"4. Whatever amendments are now proposed by Congress are to be submitted to Legislatures, and not to popular conventions in the States; and most of those Legislatures are to be the ones now in session.
"5. In submitting amendments at this time, we invite a dispute upon the question of the degree of legislative assent necessary to their adoption. If ratified by the Legislatures of less than three-fourths of all the States, their validity will be denied, and their enforcement resisted."
Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, replied to Mr. Buckalew's imputations against New England. "The Senator gave us to understand that he had not wasted reason, thought, and culture upon the stormy passions engendered by the war, but now, when reason had resumed her empire, he had come forth to instruct his country.
"The Senators from New England, unlike the Senator from Pennsylvania, remained not silent during the great civil war through which the nation has passed. They have spoken; they have spoken for the unity of their country and the freedom of all men. They have spoken for their country, their whole country, and for the rights of all its people of every race. Their past is secure, and the imputations of the Senator from Pennsylvania will pass harmless by them.
"When the Constitution was formed, New England had eight of the twenty-six Senators—nearly one-third of the body; now she has twelve of the seventy-two Senators—one-sixth of the body. Her power is diminishing in this body and will continue to diminish. When the Constitution was adopted, quite as great inequalities existed among the States as now. The illustrious statesmen who framed the Constitution knew and recognized that fact; they based the Senate upon the States, and upon the equality of the States. They were so determined in that policy of equal State representation in the Senate that they provided that the Constitution should never be amended in that respect without the consent of every State.
"The Senator suggests that the Senators from New England are actuated by local interests and love of power in their action regarding the admission of the Representatives of the rebel States. Nothing can be more unjust to those Senators. It is without the shadow of fairness or justice, or the semblance of truth. I can say before God that I am actuated by no local interests, no love of power, in opposing the immediate and unconditional admission of the rebel States into these chambers; and I know my associates from New England too well to believe for a moment that they are actuated by interest or the love of power. Thousands of millions of money have been expended, and hundreds of thousands of brave men have bled for the unity and liberty of the republic. I desire—my associates from New England desire—to see these vacant chairs filled at an early day by the Representatives of the States that rebelled and rushed into civil war. We will welcome them here; but before they come it is of vital importance to the country, to the people of all sections, to the interests of all, that all disturbing questions should be forever adjusted, and so adjusted as never again to disturb the unity and peace of the country. It is now the time to settle forever all matters that can cause estrangement and sectional agitations and divisions in the future. Nothing should be left to bring dissensions, and, it may be, civil war again upon our country. The blood poured out to suppress the rebellion must not be shed in vain."
Prominent Republican Senators bringing earnest opposition to bear against the proposed constitutional amendment, and a sentiment evidently gaining ground that it did not meet the requirements of the case, caused its friends to urge it with less zeal than had at first characterized them. Meanwhile, other important propositions coming up from the Committee of Fifteen, which occupied the attention of the Senate, as detailed in a subsequent chapter, the subject of changing the basis of representation was allowed to lie over for nearly a fortnight.
On the 5th of March, the subject being resumed, Mr. Pomeroy addressed the Senate. He feared that the nation was not ready to adopt a constitutional amendment such as the necessities of the country required. "This nation," said he, "although severely disciplined, has not yet reached the point of giving to all men their rights by a suffrage amendment; three-fourths of the States are not ready. And any patchwork, any 'step toward it' (as said the chairman of the committee) which does not reach it, I fear to take, because but one opportunity will ever be afforded us to step at all; and lost opportunities are seldom repeated."
Mr. Pomeroy did not think the case was without remedy, however, since "the last constitutional amendment embraced all, gave the most ample powers, even if they did not exist before; for, after having secured the freedom of all men wherever the old flag floats, it provided that Congress might 'secure' the same by 'appropriate legislation.'
"What more could it have said? And who are better judges of appropriate legislation than the very men who first passed the amendment and provided for this very case?