History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States

by William Horatio Barnes

"Thus every State has the sole control, free from all interference, of its own interests and concerns. No other State, nor the General Government, can molest the people of any State on the subject, or even inquire into their acts or their reasons, but all the States have equal rights. If New York chooses to count her black population as political persons, she can do so. If she does not choose to do so, the matter is her own, and her rights can not be challenged. So of South Carolina. But South Carolina shall not say, 'True, we have less than three hundred thousand "persons" in this State, politically speaking, yet we will have, in governing the country, the power of seven hundred thousand persons.'

"The amendment is common to all States and equal for all; its operation will, of course, be practically only in the South. No Northern State will lose by it, whether the Southern States extend suffrage to blacks or not. Even New York, in her great population, has so few blacks that she could exclude them all from enumeration and it would make no difference in her representation. If the amendment is adopted, and suffrage remains confined as it is now, taking the census of 1860 as the foundation of the calculation, and the number of Representatives as it then stood, the gains and losses would be these: Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Maine would gain one Representative each, and New York would gain three; Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee would each lose one; Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia would each lose two, and Mississippi would lose three."

On the following day, January 23d, the proposed joint resolution came up in the regular order of business.

Mr. Jenckes, of Rhode Island, feared that a construction might be put upon the bill which would be fatal to its efficiency for the purposes had in view by its friends. He said: "It says nothing about the qualification of property. Suppose this amendment is adopted by three-fourths of the States, and becomes a part of the fundamental law of the land, and after its adoption the State of South Carolina should reinstate the constitution of 1790, striking out the word 'white' and reëstablishing the property qualification of fifty acres of land, or town lots, or the payment of a tax, there would then be no discrimination of color in the State of South Carolina, yet the number of electors would not be enlarged five hundred, and the basis of representation would be exactly as it is, with the addition of two-fifths of the enfranchised freedmen. A Representative to this House would be reëlected by the same voting constituency as now, perhaps with the addition of five hundred black men in the State. If it bears this construction, and I believe it does, I shall vote against it.

"If any of the States should establish property qualification based upon lands, then the same oligarchy would be enthroned on the whole basis of representation, entitled to a larger number of Representatives than now in this House, and elected by a slightly enlarged number of qualified electors, giving power more firmly to that very aristocracy we have sought to overthrow."

A number of queries were propounded, several amendments proposed, and a considerable desire for discussion expressed, until Mr. Stevens, much disappointed at the reception the measure met in the House, withdrew the demand for the previous question, and left the subject open for unlimited debate.

Mr. Blaine, of Maine, addressed the House, detailing some objections to the measure. He said: "While I shall vote for the proposition, I shall do so with some reluctance unless it is amended, and I do not regret, therefore, that the previous question was not sustained. I am egotistic enough to believe that the phraseology of the original resolution, as introduced by me, was better than that employed in the pending amendment. The phrase 'civil or political rights or privileges,' which I employed, is broader and more comprehensive than the term 'elective franchise,' for I fear, with the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. Farnsworth,] that under the latter phrase the most vicious evasions might be practiced. As that gentleman has well said, they might make suffrage depend on ownership of fifty acres of land, and then prohibit any negro holding real estate; but no such mockery as this could be perpetrated under the provisions of the amendment as I originally submitted it."

In relation to taxation, Mr. Blaine remarked: "Now, I contend that ordinary fair play—and certainly we can afford fair play where it does not cost any thing—calls for this, namely, that if we exclude them from the basis of representation they should be excluded from the basis of taxation. Ever since this Government was founded, taxation and representation have always gone hand in hand. If we shall exclude the principle in this amendment, we will be accused of a narrow, illiberal, mean-spirited, and money-grasping policy. More than that, we do not gain any thing by it. What kind of taxation, is distributed according to representation? Direct taxation. Now, we do not have any direct taxation. There has been but twenty millions of direct taxation levied for the last fifty years. That tax was levied in 1861, and was not collected, but distributed among the States and held in the Treasury Department as an offset to the war claims of the States; so that, as a matter of fact, we are putting an offensive discrimination in this proposition and gaining nothing by it except obloquy."

Mr. Donnelly, of Minnesota, said: "It follows, as a logical conclusion, that if men have no voice in the National Government, other men should not sit in this hall pretending to represent them. And it is equally clear that an oppressed race should not lend power to their oppressors, to be used in their name and for their destruction. It is a mockery to say that a man's agent shall be his enemy, and shall be appointed without his consent and against his desire, and by other enemies.

"In fact, I can not see how any Northern man can vote against this measure, unless he wishes to perpetuate an injustice to his section, because the effect of it will clearly be to increase the representation of the North and decrease that of the South; and this, too, upon a basis of undoubted justice. It means simply that those who do not take part in the Government shall not be represented in the Government."