Volume 12 — APPORTIONMENT OF REPRESENTATIVES ACCORDING TO VOTERS.

Proposed Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, February 6, 1865.

In the Senate, February 6, 1865, Mr. Sumner submitted the following Amendment to the Constitution, which, on his motion, was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union according to the number of male citizens of age having in each State the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature. The actual enumeration of such citizens shall be made by the census of the United States.

This Amendment was a first attempt to meet the new exigency from the abolition of Slavery. One of two alternatives was open: the extension of suffrage to the new-made freedmen by the action of Congress, which Mr. Sumner insisted was the just course; or the apportionment of Representatives according to voters, which would make it for the interest of a State to extend the franchise. Without one of these measures the political power of the former slave-masters would be enlarged by Emancipation.

This subject occupied much attention at the next session of Congress.