Mr. CHANLER. Mr. Speaker, A review of the history of the Convention that framed the constitution will bring us to the conclusion that the motives of our fathers were different from those which seem to have actuated the select committee which reported this measure. The constitution as offered to the people for ratification was submitted after a long, serious, and even turbulent debate. This very question of representation, involving as it does the basis of the Government in the systemiinder which we live, and involving as it does the rights of persons and property, not only gave rise to long and earnest debate, but was subjected to great modification and compromise. It involved, not only the structure of this House, but of the senate and the election of the President; and I look in vain in the constitution for the power which will admit the passage of this measure. (Cur tiss HistOry of the Constitution, volume 2, page 473 et seq.) Let me read, sir, from Our Curtia's History of the constitution (volume 2, page 145) the record of the proceedings in the Convention: "As the States were now exactly divided on the guestion whether there should be an equality of votes in the 2nd branch of the Legislature. some compromise seemed to be necessary, or the effort to make a constitution must be abandoned. A conversation as to what was expedient to be done, resulted in the appointment of a committee of one member from each state to devise and report some mode of adjusting the whole system of representation. According to the Virginia plan, as it then stood before the Convention. the right of suffrage in both branches was to be upon some equitable ratio, in proportion to the whole number of free inhabitants in each Statento which 3/5ths of all other persons, except Indians not paying taxes, were to be added. Nothing had been done to fix the ratio of representation; and although the principle of popular representation has been affirmed by a majority of the Convention as to the 1st branch, it has been rejected as to the 2nd by an equally divided vote by the Senate. The whole subject, therefore was now sent to a comCompromise. who held it under consideration for three days. The same struggle which had been carried on in the convention was renewed in the committee: the one side contendining for an inequality of suffrage in both branches, the other for an inequality in both. Mr. Franklin at length gave way, and proposed that the representation in the 1st branch should be accordingto a fixed ratio of the inhabitants of each State computed according to the rule already agreed it in the 2nd branch each State should have an equal vote. The membersof the larger States reluctantly acquiesced in this arrangement; the members of the smaller States, with one or two exceptions. considered their point gained. When the reportcameto bemade it was foun that the committeehad not only agreed upon this as a compromise. but that they madea distinction of some importanes between the of the 2 branches, roawpeer]? y confiningto the 1st the powerof originating all bills orraising or ii propriatin money and for filing the ltllllw of o cars of the government, and by providing that such bills should uot bealteredor amendedinthe2ndbranch. This was intended for a Statesto the larger. The croanti cession by the smaller of representation in the House was fixed by the committoe at onemember for every 40,000 nhabitants, in which 3/5ths of the s aveswereto be computed; each State not possessing that. number of inhabitants to be ul low edonemember. The number of Senatorswasnot desigated. THis arrangement was, upon the whole, reasonable and equitable. It balance the equal representation of the states in thaSenate against the popular representationin the llouse, and it gave to the argerStates an important influence over the appropriations of money and the levying of taxes.” fl “The scale of apportionment of Representatives, recommendedin the report of the committee. was also objectedto on various grounds. It wassaid that amererepresentation of persons was not what the circumstancesof the caserequiredthat property as well as personsought to be taken into the accountin order to obtain it Just index of the relative rank of the States. It was also urged. thutif the system of representationwere to besettledon a ratio confined to the population alone, the new States in the West would soon equal and probably outnumber. the At iltayntic States and thus the latter wouldbein amine r forever. For thesereasons. c subject of apportioning the Representatives was recommitted to 5 members. who subsequently proposeda scheme, by which the 1st HoRep should consist of 56 members. distributed among theStates upon an estimate of their present condition and authorizing the Legislature, as future circumstances might. reauireJo increasethe number of Representatives, an to distrito them among the Statesupon a compoundratio o heir wealth and the numbersof their inhabitants. The latter partofthis proposition was adopted, but a new and different apportionment, of 65 members for the 1st meeting 01 the Legislature. was sanctioned by a large vote of the States, utter a 2nd reference to a committee of one memberfrom eachState.” “Twice had the Convention aflirmed the propricty of connting the slaves, if the Stateswere