitor John C. Breckinridge; and I answered the
traitor John C. Breckinridge; and after I gave him his answer, he went
out into the rebel ranks and fought against our flag. I was arraigned
by another Senator from Kentucky and by other traitors upon this
floor. I expect to be arraigned again. I wrote the letter, and I stand
by the letter; and what was in it? What was the position of the
country when that letter was written? The Democratic party, as an
organization, had arrayed itself against this Government--a Democratic
traitor in the presidential chair, and a Democratic traitor in every
department of this Government; Democratic traitors preaching treason
upon this floor, and preaching treason in the hall of the other house;
Democratic traitors in your army and in your navy; Democratic traitors
controlling every branch of this Government. Your flag was fired upon,
and there was no response. The Democratic party had ordained that this
Government should be overthrown; and I, a Senator from the State of
Michigan, wrote to the Governor of that State, 'Unless you are
prepared to shed blood for the preservation of this great Government,
the Government is overthrown.' That is all there was to that letter.
That I said, and that I say again; and I tell that Senator if he is
prepared to go down in history with the Democratic traitors who then
coöperated with him, I am prepared to go down on that 'blood-letting'
letter, and I stand by the record as then made." [Applause in the
galleries.]
On the 19th of February, Mr. Howard, of Michigan, offered an amendment
providing that the right of suffrage should be enjoyed by all persons
of African descent belonging to the following classes: those who have
been in the military service of the United States, those who can read
and write, and those who possess $250 worth of property.
Mr. Yates, of Illinois, addressed the Senate for three hours on the
pending amendment of the Constitution. On the 29th of January
preceding, Mr. Yates had proposed a bill providing that no State or
Territory should make any distinction between citizens on account of
race, or color, or condition; and that all citizens, without
distinction of race, color, or condition should be protected in the
enjoyment and exercise of all their civil and political rights,
including the right of suffrage.
This bill Mr. Yates made the basis of his argument. His reason for
preferring a bill to a constitutional amendment was presented as
follows: "There is only one way of salvation for the country. Your
amendments to the Constitution of the United States can not be
adopted. If we have not the power now under the Constitution of the
United States to secure full freedom, then, sir, we shall not have it,
and there is no salvation whatever for the country. Let not freedom
die in the house, and by the hands of her friends."
[Illustration: Hon. Richard Yates.]
Mr. Yates maintained that the constitutional amendment abolishing
slavery gave to Congress power to legislate to the full extent of the
measure proposed by him. "Let gentlemen come forward," said he, "and
meet the issue like men. Let them come forward and do what they have
by the Constitution the clear power to do, and that is a _sine qua
non_ in order to carry into effect the constitutional prohibition of
slavery. As for me, I would rather face the music and meet the
responsibility like a man, and send to the people of the State of
Illinois the boon of universal suffrage, and of a full and complete
emancipation, than meet the taunt of Northern demagogues that I would
force suffrage upon North Carolina, and Tennessee, and Delaware, while
I had not the courage to prescribe it for our own free States. Sir, it
will be the crime of the century if now, having the power, as we
clearly have, we lack the nerve to do the work that is given us to
do.
"Let me say to my Republican friends, you are too late. You have gone
too far to recede now. Four million people, one-seventh of your whole
population, you have set free. Will you start back appalled at the
enchantment your own wand has called up? The sequences of your own
teachings are upon you. As for me, I start not back appalled when
universal suffrage confronts me. When the bloody ghost of slavery
rises, I say, 'Shake your gory locks at me; I did it.' I accept the
situation. I fight not against the logic of events or the decrees of
Providence. I expected it, sir, and I meet it half way. I am for
universal suffrage. I bid it 'All hail!' 'All hail!'
"Four million people set free! What will protect them? The ballot.
What alone will give us a peaceful and harmonious South? The ballot to
all. What will quench the fires of discord, give us back all the
States, a restored Union, and make us one people? The ballot, and that
alone. Is there no other way? None other under the sun. There is no
other salvation.
"The ballot will lead the freedman over the Red Sea of our troubles.
It will be the brazen serpent, upon which he can look and live. It
will be his pillar of cloud by day, and his pillar of fire by night.
It will lead him to Pisgah's shining height, and across Jordan's
stormy waves, to Canaan's fair and happy land. Sir, the ballot is the
freedman's Moses. So far as man is concerned, I might say that Mr.
Lincoln was the Moses of the freedmen; but whoever shall be the truest
friend of human freedom, whoever shall write his name highest upon the
horizon of public vision as the friend of human liberty, that man--and
I hope it may be the present President of the United States--will be
the Joshua to lead the people into the land of deliverance."
