Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

The Republican victory of 1866 led to the incorporation of impartial suffrage in the Reconstruction laws. The Republican victory of 1868, it was now resolved in the councils of the party, should lead to the incorporation of impartial suffrage in the Constitution of the United States. The evasive and discreditable position in regard to suffrage, taken by the National Republican Convention that nominated General Grant in 1868, was keenly felt and appreciated by the members of the party when subjected to popular discussion. There was something so obviously unfair and unmanly in the proposition to impose negro suffrage on the Southern States by National power, and at the same time to leave the Northern States free to decide the question for themselves, that the Republicans became heartily ashamed of it long before the political canvass had closed. When Congress assembled, immediately after the election of General Grant, there was found to be a common desire and a common purpose among Republicans to correct the unfortunate position in which the party had been placed by the National Convention; and to that end it was resolved that suffrage, as between the races, should by organic law be made impartial in all the States of the Union—North as well as South.

Various propositions were at once offered, both in the Senate and House, to amend the Constitution of the United States in order to attain impartial suffrage. It was both significant and appropriate that the draught proposed by Mr. Henderson of Missouri was taken as the basis of the Amendment first reported to the Senate. In the preceding Congress, when the Fourteenth Amendment was under consideration (in the spring of 1866), Mr. Henderson had proposed substantially the same provision, and had solemnly warned his Republican associates that though they might reject it then, it would be demanded of them in less than five years. This declaration was all the more suggestive and creditable, coming from a senator who represented a former slave-holding State. And it was not forgotten that Mr. Henderson had with equal zeal and equal foresight been among the earliest to propose the Thirteenth Amendment. Mr. Henderson's proposition, now submitted and referred to the Judiciary Committee, was in these words: "No State shall deny or abridge the right of its citizens to vote or hold office, on account of race, color, or previous condition." It was reported from the Judiciary Committee by Mr. Stewart of Nevada, with an amendment proposing another form of statement; namely, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote and hold office shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

During the debate on the question Mr. Hendricks of Indiana reproached the Republican party for forcing this question now upon Congress, when in the platform of principles upon which they appealed for popular support they had distinctly waived it, and when the Legislatures to which it must go for ratification had been elected without the slightest reference to it in the popular mind. In order to prevent what might seem to be an unfair submission of the Amendment, Mr. Dixon of Connecticut proposed that it should be referred to conventions in the respective States instead of to the Legislatures, and thus give the people, in the election of members of the conventions, a full opportunity to pass upon the merits of the question. It was contended on the other hand by Republican senators, that no subject had been more fully matured in the popular mind than this had been by the discussion which had taken place since the beginning, and especially since the close, of the war. But this was not a candid or truthful statement of the case, as had been abundantly shown by the action of the National Republican Convention. Only a few of the leaders of the party had openly announced themselves in favor of negro suffrage in the Nation; a few were openly hostile, while the great majority of the prominent members feared it and refrained from open expression in regard to it. The mass of the party, as is usual on questions of this character, had made their own conclusions, and their earnestness of convictions finally forced, if it did not persuade, the reluctant chiefs to adopt it. When they at last came to it, there was a natural disposition to represent it as one of the cardinal principles of the party. The Democratic criticisms, as to the time and method of presenting the Amendment, were well aimed and practically remained unanswered for the simple reason that no adequate or logical response could be made to them.

Mr. Garrett Davis of Kentucky charged that the Republican party, in proposing this Amendment, was simply seeking to perpetuate its power in the country; but on this point he was effectively answered by Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts. "The senator from Kentucky knows, and I know," said Mr. Wilson, "that this whole struggle to give equal rights and equal privileges to all citizens of the United States has been an unpopular one; that we have been forced to struggle against passion and prejudice engendered by generations of wrong and oppression; that we have been compelled to struggle against great interests and powerful political organizations. I say to the senator from Kentucky that the struggle of the last eight years to give freedom to four and a half millions of men who were held in slavery, to make them citizens of the United States, to clothe them with the right of suffrage, to give them the privilege of being voted for, to make them in all respects equal to the white citizens of the United States, has cost the Republican party a quarter of a million votes."

The House of Representatives had been considering the question of the suffrage amendment at equal step with the Senate. On the 11th of January Mr. Boutwell of Massachusetts, from the Committee on the Judiciary, proposed an Amendment to the Constitution in these words: "The right of any citizen of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State, by reason of the race, color, or previous condition of slavery of any citizen or class of citizens of the United States.—The Congress shall have power to enforce by proper legislation the provisions of this Article."