to e represented according to thenumbersof their inhabitants and on the part of the slaveholding States there had hitherto beenno dissatisfaction manifested with the old proportion of 3 lifths, originally proposedunder the Confederationas a rule for including themin the basisof taxable property. But the ideawasnew advanced, that numbers of inhabitants were not a sufficient measureof the wealth of a State, and that in adjusting a system of representationbetweensuch Statesas thoseof the American Union. reardshould be had to their relative wealth, since those which were to be the most heavily taxed ought to have a proportionate influence in the Government. Home the plan of combiningnumbers and wealth in the rule. This was mainly on expedientto prevent the balance of power from assing to the western from the Ab lantie States. i wassupposedthat the formermight in progressof time have the larger amount of population; but that, as the latterwould at the commencement of the Governmenthnvethe powerin theiro wn bands, they mightdeal out the right of representation to new Statesin such proportions as would be most for their own interests. From the nbove historical statement it will be found that the framers of the constitution considered the question of suffrage of so vital in parlance in fixing the balance of power between the States that it was, after full discussion in Congress by the whole body, referred to a select committee. of one from each State, again reported and fully discussed, and then referred to a committee of 5, whose thorough examination of the subject gave rise to new difficul ties, and caused the matter to be referred to another committee of one member from each State. All differences were compromised in a spirit of patriotism and justice. I How different is all this from the hasty partisan legislation on this very suffrage question by the present Congress. A caucus met before Congress organized and chalked out a line of policy and action for the Republican party on the floor of Congress. The whole matter of reconstruction was referred to a grinding committee, whose dictation should govern Congress in every measure brought be ore it for consideration. Is this wise, just, or reasonable? I will pass now to the quality of the resolution; and I do so with deference to the learned gentleman who presented the resolution, and whose energy and industry, let me say, deserve the approbation of that side of the House, if not of the whole country. I have no reason to cavil with the gentleman for his zeal in a cause that is right, but I certainly feeljustified in rebuking a zeal which is unust. ir, if what I have just read has force; if the Convention was correct in providing that property and persons should be the bases of representation in the national Congress, I hold that this resolution is too narrow to be of use and too weak to last. It will totter to an untimely ave, and hobble, a feeble and contemptible instrument, from this Congress to every State Legislature to which it may be submitted, to be rejected for its feebleness in. a time like this, amid the overwhelming issues which agitate this country. Sir, the Gentfrom RhdIsland [Mr. JENCKES] has pointed out to the House the absoliite inutilit of this amendment, which seeks madly to strieablow at the inequality which has been caused by slavery, an institution that is now dead and buried, and by this time stink eth in the nostrils of the people. What motive lies beneath this measure which is proposed to be executed by the stringent rule of the majority in their caucus legislation? Upon its face it seems to bee. mask under which contempt of all restriction and all limitation shall be heaped upon the laws of Congress regulating suffrage. In this proposition with a wooden head there lurks some machinery fatal in its intention but harmless in its result toward foreign immigration. The gentleman who offered it presents it to this House as a measure of pecu iar protection against the Irishman and the German. Sir, it is a question of race, and I respect the proposition as thus presented. But in debating the exclusive character of this resolution, it is race that is brought before us for discussion. I claim that under this wording of the constitution the Irishman, the German, the French man, and the American, are one so soon as the foreigner becomes a citizen. This country is the refu e of and is maintained for the white race, as has been so fully demonstrated here in debate, and as is admitted in this resolution. If this is not the white mans Government why bring in an amendment to secure the rights of those who are not recognized by the Constitution? But, sir, to exclude the immigrant is the motive, I firmly believe, of the agitators of this measure. The whole history of slaveryia this country corroborates that view. I will quote from a (portion of that punk literature which was use to light up the tires of civilWar the statistics heaped up by one of the radical authors whose book was used by the a tators previous to the rebellion to intihme the sectional prejudices of the North against the South. From that fountain they borrowed all the material they had to prove that antipathy existed between the white and black laborer. The some facts used than, if true, will result now in the