Mr. Yates maintained that for the exercise of the right of suffrage
there should be no test of intelligence, wealth, rank or race. To
bring the people up to the proper standard, the ballot itself was "the
greatest educator." He said: "Let a man have an interest in the
Government, a voice as to the men and measures by which his taxes, his
property, his life, and his reputation shall be determined, and there
will be a stimulus to education for that man.
"As the elective franchise has been extended in this country, we have
seen education become more universal. Look throughout all our Northern
States at our schools and colleges, our academies of learning, our
associations, the pulpit, the press, and the numerous agencies for the
promotion of intelligence, all the inevitable offspring of our free
institutions. Here is the high training which inspires the eloquence
of the Senate, the wisdom of the cabinet, the address of the
diplomatist, and which has developed and brought to light that
intelligent and energetic mind which has elevated the character and
contributed to the prosperity of the country. It is the ballot which
is the stimulus to improvement, which fires the heart of youthful
ambition, which stimulates honorable aspiration, which penetrates the
thick shades of the forest, and takes the poor rail-splitter by the
hand and points him to the shining height of human achievement, or
which goes into the log hut of the tailor boy and opens to him the
avenue of the presidential mansion."
Mr. Yates then declared his confidence in the triumph of the principle
of universal suffrage: "It is my conscientious conviction that if
every Senator on this floor, and every Representative in the other
House, and the President of the United States, should, with united
voices, attempt to oppose this grand consummation of universal
equality, they will fail. It is too late for that. You may go to the
head-waters of the Mississippi and turn off the little rivulets, but
you can not go to the mouth, after it has collected its waters from a
thousand rivers, and with accumulated volume is pouring its foaming
waters into the Gulf, and say, 'Thus far shalt thou go and no
further.'
"It is too late to change the tide of human progress. The enlightened
convictions of the masses, wrought by the thorough discussions of
thirty years, and consecrated by the baptism of precious blood, can
not now be changed. The hand of a higher power than man's is in this
revolution, and it will not move backward. It is of no use to fight
against destiny. God, not man, created men equal. Deep laid in the
solid foundations of God's eternal throne, the principle of equality
is established, indestructible and immortal.
"Senators, sixty centuries of the past are looking down upon you. All
the centuries of the future are calling upon you. Liberty, struggling
amid the rise and wrecks of empires in the past, and yet to struggle
for life in all the nations of the world, conjures you to seize this
great opportunity which the providence of Almighty God has placed in
your hands to bless the world and make your names immortal, to carry
to full and triumphant consummation the great work begun by your
fathers, and thus lay permanently, solidly, and immovably, the
cap-stone upon the pyramid of human liberty."
On the 21st of February, the proposed amendment being again before the
Senate, Mr. Buckalew, of Pennsylvania, delivered an elaborate speech
in opposition to the measure. He had previously refrained from
speech-making, supposing that "while the passions of the country were
inflamed by the war, reason could not be heard." He regretted that
questions pertaining to the war still occupied the attention of
Congress to the exclusion of those connected with economy, revenue,
finance, ordinary legislation, and the administration of
justice--questions which require intelligence, investigation, labor,
and the habits of the student. As an argument against changing the
basis of representation as it existed, Mr. Buckalew gave statistical
details, showing the various ratios of representation in the Senate,
as possessed respectively by the East, West and South. He maintained
that New England had too great a preponderance of power in the Senate,
both, as to membership and the chairmanships of committees, "While,"
said he, "the population of the East is less than one-seventh of the
population of the States represented in the Senate, she has the
chairmanships of one-third of the committees. The chairmanship of a
committee is a position of much influence and power. The several
distinguished gentlemen holding that position have virtual control
over the transaction of business, both in committee and in the
Senate."
Mr. Buckalew thus presented the effect of restoration of
representation to the Southern States upon the relative position of
New England: "Twenty-two Senators from the Southern States and two
from Colorado--being double the number of those from the East--would
reduce the importance of the latter in the Senate and remit her back
to the condition in which she stood in her relations to the Union
before the war. True, she would even then possess much more than her
proportion of weight in the Senate, regard being had to her
population, but she would no longer dominate or control the Government
of the United States."
Mr. Buckalew argued at some length that representation should continue
to be based upon population. He thought that the two-fifths added to
the representative population in the South by the abolition of slavery
would be counterbalanced by the mortality of the slave population
since the outbreak of the war. He then presented the following
objections to "any propositions of amendments at this time by
Congress:"
"1. Eleven States are unrepresented in the Senate and House. They are
not heard in debate which may affect their interests and welfare in
all future time.
"2. Any amendment made at this time will be a partisan amendment.
"3. The members of this Congress were not chosen with reference to the
subject of constitutional amendment.