Mr. Boutwell made one of the strongest and most pointed arguments delivered in Congress for the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment. He showed that by the Fourteenth Amendment we had declared that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside." "There are," said he, "citizens in Kentucky and Maryland eligible to-day to the office of President or Vice-President of the United States, yet who cannot vote for representatives in Congress, or even for a State, county or town officer. What is the qualification for the office of President? He must be a native-born citizen of the United States and thirty-five years of age. Nothing more! These are the only qualifications for the office of President. By the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, we have declared that all the black men in Maryland and other States shall be citizens of the United States. Certain State governments have for the present denied those people the right to vote, and yet one of them is eligible to the Presidency of the United States and another to the Vice-Presidency. Is there such an anomaly in our Government? Are we prepared to admit its existence unless the Constitution imperatively requires it?"

The speech of Mr. Boutwell was answered by Mr. Beck of Kentucky and Mr. Eldridge of Wisconsin, their respective arguments resting mainly upon the propriety of leaving the regulation of suffrage within the power of the States, where it was originally left by the Constitution. After several ineffectual attempts to amend the Constitutional Amendment as reported from the Judiciary Committee, the House, on the 30th of January (1869), passed it by ayes 150, noes 42, not voting 31.

When the House Amendment reached the Senate it was at once taken up for consideration, and the Amendment which that body had been considering was laid aside. This was done for the purpose of expediting an agreement between the two branches. Numerous modifications and additions were then proposed, including the one originally reported by the Judiciary Committee. Every modification or substitute failed, until Senator Wilson offered the following: "No discrimination shall be made in any State among the citizens of the United States in the exercise of the elective franchise, or in the right to hold office in any State, on account of race, color, nativity, property, education, or religious creed." Mr. Trumbull declared that the adoption of this Amendment would abolish the constitutions of perhaps all, certainly of half, the States of the Union. He then pointed out that the constitution of almost every State prescribed a qualification of age for the governor of the State, and of a certain length of residence, many of them requiring a natural-born citizen; and that the effect of Mr. Wilson's Amendment would be to level all the constitutions, and radically reverse the deliberate judgment of the people of the States who had ordained them. Serious objections were also made against prohibiting an educational test, as would be the effect of Mr. Wilson's Amendment. Mr. Wilson frankly avowed his hostility to an educational test, and declared that the one existing in Massachusetts had never proved valuable in any sense. Against all objections and arguments Mr. Wilson's Amendment was adopted by the Senate.

A proposition was now introduced and supported with equal zeal by Mr. Morton of Indiana and Mr. Buckalew of Pennsylvania, proposing an amendment to the pending resolution, which should in effect be a sixteenth amendment to the Constitution. Its aim was to take from the States the power now confided in them by the Constitution, to direct the manner in which electors of President and Vice-President shall be chosen. The declared motive for the change was to prevent the possibility of the electors being chosen by the State Legislatures, as had been done in some cases, and to guarantee the certainty of a popular vote in their selection in every State of the Union. To insure this result it was proposed in the amendment that the entire power over the choice of electors should be transferred to Congress. After a brief debate the amendment was agreed to,(1) and the two proposed articles, included under one resolution, were adopted by ayes 39, noes 16, and sent to the House for concurrence.

The House not being willing to accept the Senate's Amendments, refused by formal vote to concur, and asked for a conference. The Senate took the unusual step of declining a conference, promptly receded from its own Amendments, and sent to the House the original proposition of that body. The House, not to be outdone by the Senate in capricious change of opinion, now refused to agree to the form of amendment it had before adopted, and returned it to the Senate with the added requirement of nativity, property, and creed, which the Senate had originally proposed. The rule indeed seemed to be for each branch to desert its own proposition as soon as there was a prospect that the other branch would agree to it. The strange controversy was finally ended and the subject brought into intelligible shape by a conference committee, which reported the Fifteenth Amendment in the precise form in which it became incorporated in the Constitution. It received the sanction of the house by a vote far beyond the two-thirds required to adopt it, the ayes being 145, the noes 44. In the Senate the ayes were 39, the noes were 13. The action of Congress on the Amendment was completed on the 26th of February, six days before General Grant was installed in the Presidency.