History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States

by William Horatio Barnes

"1. It is difficult to enumerate voters accurately; their qualifications are fixed by State laws. We can not send Federal officers into every State to adjudicate, in disputed cases, the rights of those claiming to be voters under the State laws, as we should have to do.

"2. It would not be just; the voters of the country are unequally distributed. The old States have fewer, the new States more, voters according to the white population. In other words, there is a greater proportion of women and children in the old States. These should be and are represented. They are represented, in the true sense of that word, by their fathers and brothers. The man who represents them does so really and practically, and not by legal fiction, like the man who represents 'three-fifths of all other persons.'

"3. It takes from the basis of representation all unnaturalized foreigners. I do not wish to discuss the question whether this would be judicious or not, but I do not want a measure of this almost supreme importance loaded down with these questions, and its passage jeopardized by the incorporation of provisions which, would render it so liable to attack and misrepresentation."

Mr. Cook referred as follows to some objections urged against the basis of representation proposed by the Reconstruction Committee: "It is said that the Southern States may impose a property qualification, and so exclude the negroes, not on account of race or color, but for want of a property qualification, or that they might provide for a qualification of intelligence, and so disfranchise the negroes because they could not read or write, and still enumerate them. To do this they must first repeal all the laws now denying suffrage to negroes; and, second, provide qualifications which will disfranchise half their white voters; two things neither of which will, in any human probability, occur. And in the event that it was possible that both these measures should be adopted, and all the blacks and half the whites disqualified, it would become a grave question whether the provision of the Constitution which requires the United States to guarantee to each State a republican form of government would not authorize the Government to rectify so gross a wrong. There is no measure to which fanciful objections may not be urged; but I believe this to be the least objectionable of any measure which has been suggested to meet this evil. But above all, I am well persuaded that it is the only measure that can meet the approval of three-fourths of the States; consequently, that this is the only practical measure before the House."

Mr. Marshall, of Illinois, declared the proposition, as reported by the committee, to be "wholly untenable, is monstrous, absurd, damnable in its provisions, a greater wrong and outrage on the black race than any thing that has ever been advocated by others."

He thus set forth the measure in the light of injustice to the negro: "The gentlemen who report it profess to be, and doubtless are, the peculiar advocates of the African race. I wish to ask them upon what principle of justice, upon what principle of free government, they have provided that if, after this amendment is adopted, South Carolina, Mississippi, or any other State shall adopt a provision that all white men over twenty-one years of age shall be voters, and all black men who have two hundred dollars' worth of property, and if there shall be ten thousand legal black voters in such State, upon what principle will you place in the Constitution of the United States a provision which would deprive these ten thousand legal black voters of any representation upon the floor of Congress, or of being considered in the basis of representation? And I wish to ask the honorable gentleman who reported this amendment if that is not the effect and result of the amendment reported from the committee."

In reference to the time and place of inaugurating constitutional amendments, Mr. Marshall used the following language: "If any amendments are necessary to the Constitution of our country, this is not the time, and more especially is this not the place, to inaugurate such amendments. I believe, notwithstanding the conceded wisdom, ability, and virtue of this House, that the fathers who framed our glorious Constitution were wiser, better, and nobler than we are; yet every day we have offered here some dozen or twenty proposed amendments to the Constitution, offered as if we were discussing resolutions in a town meeting."

[Illustration: Robert C. Schenck.]

Among the propositions before the House relating to this subject, was an amendment proposed by Mr. Schenck, of Ohio, providing that representation should be based upon "the number of male citizens of the United States over twenty-one years of age, having the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature."

Mr. Schenck addressed the House, and thus gave a history of his own connection with the measure: "At a very early day in this session, I was one of those disposed to ask the attention of Congress to the subject, to propose in proper form the submission of the question to the Legislatures of the several States. On the first day of the session, on the 4th of December last, as soon as the House was organized, I gave notice that I would on the next, or some succeeding day, introduce a proposition to amend the Constitution. On the ensuing day I did accordingly present a joint resolution. It stands as House Resolution No. 1 of the session.