"4. Whatever amendments are now proposed by Congress are to be
submitted to Legislatures, and not to popular conventions in the
States; and most of those Legislatures are to be the ones now in
session.
"5. In submitting amendments at this time, we invite a dispute upon
the question of the degree of legislative assent necessary to their
adoption. If ratified by the Legislatures of less than three-fourths
of all the States, their validity will be denied, and their
enforcement resisted."
Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, replied to Mr. Buckalew's imputations
against New England. "The Senator gave us to understand that he had
not wasted reason, thought, and culture upon the stormy passions
engendered by the war, but now, when reason had resumed her empire, he
had come forth to instruct his country.
"The Senators from New England, unlike the Senator from Pennsylvania,
remained not silent during the great civil war through which the
nation has passed. They have spoken; they have spoken for the unity of
their country and the freedom of all men. They have spoken for their
country, their whole country, and for the rights of all its people of
every race. Their past is secure, and the imputations of the Senator
from Pennsylvania will pass harmless by them.
"When the Constitution was formed, New England had eight of the
twenty-six Senators--nearly one-third of the body; now she has twelve
of the seventy-two Senators--one-sixth of the body. Her power is
diminishing in this body and will continue to diminish. When the
Constitution was adopted, quite as great inequalities existed among
the States as now. The illustrious statesmen who framed the
Constitution knew and recognized that fact; they based the Senate upon
the States, and upon the equality of the States. They were so
determined in that policy of equal State representation in the Senate
that they provided that the Constitution should never be amended in
that respect without the consent of every State.
"The Senator suggests that the Senators from New England are actuated
by local interests and love of power in their action regarding the
admission of the Representatives of the rebel States. Nothing can be
more unjust to those Senators. It is without the shadow of fairness or
justice, or the semblance of truth. I can say before God that I am
actuated by no local interests, no love of power, in opposing the
immediate and unconditional admission of the rebel States into these
chambers; and I know my associates from New England too well to
believe for a moment that they are actuated by interest or the love of
power. Thousands of millions of money have been expended, and hundreds
of thousands of brave men have bled for the unity and liberty of the
republic. I desire--my associates from New England desire--to see
these vacant chairs filled at an early day by the Representatives of
the States that rebelled and rushed into civil war. We will welcome
them here; but before they come it is of vital importance to the
country, to the people of all sections, to the interests of all, that
all disturbing questions should be forever adjusted, and so adjusted
as never again to disturb the unity and peace of the country. It is
now the time to settle forever all matters that can cause estrangement
and sectional agitations and divisions in the future. Nothing should
be left to bring dissensions, and, it may be, civil war again upon our
country. The blood poured out to suppress the rebellion must not be
shed in vain."
Prominent Republican Senators bringing earnest opposition to bear
against the proposed constitutional amendment, and a sentiment
evidently gaining ground that it did not meet the requirements of the
case, caused its friends to urge it with less zeal than had at first
characterized them. Meanwhile, other important propositions coming up
from the Committee of Fifteen, which occupied the attention of the
Senate, as detailed in a subsequent chapter, the subject of changing
the basis of representation was allowed to lie over for nearly a
fortnight.
On the 5th of March, the subject being resumed, Mr. Pomeroy addressed
the Senate. He feared that the nation was not ready to adopt a
constitutional amendment such as the necessities of the country
required. "This nation," said he, "although severely disciplined, has
not yet reached the point of giving to all men their rights by a
suffrage amendment; three-fourths of the States are not ready. And any
patchwork, any 'step toward it' (as said the chairman of the
committee) which does not reach it, I fear to take, because but one
opportunity will ever be afforded us to step at all; and lost
opportunities are seldom repeated."
Mr. Pomeroy did not think the case was without remedy, however, since
"the last constitutional amendment embraced all, gave the most ample
powers, even if they did not exist before; for, after having secured
the freedom of all men wherever the old flag floats, it provided that
Congress might 'secure' the same by 'appropriate legislation.'
"What more could it have said? And who are better judges of
appropriate legislation than the very men who first passed the
amendment and provided for this very case?
"Sir, what is 'appropriate legislation' on the subject, namely,
securing the freedom of all men? It can be nothing less than throwing
about all men the essential safeguards of the Constitution. The 'right
to bear arms' is not plainer taught or more efficient than the right
to carry ballots. And if appropriate legislation will secure the one,
so can it also the other. And if both are necessary, and provided for
in the Constitution as now amended, why, then, let us close the
question of congressional legislation.
