The Fourteenth Amendment had its origin in a joint committee of fifteen of which Mr. Fessenden of Maine was chairman. A record of its proceedings was kept which was printed recently by order of the Senate. From that report it appears that I proposed an amendment for conferring the right to vote upon the freedmen of the State of Tennessee. As far as I know that was the first time the proposition was made in connection with the proceedings of Congress. The committee did not concur in the proposition. Indeed the time had not come for decisive action in that direction. The motion was made in the committee the 19th day of February, 1866, when the admission of the State of Tennessee into the Union was under consideration. The motion was in these words: "Said State shall make no distinction in the exercise of the elective franchise on account of race or color." The motion was lost by the following vote:
Yeas: Howard, Stevens, Washburne, Morrill, Boutwell.
Nays: Harris, Williams, Grider, Bingham, Conkling, Rogers.
Absent: Fessenden, Grimes, Johnson, Blow.
The 16th day of April Senator Stewart, of Nevada, came before the committee in support of a similar proposition that he had introduced in the Senate April 7.
In January, 1866, a bill was under discussion in the House of Representatives for the establishment of a government in the District of Columbia. Mr. Hale of New York moved amendments by which the right of suffrage by negroes would be limited to those who could read and write, to those who had performed service in the army or navy or who possessed property qualifications. The amendment was defeated. My views were thus stated in one of the very small number of my speeches that have had immediate influence upon an audience or an assembly:
"I am opposed to the instructions moved by the gentleman from New York, because I see in them no advantage to anybody, and I apprehend from their adoption much evil to the country. It should be borne in mind, that, when we emancipated the black people we not only relieved ourselves from the institution of slavery, we not only conferred upon them their freedom, but we did more; we recognized their manhood, which, by the old Constitution and the general policy and usage of the country, had been, from the organization of the Government until the Emancipation Proclamation, denied to all the enslaved colored people. As a consequence of the recognition of their manhood, certain results follow, in accordance with the principles of the Government; and they who believe in this Government are, by necessity, forced to accept those results as a consequence of the policy of emancipation which they have inaugurated, and for which they are responsible.
"But to say now, having given freedom to the blacks, that they shall not enjoy the essential rights and privileges of men, is to abandon the principle of the Proclamation of Emancipation, and tacitly to admit that the whole emancipation policy is erroneous.
* * * "What are the qualifications suggested? They are three. First and most attractive, service in the army or navy of the United States. I shall have occasion to say, if I discuss, as I hope to discuss, the nature and origin of the right of voting, that there is not the least possible connection between service in the army and navy and the exercise of the elective franchise,—none whatever. These men have performed service, and I am for dealing justly with them because they have performed service. But I am more anxious to deal justly by them because they are men. And when it is remembered, that, for months and almost for years after the opening of the rebellion, we refused to accept the services of colored persons in the armies of the country, it is with ill grace that we now decline to allow the vote of any man because he has not performed that service.
"The second is the property qualification. I hope it is not necessary in this day and this hour of the Republic to argue anywhere that a property qualification is not only unjust in itself, but that it is odious to the people of the country to a degree which cannot be expressed. Everywhere, I believe, for half a century, it has been repudiated by the people. Does anybody contemplate such a qualification to the elective franchise, in the case of black people or white?
"And next, reading and writing, or reading as a qualification, is demanded; and an appeal is made to the example of Massachusetts. I wish gentlemen who now appeal to Massachusetts would often appeal to her in other matters where I can more conscientiously approve her policy. But it is a different proposition in Massachusetts as a practical measure.
"When, ten years ago, this qualification was imposed upon the citizens of Massachusetts, it excluded no person who was then a voter. For two centuries, we have had in Massachusetts a system of public instruction, open to the children of the whole people without money and without price. Therefore all the people there had had opportunities for education. Why should the example of such a State be quoted to justify refusing suffrage to men who have been denied the privilege of education, and whom it has been a crime to teach?