Mr. Wade. Without regard to that.
Mr. Sumner. Without regard to the rights of the freedman?
Mr. Wade. On complying with the requisitions of the Constitutional Amendment, I should vote for them.
Mr. Sumner. I do not agree with the Senator. I distinctly stated, when the Amendment was under discussion, that I did not accept it as a finality, and that, so far as I had a vote on this floor, I would insist that every one of these States, before its Representatives were received in Congress, should confer impartial suffrage, without distinction of color; and now I ask my friend what inconsistency there is, when I insist upon the same rule for Nebraska.
Mr. Wade. I cannot see how the Senator could have misled the Southern States with that. When they complied with all we asked of them in the Constitutional Amendment, I supposed we could not refuse to let them in on those terms.… Certainly I am as much for colored suffrage as any man on this floor; but when I make such an agreement as that, I stand by it always.
Mr. Sumner. When I make an agreement, I stand by it. But I entered into no such agreement, and I do not understand that the Senate or Congress entered into any such agreement. I know that certain politicians and editors have undertaken to foist something of this sort into the Constitutional Amendment; but there was no authority for it. The Committee on Reconstruction may have reported a resolution to that effect, but they never called it up, and I know well that I offered a resolution just the contrary.
Mr. Doolittle. The Senator from Massachusetts will allow me?
Mr. Sumner. Certainly.
Mr. Doolittle. The Committee on Reconstruction reported a resolution, that, if each State should adopt this Amendment, and the Amendment should become a part of the Constitution, be adopted by a sufficient number of States, then the States might be accepted. That was what they reported.