"Let us not take counsel of our own fears, but of our hopes; not of
our enemies, but of our friends. By all the memories which cluster
about the pathway in which we have been led; by all the sacrifices,
suffering, blood, and tears of the conflict; by all the hopes of a
freed country and a disenthralled race; yea, as a legacy for mankind,
let us now secure a free representative republic, based upon impartial
suffrage and that human equality made clear in the Declaration of
Independence. To this entertainment let us invite our countrymen and
all nations, committing our work, when done, to the verdict of
posterity and the blessing of Almighty God."
On the day following, Mr. Saulsbury took the floor. His speech,
ostensibly against the pending measure, was a palliation of the
conduct of the Southern States, and a plea for their right of being
admitted to representation in Congress. All that the Senator said
directly upon the subject under discussion was contained in the
following paragraph:
"Now, suppose your constitutional amendment passes. If it passes, it
ought to meet with the respect of some body. If this constitutional
amendment shall be presented to the States who are now represented in
Congress, and shall be adopted by simply three-fourths of those
States, is there any body that will have the least respect for it?
Then suppose you could go with the bayonet--which I think now, under
the brighter dawn of a better day which we begin to realize, you are
not going to have the liberty to do--suppose you were to go with the
bayonet and present it to the other eleven States, and they, acting
under duress, not as free agents and as free men, could get some
people in their section so miserable and poor in spirit and craven in
soul as to vote to adopt in their Legislatures such an amendment,
would it command the respect of any body in this land? Not at all.
Open your doors, sir; admit the Representatives of the Southern States
to seats in this body; require no miserable degrading oath of them;
administer to them the very oath that you first took when you entered
this body, and the only oath that the Constitution of the United
States requires, and the only oath which Congress has any right to
exact, an oath to support the Constitution of the United States; and
then, if you think your Constitution is defective, if you think it
needs further amendment, or if you have not sufficiently exhausted
your bowels of mercy and love and kindness toward your sable friends
whose shadows darken this gallery every day, submit your amendments to
the States represented in the Congress of the United States; and if
they choose, acting freely as citizens of their States, to agree to
your amendments, it will command the respect of themselves, but still
it will not command mine. I should despise a people who would
voluntarily assume so degrading a position."
On the 7th of March, Mr. Sumner occupied the attention of the Senate
for three hours, with a second speech in opposition to the proposed
constitutional amendment. He used very strong language to express his
abhorrence of the proposition: "It reminds me of that leg of mutton
served for dinner on the road from London to Oxford, which Dr.
Johnson, with characteristic energy, described 'as bad as bad could
be, ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-dressed.' So this
compromise--I adopt the saying of an eminent friend, who insists that
it can not be called an 'amendment,' but rather a 'detriment' to the
Constitution--is as bad as bad can be; and even for its avowed purpose
it is uncertain, loose, cracked, and rickety. Regarding it as a
proposition from Congress to meet the unparalleled exigencies of the
present hour, it is no better than the 'muscipular abortion' sent into
the world by the 'parturient mountain.' But it is only when we look at
the chance of good from it that this proposition is 'muscipular.'
Regarding it in every other aspect it is infinite, inasmuch as it
makes the Constitution a well-spring of insupportable thralldom, and
once more lifts the sluices of blood destined to run until it comes to
the horse's bridle. Adopt it, and you will put millions of
fellow-citizens under the ban of excommunication; you will hand them
over to a new anathema maranatha; you will declare that they have no
political rights 'which white men are bound to respect,' thus
repeating in a new form that abomination which has blackened the name
of Taney. Adopt it, and you will stimulate anew the war of race upon
race. Slavery itself was a war of race upon race, and this is only a
new form of this terrible war. The proposition is as hardy as it is
gigantic; for it takes no account of the moral sense of mankind, which
is the same as if in rearing a monument we took no account of the law
of gravitation. It is the paragon and masterpiece of ingratitude,
showing more than any other act of history what is so often charged
and we so fondly deny, that republics are ungrateful. The freedmen ask
for bread, and you send them a stone. With piteous voice they ask for
protection. You thrust them back unprotected into the cruel den of
their former masters. Such an attempt, thus bad as bad can be, thus
abortive for all good, thus perilous, thus pregnant with a war of race
upon race, thus shocking to the moral sense, and thus treacherous to
those whom we are bound to protect, can not be otherwise than
shameful. Adopt it, and you will cover the country with dishonor.
Adopt it, and you will fix a stigma upon the very name of republic. As
to the imagination, there are mountains of light, so are there
mountains of darkness; and this is one of them. It is the very
Koh-i-noor of blackness. Adopt this proposition, and you will be
little better than the foul Harpies who defiled the feast that was
spread. The Constitution is the feast spread for our country, and you
are now hurrying to drop into its text a political obscenity, and to
spread on its page a disgusting ordure,
"'Defiling all you find,
And parting leave a loathsome stench behind.'"
