Mr. Johnson. You had them there.
Mr. Sumner. Not since the Constitution.
Afterwards came the following question and answer.
Mr. Sumner. Does the Senator from Maryland, who now calls in question the validity of the Proclamation of Emancipation, question that the Supreme Court of the United States, with its present Chief Justice, would affirm the complete validity of that Proclamation everywhere within the Rebel States strictly according to its letter?
Mr. Johnson. If I am perfectly satisfied, as I am, that the Chief Justice is abundantly capable of filling the high office he has, I do not think he would; but whether he would or not does not settle the question, what the Court would do. He is but one of ten.
At the close of Mr. Johnson’s speech, Mr. Sumner offered the following proviso, to come at the end of the resolution:—
“Provided, That this shall not take effect, except upon the fundamental condition that within the State there shall be no denial of the electoral franchise, or of any other rights, on account of color or race, but all persons shall be equal before the law. And the Legislature of the State, by a solemn public act, shall declare the assent of the State to this fundamental condition, and shall transmit to the President of the United States an authentic copy of such assent, whenever the same shall be adopted; upon the receipt whereof, he shall, by proclamation, announce the fact; whereupon, without any further proceedings on the part of Congress, this joint resolution shall take effect.”
Mr. Sumner remarked, that he desired to call attention to the precedent on which this proviso was modelled, and he was induced to do so from the very elaborate way in which Mr. Johnson had seemed to anticipate it. He has announced that it would be futile; but those who preceded us did not think so; and Mr. Sumner then read the resolution for the admission of Missouri into the Union on a certain condition, where is a proviso, as he insisted, similar in character.
Mr. Henderson moved to amend the proviso by inserting after the word “race” the words “or sex.” Meanwhile occurred a desultory debate, in which the proviso was opposed by Mr. Henderson and Mr. Johnson,—also by Mr. Pomeroy, of Kansas. The latter said: “I usually vote for everything that the Senator from Massachusetts brings forward on the Antislavery question; but I am opposed to this amendment,—in the first place, because I do not suppose that we have the right to say what shall be the qualifications of voters in any State in the Union.… I shall vote against all amendments that look like dictation on the part of Congress to any State, whether they will let the right of suffrage be enjoyed by a whole or a part of the people.”