This letter will recall to your mind the circumstance that when the Fifteenth Amendment was suspended between the two houses you published an editorial in the Standard in favor of the House proposition. Can you send me that article? It may not be known to you that that article saved the amendment. A little of the secret history was thus. Various propositions were offered in the House—among them one of my own—and all were referred to the Judiciary Committee.
In the Judiciary Committee, upon my motion the various resolutions for amending the Constitution in that particular were referred to a sub- committee consisting of myself, Churchill of New York and Eldridge of Wisconsin. Churchill and myself were living at the same house and conferred together several times. Eldridge took no interest in the matter and never joined us—perhaps he was not invited. After an examination of all the plans I wrote that proposed amendment which was passed by the House and is in substance and almost in language the amendment as adopted.
With the concurrence of Mr. Churchill I reported it to the committee and without one word of criticism and as far as I could judge without any particular consideration I was directed to report it to the House. In the House it encountered considerable opposition and Mr. Wilson, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, made a speech which was a great surprise to me, though directed chiefly to the bill which I had also reported by direction of the Judiciary Committee giving at once the right of suffrage to negroes in all national elections and for members of the Legislature. This I thought necessary to secure the passage of the amendment through the State Legislatures. However, the resolution was finally passed by the House. In the Senate it met with great opposition because it omitted to secure in terms the right to hold office. This point had been raised in the House where I had successfully met the proposition by the statement and an argument in support of the statement that the right to vote as a matter of fact and in law carries with it the right to hold office. In the Senate, Mr. Sumner, supported by all the Southern Republicans and a part of the Northern Republicans succeeded in substituting a new resolution securing in terms the right to hold office. Upon the return of the Resolution to the House I was obliged to take what appeared a conservative position and resist the proposition to concur with the Senate upon the ground that the change was unnecessary and that its adoption threatened the loss of the measure in doubtful States as Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and others. The House adhered to its position, yet with such weakness of purpose on the part of many who sustained me, as indicated that they would not withstand another assault. The struggle was then renewed in the Senate and with every indication that the Senate would insist upon its amendment. It was then that your article appeared. Its influence was immediate and potential. Men thought that if you the extremest radical could accept the House proposition they might safely do the same. Had the Senate adhered one of two things would have happened, either the House would have seceded or the amendment would have failed.
Had the House concurred I fear we should have failed to carry several
States which have since ratified it.
Upon reflection I think as at the time I thought that your voice saved the Fifteenth Amendment.
I am very truly,
GEO. S. BOUTWELL.
WENDELL PHILLIPS, ESQ.
Boston.
P. S. This letter is not for the public use in so far as names are mentioned, and of course, not for publication. G. S. B.
The article of Mr. Phillips became so important in its influence upon the final action of the Senate that I reproduce it in justice to Mr. Phillips and as a further record of an historical event.
"We see the action of the Senate touching the Constitutional Amendment with great anxiety. The House had passed a simple measure, one covering all the ground that people are ready to occupy. It answered completely the lesson of the war. Its simplicity gave it all the chance that exists for any form of amendment being ratified.