Having presented his objections to the pending proposition, at great
length, he summed them up as follows: "You have seen, first, how this
proposition carries into the Constitution itself the idea of
Inequality of Rights, thus defiling that unspotted text; secondly, how
it is an express sanction of the acknowledged tyranny of taxation
without representation; thirdly, how it is a concession to State
Rights at a moment when we are recovering from a terrible war waged
against us in the name of State Rights; fourthly, how it is the
constitutional recognition of an oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, and
monopoly founded on color; fifthly, how it petrifies in the
Constitution the wretched pretensions of a white man's government;
sixthly, how it assumes what is false in constitutional law, that
color can be a 'qualification' for an elector; seventhly, how it
positively ties the hands of Congress in fixing the meaning of a
republican government, so that, under the guarantee clause, it will be
constrained to recognize an oligarchy, aristocracy, caste, and
monopoly founded on color, together with the tyranny of taxation
without representation, as not inconsistent with such a government;
eighthly, how it positively ties the hands of Congress in completing
and consummating the abolition of slavery according to the second
clause of the constitutional amendment, so that it can not, for this
purpose, interfere with the denial of the elective franchise on
account of color; ninthly, how it installs recent rebels in permanent
power over loyal citizens; and, tenthly, how it shows forth, in
unmistakable character, as a compromise of human rights, the most
immoral, indecent, and utterly shameful of any in our history. All
this you have seen, with pain and sorrow, I trust. Who that is moved
to sympathy for his fellow-man can listen to the story without
indignation? Who that has not lost the power of reason can fail to see
the cruel wrong?"
Mr. Doolittle mentioned some facts which he thought would prove the
apprehension of an increase of the basis of representation in the
South to be without foundation. "The destruction of the population,"
said he, "both white and black, during the civil war, has been most
enormous. Of the white population, there were in those States in 1860,
of white males over twenty years of age, about one million six hundred
thousand. Nearly one-third of that white population over twenty years
of age has perished. The actual destruction of the black population
since 1860 has been at least twenty-five per cent. of the whole
population. The population of the South has been so destroyed and
wasted and enfeebled in consequence of this war, that I do not for
one, I confess, feel those apprehensions which some entertain that, if
they are admitted to representation under the Constitution just as it
stands, they will have any increase of Representatives. My opinion is,
that after the next census their representation will be diminished
unless emigration from the North or from Europe shall fill up their
population and increase it so as to entitle it to an increased
representation."
Mr. Doolittle argued that the amendment was capable of being evaded by
a State disposed to disfranchise colored men: "I do not see," said he,
"that there is any thing in the resolution which would prevent South
Carolina or any other State from passing a law that any person who was
born free, or whose ancestors were free, should exercise the elective
franchise, and none others. That would exclude the whole of the
colored population, and yet would leave the State to have its full
representation. There is nothing which would prevent the State of
South Carolina or any other State from saying that only those persons
who had served in the military service, and their descendants, should
exercise the elective franchise. That would exclude the colored
population, and the Union population, too, if they refused to serve in
the army."
Mr. Doolittle closed his remarks by advocating an amendment basing
representation upon actual voters under State laws.
Mr. Morrill, of Maine, addressed the Senate in support of the
proposition to amend the Constitution. He said: "Some amendment is
rendered absolutely necessary, unless the American Constitution is to
give to the nation the expression of utterly contradictory sentiments,
saying involuntary servitude no longer exists, in one portion of it;
in another, bearing on its front in marked contrast, that three-fifths
only of the 'other persons' are to still constitute the basis of
representation."
He recalled a time not far remote when amendments of the Constitution
were adopted by those who now oppose any alteration of the fundamental
law: "I do not forget," said he, "that within the last five years a
class of statesmen and politicians, who now resist all propositions
for an amendment of the Constitution, here and elsewhere urged and
demanded amendments of the Constitution of the nation. What were the
circumstances then? Several States threatened to dissolve this Union;
several States had taken an attitude hostile to the Government of the
country. They demanded the extension, the protection, and the
perpetuation of slavery; and upon that question the country was
divided. Then amendments to the Constitution were proposed without
number here, elsewhere, and every-where. Amendments to the
Constitution seemed to be the order of the day. To what end, and for
what purpose? To increase the power in the hands of the few who
wielded the political power in those States, and who were demanding
it.
Referring to an argument presented by the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr.
Morrill remarked: "But yesterday we had an additional reason given why
this amendment should not be adopted; and that was that it was wholly
unnecessary, because, it was said, by the events which were
transpiring in the country in regard to the recent slave population,
there need be no apprehension of excess of representation based on the
whole 'numbers' instead of three-fifths, from the important fact that
they were passing away. If I gather the force of that argument, it is
this: we are to base no legislation and no action upon the idea that
this race, recently slave, now free, is part and parcel of the
American people, the object of our care, solicitude, and protection.
