Volume 15 — SUFFRAGE WITHOUT DISTINCTION OF COLOR THROUGHOUT THE UNITED STATES BY ACT OF CONGRESS.

Remarks in the Senate, on a Bill to enforce several Provisions of the Constitution by securing the Elective Franchise to Colored Citizens, July 12, 1867.

March 26, 1867, Mr. Sumner asked, and by unanimous consent obtained, leave to introduce a bill to enforce the several provisions of the Constitution abolishing Slavery, declaring the immunities of citizens, and guarantying a republican form of government, by securing the elective franchise to colored citizens, which was read twice by its title and printed. He then remarked on the importance of the bill, and said that it was intended to cut the Gordian knot of the Suffrage question throughout the country.

At the session beginning July 3d, he made constant efforts for its consideration, challenging objection and argument.

July 12th, he moved its consideration, calling it “the Capstone of Reconstruction”; but the Third Reconstruction Bill was pressed by Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, to the exclusion of the other. Mr. Sumner would not antagonize his bill with that. As soon as the other measure was disposed of, he pressed his bill again. It was objected to by Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont, as not in order under the rule of the session limiting business,[235] and the question of order was referred to the Senate. On this Mr. Sumner said:—

My argument is precisely this, and I ask the attention of my friend from Maryland [Mr. Johnson]. We all know his eminence at the bar of the Supreme Court, and I submit to him this: We have already by Reconstruction Acts conferred the suffrage upon colored persons in the Rebel States; now is it not important that our legislation should be completed and rounded by conferring the suffrage in the other States as conferred in the Rebel States? You have conferred it in the Rebel States.

Mr. Johnson. What has that to do with the other States?

Mr. Sumner. Will you have the great right of suffrage depend upon Act of Congress in one half of the Union, and not upon Act of Congress in the other half? If you can pass an Act for one half, can you not for the other half? I know the answer, that in the Rebel States the fact of rebellion gives a power we have not in the other States. But the present bill is founded not simply on the fact of rebellion, but on the clause in the National Constitution by which we are bound to guaranty a republican form of government throughout the whole country; also on the other clause by which Slavery is abolished throughout the whole country, and we are empowered by proper legislation to enforce it; also that further clause by which the rights of citizens are secured throughout the whole country, and we are empowered by proper legislation to enforce it. Here are three sources of power, equally applicable to all the States, Rebel or Loyal. And now I submit that such an Act for the Loyal States is only the just complement to our action in the Rebel States.

How can you look the Rebel States in the face, when you have required colored suffrage of them and fail to require it in the other States? Be just; require it in the Loyal States as you have required it in the Rebel States. There is an unanswerable argument, and I submit it on the question of order. If we are privileged to consider only matters in aid of the original Reconstruction measures, then do I say that this bill is in aid of those measures, for it gives to them completeness and roundness. Without this bill your original measures are imperfect, ay, radically unjust. I know it is said there is one title to legislation over the Rebel States which we have not with regard to the Loyal States,—to wit, that they have been in rebellion. But the great sources of power in the two cases are identical; they are one and the same.

There is the guaranty clause in the National Constitution, the sleeping giant of the Constitution, never until this recent war awakened, but now it comes forward with a giant’s power. There is no clause like it. There is no text which gives to Congress such supreme power over the States. Then, as I have so often said, are the two other clauses. Your power under the Constitution is not less complete than beneficent.

I am not to be betrayed into the constitutional argument. I am now on the question of order. I say that this bill is essential to perfect the original Reconstruction measures. You should not return to your homes without this additional Act by which Reconstruction is finished. If any Senator has any reason to bring against this bill, if any one can suggest a doubt of its constitutionality, I should like to hear the reason or the doubt, and I shall be ready to answer it. I invite discussion. I challenge the expression of any reason against it, or of any doubt with regard to its constitutionality; and I ask Senators to look at it as a great measure of expediency as well as of justice. How will you settle this question in the Loyal States? Here are Delaware, Maryland,—my friend over the way will not be sensitive when I allude to his State,—and Kentucky, in each of which this measure will be the salvation of Union citizens. In other States, like Pennsylvania, it will rally at once—I am speaking now on the question of expediency—twenty thousand votes to the Union cause. In Indiana, too, it will settle the Suffrage question. I say nothing of Iowa. There is Wisconsin.

Mr. Trumbull. They all vote there now.

Mr. Sumner. Under the decision of the Supreme Court. So much the better. There is Connecticut. It would obtain three thousand votes there for the good cause. A short Act of Congress will determine the political fortunes of Connecticut for an indefinite period by securing three thousand additional votes to the right side. There is New York, also, where the bill would have the same excellent beneficent influence.

Who, then, can hesitate? Look at it in any light you please. Regard it as the completion of these Reconstruction measures, as a constitutional enactment, or as a measure of expediency to secure results we all desire at the approaching elections, and who can hesitate? There has been no bill before you for a long time of more practical value than this. I hope there will be no question about proceeding with it, and that we may pass it before we separate to-night.

Mr. Edmunds. I agree with my friend from Massachusetts, that the bill has very great merit. It has supreme moral merit. I agree to every word of it. I am a little afraid, it is true, that there is a higher law that will bind us not to pass it, for want of power.

Mr. Sumner. Want of power! Will the Senator be good enough to state the reason?

Mr. Edmunds. No, not on this point, because it is not relevant to this question of order.

Mr. Sumner. But, as the Senator is going into the question of the want of power, I really wish he would deign to enlighten us upon that.

Mr. Edmunds. My friend will have to go without it, so far as I am concerned, for I shall not make it.

Mr. Sumner. Then I shall begin to think the Senator cannot.

Mr. Edmunds. That is not a very dangerous state of things; but there are others who can.

The Senate decided the motion out of order,—Yeas 12, Nays 22.

July 13th, and again on the 15th, Mr. Sumner made another effort, by a resolution suspending the rule limiting business, so as to allow the consideration of this bill; but he could not get a vote on the resolution. The Senate rose without touching it.