“Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union according to the number of male citizens of the age of twenty-one years having in each State the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature. The actual enumeration of such citizens shall be made by the census of the United States.”
This was the first resolution of the session. It was read, passed to a second reading, and ordered to be printed.
December 13th, on motion of Mr. Sumner, it was read a second time, and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
June 20, 1866, in company with other resolutions proposing Amendments to the Constitution, it was reported adversely by Mr. Trumbull, and on his motion indefinitely postponed.
Meanwhile the proposition had entered largely into debate, and had been discussed by Mr. Sumner.[7] It was superseded by the provision on Representation in the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. When moved, June 6th, by Mr. Doolittle, of Wisconsin, as a substitute for that clause, it was rejected,—Yeas 7, Nays 31. The yeas were Messrs. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, Davis, of Kentucky, Doolittle, Guthrie, of Kentucky, Hendricks, of Indiana, Johnson, of Maryland, and Riddle, of Delaware. It was no longer satisfactory to Mr. Sumner, who hoped for something better. When brought forward by him, it was in the nature of a tentative process.
SCHEME OF RECONSTRUCTION ON THE BASIS OF EQUAL RIGHTS.
Bill in the Senate, to enforce the Guaranty of a Republican Form of Government in certain States, December 4, 1865.