They are passing away--dying; let them be represented as slaves now,
and let them never enter into the basis hereafter of the
representative system. Sir, that is the old argument--an argument
worthy of another period than this. Our people have been an inexorable
people, in some respects, in regard to the races that have been within
their power. In the march of our civilization across the continent,
the iron heel of that civilization has rested upon the Indian, and he
is passing away. We seem to contemplate the probable extinction of the
Indians from our limits with composure. He is a nomad; he is a savage;
he is a barbarian; he is not within our morals or our code of law; he
is not within the pale of the Constitution, but flits upon the verge
of it, outside our protection, the subject of our caprices, and
sometimes, I think, of our avarice. And, now, if any consequence is to
be attached to the remark of the honorable Senator from Wisconsin [Mr.
Doolittle] yesterday, this 'inferior race' is not to be the subject of
our solicitude. They, too, are passing away; it is not worth while to
change your Constitution in regard to them. Let them be represented as
two-fifths slaves on the old basis until they shall have perished, and
then your Constitution will need no amendment. The laws of a fearful
antagonism of superior and inferior races are expected to accomplish
what, if American statesmanship does not incite, it contemplates with
apparent satisfaction."
Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, profoundly regretted to see indications
that the amendment was doomed to defeat. He said: "My heart, my
conscience, and my judgment approve of this amendment, and I support
it without qualification or reservation. I approve of the purpose for
which it is introduced. I approve it because I believe it would sweep
the loyal States by an immense majority; that no public man could
stand before the people of the loyal States in opposition to it, or
oppose it with any force whatever. I approve it because I believe if
it were put in the Constitution every black man in America, before
five years could pass, would be enfranchised and weaponed with the
ballot for the protection of life, liberty, and property."
Referring to the opposition brought to bear against the measure by his
colleague, Mr. Wilson said: "We are also told that it is immoral and
indecent, an offense to reason and to conscience. Sir, this measure
came into Congress with the sanction of the Committee on
Reconstruction, composed as it is of men of individual honor and
personal character, and as true to the cause of the colored race as
any other men here or elsewhere. It comes to the Senate by an
overwhelming vote of the House of Representatives. It is sustained by
ninety-nine out of every hundred of the public journals that brought
the present Administration into power, and were it submitted to the
American people, it would, I am quite sure, be sustained by men in the
loyal States who believe that the soldier who fought the battles of
the republic is the equal of the traitor who fought against the
country. I see no compromise in it, no surrender in it, no defilement
of the Constitution in it, no implication that can be drawn from it
against the rights or interests of the colored race. On the contrary,
I believe the black men, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, would go
for it and rejoice to see it adopted."
Mr. Wilson described the results that would follow the adoption of
this amendment. "Being incorporated in the Constitution, the practical
effect would be this, and only this: it would raise up a party in
every one of these States immediately in favor of the enfranchisement
of the colored race. That party might be animated and influenced by
the love of power, by pride, and by ambition. These men might begin
the contest, for they would not like to yield the power of their
States in Congress; they might begin the battle animated by no high
and lofty motives; but as soon as the discussion commenced, it would
address itself to the reason, to the heart, and to the conscience of
the people. The advocates of negro enfranchisement would themselves
speedily grow up to believe in the justice, equity, and right of
giving the ballot to the black men. There would be discussion on every
square mile of the rebel States. Appeals would be made to their pride,
to their ambition, to their justice, to their love of fair play, to
their equity; all the interests and passions, and all the loftier
motives that can sway, control, and influence men, would impel them to
action. They would coöperate with the friends of freedom throughout
the country; would seek their counsel and aid. They would be the left
wing of the great army of freedom, of elevation, and improvement in
the country. We would give them our influence, our voices, and our aid
in fighting the battle of enfranchisement. They would have the support
and the prayers of the poor black men of the South; and before five
years had passed away, there would not be a rebel State that did not
enfranchise the bondman."
Referring to the policy of "enlightened Christian States," in refusing
the right of suffrage to the negro, Mr. Wilson said: "After all the
fidelity and heroic conduct of these men, prejudice, party spirit, and
conservatism, and all that is base and mean on earth, combine to deny
the right of suffrage to the brave soldier of the republic. God alone
can forgive such meanness; humanity can not. After what has taken
place, is taking place, I can not hope that the constitutional
amendment proposed by the Senator from Missouri will receive a
majority of three-fourths of the votes of the States. I, therefore,
can not risk the cause of an emancipated race upon it. In the present
condition of the nation we must aim at practical results, not to
establish political theories, however beautiful and alluring they may
be."
