History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States

by William Horatio Barnes

"I believe that the people of Kentucky, whom I in part represent, and I have no doubt the people of the whole South, will submit in good faith to the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. While they may believe that the amendment is revolutionary and unjust, in violation of the rights of Kentucky and the South, still the Southern States, having in a way yielded up this question, for representation and peace, they will stand by the Constitution as amended."

Finally, Mr. Trimble presented the following argument against the measure: "This proposition is a direct attack upon the President of the United States; it is a direct attack upon the doctrines and principles taught by that distinguished man now holding the presidential chair. This amendment is in violation, in my judgment, of every principle that that man has held from his boyhood up to the present hour. Sir, the President of the United States does not believe that the Congress of the United States has the right, or that the people have the right, to strike down the inalienable right of the States to settle for themselves who shall be clothed with that high privilege—suffrage."

The subject being resumed on the following day, January 24th, Mr. Lawrence, of Ohio, addressed the House, premising his remarks by a motion that the resolution and amendments be recommitted to the Committee on Reconstruction, "with instructions to report an amendment to the Constitution which shall, first, apportion direct taxes among the States according to property in each; and which shall, second, apportion Representatives among the States on the basis of adult male voters who may be citizens of the United States."

He argued that "the rule which gave representation to three-fifths of the slave population was wrong in principle, and unjust in practical results. It was purely arbitrary, the result of compromise, and not of fixed political principles, or of any standard of abstract justice. If slavery was a just element of political strength, I know of no rule which could properly divide it into 'fractional quantities;' if it was not a just element of political strength, I know of no rule which could properly give it 'fractional power.'

"The basis of representation was unjust in practical results, because it gave to chattel slavery political power—a power accorded to no other species of property—thus making what the slave States regarded as wealth an element of political strength."

After having given a statistical table showing how representation was apportioned among the several States having free and slave population, Mr. Lawrence deduced the following facts: "New Hampshire, with a white population of 325,579, has but three Representatives, while Louisiana, with a white population of 357,629, had five. California, with a white population of 323,177, has but three Representatives, while Mississippi, with a similar population of 353,901, had five. In South Carolina 72,847 white persons had one Representative, while the ratio of representation is one for 127,000 persons.

"Under this mode of apportionment, the late slave States had eighteen Representatives, by the census of 1860, more than their just share, if based on free population. The whole political power of Ohio was counterbalanced by slave representation. It was equal to two-thirds of all the representation from New England. In South Carolina 14,569 votes carried as much political power as 25,400 in the free States."

Freedom having been given to the slaves, "the effect will be, so soon as lawful State Governments are created in the rebel States, to largely increase their representation in Congress and the Electoral College. The slave population, by the census of 1860, was 3,950,531. Three-fifths of this, or 2,370,318, has heretofore entered into the basis of representation. Now, the additional 1,580,213 is to be added to that basis. This will give ten additional Representatives to the late slave States—in all twenty-eight more than their just proportion upon a basis excluding the late slaves. If this injustice can be tolerated and perpetuated, and the late rebel States shall soon be admitted to representation, they will enjoy as the reward of their perfidy and treason an increased political power. This will reward traitors with a liberal premium for treason."

As to the proper time for amending the Constitution, Mr. Lawrence said: "But if ever there could be a time for making fundamental changes in our organic law, and ingrafting on it irreversible guarantees, that time is now. The events of the past four years demonstrate their necessity, and our security for the future imperatively demands them at our hands. The great events which have transpired, and the altered circumstances that surround us, admonish us that we will be recreant to our trusts if we fail to inscribe justice on the Constitution, and fortify it against the encroachments of treason, so that it shall be eternal. One of the elements of our past misfortunes, and which gave power for evil to the enemies who assailed us in this temple, was unequal and unjust representation—political power wielded by a dominant class, augmented by concessions on behalf of a disfranchised and servile race, insultingly declared almost in the very citadel of national justice as having no rights which a white man was bound to respect. By this amendment we strike down the iniquity of one class wielding political power for another, and arrogant because in the exercise of unjust power."

Maintaining that representation should be based upon suffrage, Mr. Lawrence said: "The reason which conclusively justifies it is, that a people declared by law, if in fact unprepared for suffrage, should not be represented as an element of power by those interested in forever keeping them unprepared. But children never can be qualified and competent depositaries of political power, and, therefore, should not enter into the basis of representation. It never has been deemed necessary for the protection of females that they should be regarded as an element of political power, and hence they should not be an element of representation. If the necessity shall come, or if our sense of justice should so change as to enfranchise adult females, it will be time enough then to make them a basis of representation."