well be submitted by Congress, when a large part of the twothirds necessary to submit it would not themselves advise its ratification, or act in favor of its ratification ultimately.

The proposed constitutional amendment went to the House on February 20. Mr. Boutwell took the floor. He would not yield it to allow Mr. Woodward to move an amendment to the resolution submitting the Fifteenth Amendment to Legislatures chosen after the submission. He also declined to yield to allow amendments to be offered by Mr. Bingham and Mr. Shellabarger. He yielded, however, to Mr. Logan (General Logan) to move to strike out "and to hold office."

Mr. Logan, in support of his amendment, argued that "the intention of the Constitution of the United States was to leave to the States to determine what persons should hold office. I believe it has been properly left there by the Constitution, and that it should be allowed to remain there. That it is necessary to put in the words 'and to hold office' to give the colored people the right to vote is all imagination. There is no law for it whatever. What we should do, in my judgment, is to give all men, without regard to race or color, the right of suffrage, and when we give them the right to vote, they will take care of the right to hold office." 1

Mr. Butler, though favoring the idea that the right to hold office would follow the right to vote, yet was induced to vote against the amendment of Mr. Logan. He said: "It is apparent to me that if we do not pass this now as we receive it from the Senate it will be too late forever to pass it." 2

On Mr. Logan's motion to strike out the words "and to hold office" the yeas were 70 and the nays were 95.

Among the yeas were Bingham, Garfield, Schenck, and Logan.

Mr. Bingham's motion to strike out "United States" and insert after "color" the words "nativity, property, or creed" was sustained by yeas 92, nays 70.3

This amendment made the proposed amendment read as follows:

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote and hold office shall not be denied or abridged by any State on ac'Congressional Globe, 3d Session, 40th Congress, p. 1426.

2 Ibid.

Ibid., p. 1428.

count of race, color, nativity, property, creed, or previous condition of servitude."

The restriction was thus taken off the United States and left on the States alone.

The question was then taken on the passage of the resolution of amendment,-yeas 140, nays 37, absent 46.1

The resolution as thus amended was taken up in the Senate on February 22. After some little debate it was postponed until the 23d, and then the motion to disagree to the House amendment and to ask for a conference was sustained.

Messrs. Stewart, Conkling, and Edmunds were appointed conferees.2

The House conferees were Messrs. Boutwell, Bingham, and Logan.

On the 25th of February the conference report was made. It was not signed by Mr. Edmunds.

3

The report recommended that the House recede from all their amendments, and that the words "and to hold office" be stricken out of the amendment.

It will be noticed that both Houses had agreed that these words "and to hold office" should be retained. They were in the Senate resolution when it was passed, and the House refused to strike them out, as before stated.

Objections were made by Republican Senators that the Conference Committee had exceeded its jurisdiction in recommending that the words "and to hold office" should be stricken out, though they had been agreed to by both Houses, and did not, therefore, constitute a part of the disagreeing vote of the two Houses, about which the conference had been appointed. This view was supported by Mr. Pomeroy and Mr. Edmunds. Mr. Pomeroy produced all the precedents, the effect of which was stated by Mr. Edmunds to be as follows:

"My friend from Kansas has shown from the Journals of this body that there never has been an instance, so far as he has gone, in which a committee of conference has attempted to go outside of the subjects of disagreement, and to change that which had already been agreed to, except where both Houses, dispensing by unanimous consent with all rules of 1Congressional Globe, 3d Session, 40th Congress, p. 1428. Ibid., p. 1481.

'Ibid., p. 1593.

order, have agreed unanimously to make some phraseological change." i

1

Note that the change outside of the disagreement had theretofore been only in phraseology, and that only by unanimous consent of both Houses.

1Congressional Globe, 3d Session, 40th Congress, p. 1593.

CHAPTER XI

THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT

THIS was now the 26th of February. The sands of the Fortieth Congress were fast running out. When it ended, it would be too late forever to pass the amendment, as suggested by General Butler. The next Congress, as suggested by Mr. Frelinghuysen, and sustained by Mr. Stewart, might not be favorable to it. Twenty-five Legislatures had been secured in the elections of the preceding fall, which could be relied upon "to spit upon the platform" on which they had been elected and to ratify the amendment without consulting their constituents or allowing the people to express their wishes in the matter. The Houses had disagreed. A conference had been appointed that not only settled the disagreement, but undertook, in obedience to a sentiment represented by General Logan, to undo the work that both houses had assented to. The right of the Negro to hold office was not acceptable to the Northern people. His right in that respect in the Southern States, it was thought, was secured by the grant of the elective franchise; and by the largeness of the members of this class in the South it was thought that his right to hold office there was also secured.

The last fight on this constitutional amendment was made on the right of the Negro to hold office.

Mr. Edmunds,-who, it will be recollected, refused to sign the conference report and afterward proved that the committee had exceeded its just powers,-after referring to the ostracism of blacks by the States, and avowing that the very object of the amendment was to correct this and secure a true democracy, said:

"And what are the steps on this report you propose to take to do it? You propose to take the very steps you propose to take the very steps that all history has demonstrated to be deadly to a republic.

"To be sure, the instances are not frequent, for few people have been so wanting in intelligence and in a knowledge of the philosophy of a Republican government as ever to institute a distinction between the right of a citizen to participate, if he is to participate in the government at all, entirely (sic); and if you give him the right to have a voice in the government, that voice cannot have any live expression, unless it enables him to choose from among his fellow-citizens the man who suits him for his representative, instead of confining him, as this amendment does, to a chosen aristocratic class, saying to a citizen of a free Republic, 'You have rights of manhood, you have rights of equality, but you shall exercise those rights in choosing some one of us to rule over you, instead of some one of your fellow-citizens whom you prefer.'" 1

Mr. Edmunds further said:

"There is no instance within my knowledge of history for the last five hundred years in any country . . . . where there has been attempted the method that is proposed in this amendment, of excluding the mass of the community from exercising the powers of government in the way of being voted for and representing their fellow-citizens, instead of merely having the boon that the plebeians of Rome had, to vote for the aristocratic magistrate selected from among the patricians. Now, sir, do we wish to set up a patrician class in these Southern States? Do we wish to try an experiment that has overthrown the most civilized of ancient governments? It would seem that we did by this amendment. . . . Why, sir, we have an illustration before our eyes that has been pressing itself upon our attention for months on this very subject. You have in this nation at this day, in one of the very States upon which this Constitution is to operate, an illustration of the result you will come to by adopting an amendment of this kind, an amendment which, containing half of an inseparable, indivisible, and united truth, is in reality a falsehood; and that State is Georgia. You will find, if you let the thing run on, that the example of Georgia will be imitated in all the other States, and you will have set up in this Republic a class aristocracy depending not upon intelligence, upon which some philosophers say a distinction may be made, . . . but dependent upon the mere accident of the complexion of a human 'Congressional Globe, 3d Session, 40th Congress, p. 1626.