It was the understanding of the Senate that the discussion would close
and the vote would be taken on the 9th of March. On that day Mr.
Fessenden took the floor in reply to objections urged by those who had
previously spoken. In reply to the objection that the advocates of
this measure were wrong in attempting to accomplish by indirection
that which they could not accomplish directly, Mr. Fessenden said: "If
negro suffrage can be secured by the indirect action of an amendment
of the Constitution which appeals to the interest of those who have
hitherto been and who are yet probably the ruling class among whom
this large population is situated, and with whom they live, it will be
far better than to run the risk of all the difficulties that might
arise from a forcible imposition, which would create ill-feeling,
generate discord, and produce, perhaps undying animosities."
To the objection urged by Mr. Hendricks, that it was intended for a
party purpose, Mr. Fessenden replied: "Has he any right to attack the
motives of those who support it? Must it necessarily be attended with
benefit to a particular party? If so, it is necessarily attended with
injury to another party, of which the honorable Senator is a prominent
member; and it would as well become me to say that his opposition to
it is for party purposes and for party objects as it became him to say
that its introduction and its support were intended for party
purposes. It is well known here and out of this Senate that the
honorable Senator from Indiana is a gentleman who never, in any of his
addresses here, says any thing that is in the slightest degree
calculated to effect a party purpose, and has so little of that party
feeling which presses itself upon other men as to be hardly suspected
of being a party man at all." [Laughter.]
Mr. Fessenden thus replied to the objections of two opponents of the
measure: "The Senator [Mr. Hendricks] objected to this measure upon
another ground, and that was, that in one sense it was intended as a
punishment, and that was wrong; and in another sense it was what he
called a bribe, a reward, and that was wrong. If he considers it a
punishment, he differs very much from his leading associate on this
question, the honorable Senator from Massachusetts, [Mr. Sumner,] for
he does not consider it a punishment at all. The Senator from
Massachusetts says there is nothing punitive in it. On the contrary,
it is a reward to these States; it is conferring power upon them; it
is strengthening power in the hands of the whites of the South, and
only oppressing the colored race. Behold how doctors disagree! They
operate upon the same patient, and are operating at the same time,
with different remedies and in different directions.
"Suppose it is a punishment, and suppose it is a bribe, a reward; it
does not differ very much from the principle upon which all criminal
legislation is founded, to say the least of it. We punish men when
they do wrong. I never heard that it was an objection to legislation
that it punished those who perpetrate a wrong. I never heard that it
was an objection to legislation that it held out rewards to those who
did right."
Referring to Mr. Buckalew's argument, Mr. Fessenden remarked: "Eight
out of sixteen pages of his speech were devoted to abuse of New
England, and to showing that New England had too much power, and that
it ought to be abridged in some way. "He closed those remarks by
saying (for which I was very much obliged to him) that he did not
despise New England. We are happy to know it. I will say to him that
New England does not despise him that I am aware of. [Laughter.] I am
not aware that it is really affected in any degree by the elaborate
attack of eight pages which he delivered against New England on that
occasion, and which he thought were views so important that he could
not be justified if he failed to give them utterance."
Of Mr. Sumner's part in the debate, Mr. Fessenden said: "On this
subject I think he has occupied about eight or nine hours of the time
of the Senate, and on the last occasion, while saying that principles
were to be considered, he has undertaken to designate the character of
this proposed amendment. I have already stated who the men were who
were in favor of it. What does the Senator call it? I have chosen a
few, and but a few, flowers of rhetoric from the speech of the
honorable Senator: 'Compromise of human rights,' 'violating the
national faith,' 'dishonoring the name of there public,' 'bad mutton,'
'new muscipular abortion,' 'a new anathema maranatha,' 'abomination,'
'paragon and masterpiece of ingratitude,' 'abortive for all good,'
'shocking to the moral sense,' 'the very Koh-i-noor of blackness,'
'essential uncleanliness,' 'disgusting ordure,' 'loathsome stench;'
and the men who support it, if they pass it, will be 'Harpies,'
'Pontius Pilate, with Judas Iscariot on his back.'
