"SEC. 3. Until the 4th day of July, in the year 1870, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection, giving it aid and comfort, shall be excluded from the right to vote for Representatives in Congress and for electors for President and Vice-President of the United States.
"SEC. 4. Neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation already incurred, or which may hereafter be incurred, in aid of insurrection or of war against the United States, or any claim for compensation for loss of involuntary service or labor.
"SEC. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."
This proposed amendment to the Constitution was accompanied by two bills, one of which provided that when any State lately in insurrection should have ratified the amendment, its Senators and Representatives, if found duly elected and qualified, should be admitted as members of Congress. The other bill declared the high ex-officials of the late Confederacy ineligible to any office under the Government of the United States.
The proposed constitutional amendment was by a vote of the House made the special order for Tuesday, the 8th of May. On that day Mr. Stevens occupied the attention of the House with a brief argument in favor of the amendment. Referring to the death in the Senate of the amendment previously proposed, Mr. Stevens said: "But it is dead, and unless this (less efficient, I admit) shall pass, its death has postponed the protection of the colored race perhaps for ages. I confess my mortification at its defeat. I grieved especially because it almost closed the door of hope for the amelioration of the condition of the freedmen. But men in pursuit of justice must never despair. Let us again try and see whether we can not devise some way to overcome the united forces of self-righteous Republicans and unrighteous Copper-heads. It will not do for those who for thirty years have fought the beasts at Ephesus to be frightened by the fangs of modern catamounts."
Of the present proposition, Mr. Stevens said: "It is not all that the committee desired. It falls far short of my wishes, but it fulfills my hopes. I believe it is all that can be obtained in the present state of public opinion. Not only Congress, but the several States are to be consulted. Upon a careful survey of the whole ground, we did not believe that nineteen of the loyal States could be induced to ratify any proposition more stringent than this."
Referring to the section prohibiting rebels from voting until 1870, Mr. Stevens said: "My only objection to it is that it is too lenient. Here is the mildest of all punishments ever inflicted on traitors. I might not consent to the extreme severity denounced upon them by a provisional governor of Tennessee—I mean the late lamented Andrew Johnson of blessed memory—but I would have increased the severity of this section."
Mr. Blaine called attention to the fact that most of the persons whom the third section of the amendment was designed to disfranchise, had their political rights restored to them by the Amnesty Proclamation, or had been pardoned by the President.
Mr. Finck opposed the proposition in a speech of which the following are extracts: "Stripped of all disguises, this measure is a mere scheme to deny representation to eleven States; to prevent indefinitely a complete restoration of the Union, and perpetuate the power of a sectional and dangerous party.
"Sir, the whole scheme is revolutionary, and a most shallow pretext for an excuse to exclude the vote of eleven States in the next Presidential election. You can not exact conditions in this way from any State in the Union; no more from Georgia than from Massachusetts. They are each equal States in the Union, held together by the same Constitution, neither being the superior of the other in their relation to the Federal Government as States."