The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes

by J. Q. Howard

"Instead of withdrawing them as subjects of political discussion, it will give them far more prominence than they ever had heretofore, and they will be confronted with them throughout the entire canvass. The only way in which any question can be withdrawn from the arena of political discussion is for both parties to ignore it altogether.

"This can not be done as to these amendments, because they present real living issues, in which the people feel a very deep interest. They are not dead issues, and politicians can not kill them by resolutions. The Ohio Democrats seem to recognize this to some extent at least, for they have simply attempted to turn the discussion away from the validity and merits of the amendments themselves to the question of their construction. In this I think they have made a grievous mistake."

In Indiana, the last authoritative Democratic utterance on this subject, was the passage, in January last, by the Senate of that State, of the following resolution, offered by Mr. Hughes, every Democrat supporting it:

"Resolved, That Congress has no lawful power derived from the constitution of the United States, nor from any other source whatever, to require any State of the Union to ratify an amendment proposed to the constitution of the United States as a condition precedent to representation in Congress; that all such acts of ratification are null and void, and the votes so obtained ought not to be counted to affect the rights of the people and the States of the whole Union, and that the State of Indiana protests and solemnly declares that the so-called fifteenth amendment is not this day, nor never has been in law, a part of the constitution of the United States."

It is not necessary to go to neighboring States for Democratic authorities, to show how far the new departure is from modern Democracy.

When this question was last debated before the people of Ohio, the Democratic position on the principle of the fifteenth amendment, and on its constitutional validity, if declared adopted, was thus stated:

Speaking of the principle of the amendment, Judge Thurman said: "I tell you it is only the entering wedge that will destroy all intelligent suffrage in this country, and turn our country from an intelligent white man's government into one of the most corrupt mongrel governments in the world."

On its validity, if declared adopted, General Ward said: "Fellow-citizens of Ohio, I boldly assert that the States of this Union have always had, both before and since the adoption of the constitution of the United States, entire sovereignty over the whole subject of suffrage in all its relations and bearings. Ohio has that sovereignty now, and it can not be taken from her without her consent, even by all the other States combined, except by revolutionary usurpation. The right to regulate suffrage as to the organization of its own government, and the election of officers under it, is an inalienable attribute of sovereignty, which the State could not surrender without surrendering its sovereign existence as a State. To take from Ohio the power of determining who shall exercise the right of suffrage is not an amendment of the constitution, but a revolutionary usurpation by the other States, in no wise constitutionally binding upon her sovereignty as a State."

These opinions are still largely prevalent in the Democratic party. When a new departure was announced at Dayton, the leading organ of the party in this State said:

"There are matters in the Montgomery county resolutions which, it is very safe to say, will not receive the approval of the State convention, and which should not receive its endorsement. They have faults of omission and commission. They evince a desire to sail with the wind, and as near the water as possible without getting wet. The Democracy everywhere believe that the constitution was altered by fraud and force, and do not intend to be mealy-mouthed in their expression of the outrage, whatever they may agree upon as to how the amendments should be treated in the future, for the sake of saving, if possible, what is left of constitutional liberty."