"The Senator from Massachusetts makes several points against this
proposition, to which my answer is the same. His first point is, that
it recognizes 'the idea of inequality of rights founded on race or
color.' I deny _in toto_ the correctness, or even the plausibility, to
a man of sense, any point that he has raised on the subject. There is
not one of them that is tenable; and more than that, there is not one
of them but what is just as tenable against the proposition he is in
favor of to found representation on voters as this. What lawyer in the
world ever heard that a denial is an admission? What lawyer ever heard
that a penalty is a permission? By this proposition, we say simply
this: 'If, in the exercise of the power that you have under the
Constitution, you make an inequality of rights, then you are to suffer
such and such consequences.' What sane man could ever pretend that
that was saying, 'Make an inequality of rights and we will sanction
it?' We do not deny--nobody can deny--that the power may be thus
exercised. What we say by this amendment is, 'If you attempt to
exercise it in this wrongful way, you create an inequality of rights;
and if you do create an inequality of rights'--not we, but you--'if
you undertake to do it under the power which exists in the
Constitution, then the consequence follows that you are punished by a
loss of representation.' That is all that is in it."
Having replied to the most of Mr. Sumner's objections in order, Mr.
Fessenden said: "The last point of the Senator is, that this
proposition is 'a compromise of human rights, the most immoral,
indecent, and utterly shameful in our history.'
"Mr. President, I stand rebuked, but I do not feel so bad as I might.
The Committee of Fifteen, the friends and associates of the honorable
Senator, stand rebuked. More than two-thirds of the House of
Representatives and a large majority of this body, all the political
friends and associates of the Senator, stand charged with proposing a
compromise of human rights the most immoral, indecent, and shameful in
our history! All I can say with regard to that is, that neither on its
face, in its effect, nor in its intention is it any compromise. None
such was dreamed of."
Mr. Fessenden thus described the remarkable combination of Senators
opposing the amendment: "I can not close, however, without saying how
amusing seems to me the character of the opposition to this joint
resolution. That opposition is composed of men of all shades of
opinion. The Democrats on the other side of the House oppose it
because they say it is unjust to the Southern States; my honorable
friends who have been some time with us are opposed to it because--I
do not know why, except that the President is opposed to it, and I
believe that is the ground; my honorable friend from Massachusetts
objects because it is unjust to the negro. Why, sir, just imagine all
the gentlemen opposed to this resolution met in caucus together, and
looking around at each other, would there not be a smile on all their
faces to see what company they had fallen into? I think Senators would
be surprised to find themselves there, and, like the countryman
looking at the reel in the bottle, they would consider how the devil
they did get there. [Laughter.] It would be a very strange meeting;
and yet they are all against this proposition."
After a running debate between several Senators, the vote was taken
upon the substitute proposed by Mr. Henderson as a constitutional
amendment, viz.: "No State, in prescribing the qualifications
requisite for electors therein, shall discriminate against any person
on account of color or race." The amendment was lost--yeas, 10; nays,
37. The question was then taken on Mr. Sumner's substitute, which was
simply a joint resolution providing 'there shall be no oligarchy,
aristocracy, caste, or monopoly invested with peculiar privileges, and
no denial of rights, civil or political, on account of color or race,
anywhere within the United States." This resolution was lost--yeas, 8;
nays, 39. The vote was then taken on the amendment proposed by Mr.
Yates, providing that no State shall make or enforce any distinction
between citizens of the United States on account of race or color, and
that all citizens shall hereafter be protected in the exercise of all
civil and political rights, including the right of suffrage. This
amendment was lost--yeas, 7; nays, 38. The vote was then taken upon
the original amendment as reported by the joint Committee of Fifteen.
The following was the result:
YEAS--Messrs. Anthony, Chandler, Clark, Conness, Cragin,
Creswell, Fessenden, Foster, Grimes, Harris, Howe, Kirkwood,
Lane of Indiana, McDougall, Morgan, Morrill, Nye, Poland,
Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Trumbull, Wade, Williams, and
Wilson--25.
NAYS--Messrs. Brown, Buckalew, Cowan, Davis, Dixon,
Doolittle, Guthrie, Henderson, Hendricks, Johnson, Lane of
Kansas, Nesmith, Norton, Pomeroy, Riddle, Saulsbury,
Stewart, Stockton, Sumner, Van Winkle, Willey, and
Yates--22.
ABSENT--Messrs. Foot, Howard, and Wright--3.
Two thirds of the Senators not having voted for the joint resolution,
it was lost. The defeat of the proposed constitutional amendment was
accomplished by the combination of five "Radical" Senators with six
"Conservatives," elected as Republicans, whose vote, added to the
regular Democratic strength, prevented its adoption by the required
constitutional majority of two-thirds.
The advocates of constitutional reform, though foiled in this attempt,
were not disheartened. Their defeat taught them the important lesson
that pet measures and favorite theories must be abandoned or modified
in order to secure the adoption of some constitutional amendment to
obviate difficulties of which all felt and acknowledged the existence.
Meanwhile other measures, designed to lead to the great end of
reconstruction, were demanding and receiving the consideration of
Congress.