exclusion of the white laborer of the Northeast and West, will eventually give the finest and fairest land in the South to the black man in perpetuity to the exclusion of the white workingmen of this country. The question which this country has to meet in regard to the black race is how to secure emigration of that race from the South. T hcy must nit the soil. To arcel out to the black race terichest lands in the southern country is unjust to the white laborer and a mockery. The white immigrant must be accured in a preemptive right of the SOll on this continent. Sir, one of the blue lights of the wonderful galaxy which illuminated the pages of fanatical literature I have now in my hand, entitled “Olinsteds Scaboard Slave States"capital authority on the other side of the Houseun exceptionable, carrying With it conviction without reading it. Every fact contained in this book is accepted by the radicals as doubly true on this subject and every opiiiion Will be accepted as unpolluted by any anaticism or false hood by them. Olmsfcad says, after traveling through all the seaboard States, visiting them by turn: “ Man is a socialaniihal. The largest part of the labor required in Virginia 15 and long has been performed bynegroes. “hc negroesare isdegradedpeo ple; deirraded not merely by position, but nctnally itnmora lowlived: without healthy ambition: but. little inlluenced by high moral considerations, and, in regard to labor. not rill ntfectedby regard for duty. This is universally recognizedhnddebusiuiz fear. not cheeringhope is in general allowed to be their only stimulant to exertion.“ "Now, let the white laborer come here from the North or from Europe: his nature demands asocial life: shall he associateWith the poor, slavish. de gralled, low lived, despised, unambitious negro, with whomlahor and punishmentare almostsynonymous? or shall he he the jricnd and companion of the white man, in whosemind labor is habitually associated with no ideasofduty. responsibility. comfort, luxury cultivation, orclcyntion and expansion eitherpfmiiid or estate, as it is where the ordinary laborer is a free manfreeto usehis labor as a means of obtaining all these and all else that is to be respected. honored, or envied in the World?. “Associatin with either or both, is it not inevitablethat hewil be rapidly demoralized f that hewill soon learnto hatelabor, give aslittle of it for his but) as he can. become base, cowardly faithlcss worso than a nigger?” He led you into the fanatical fields of blood shed, where you have glutted all your hate against the South. Now, sir, the influence of the black race on American civilization has been paripassu With the progress of the white civilization of this country and another distinguished blue light is one Hel er, another of your probetsprophets of Baa, who cried on their go to come and help them. He says, in reviewmg this whole question: “The incontrovertible facts which I presentedare. as think. amply sulfichieanvet, tbhoutshfainr number and magnitude, to bllllK conviction to the mind of eve candid reader that there is something wrong, social y. politically, and morally wrong. in the policyunder which theSoiith has so long loitered and oapnegrautisiohned. Elso liow is it that the North, nudertho surpassed of sainpaollmicoysdti every thing prpeoastiatenodfgoouored, has left us standing and reprchciision beforethe world an object of merited For one nndrlcrisionf we are heartily ashamedof the in excusableweakness. inertia and dilapidation everywhereso manifcst throughoutour native section: butthe blame properly attaches itself to a nsurpinir minority of the people, and we are deterniinedtbat it shall restwhere it belongs. More on this subicct, howoVor, after a brief but. general survey of theinequality anihlisparity that extst between these 2 grand divisions of the country, which, without referenceto the situation of any part of their territory or to the cardinal points, areever day becoiiiipgmorefamiliarly known bytho gppropgiste appellation of the free and the slave totes. Sir, if this resolution takes effect, you surrender to the black race of the South control in the legislative halls in the southern States: by the policy and practical working of all such measures you exclude white labor, and by the exclusion of white labor you give the control of the ballotbox to the negro who will here after, by this system of enactments, become the majority of the people under the democratic and established law of our whole policy and the constitution, and we must bow to the will of the people.ingraft the black man into the term “)eo pic” and you surrender the South to the by ack race, and the question comes up not between slave and free, but between black and white. Now, sir, in regard to the relative condition of the country, I ere give coin arative statements taken from a report may e by General Pinckney to the Legislature of SCarolina, found in Elliots Debates, (sec Curtiss History of the constitution, volume 2, pages 168, 169) and also an abstract from the census of 1850: Naticaqgfthe llner States in the free States, mulnariva the frevState:in the slave States, 185). Natives QfolaveSlam. Native: offree Sales. California Alnliinun 494; Connecticut. Arkansas Illiiiois. Delaware. Indiana. Florida. Iowa. Georgia. Maine. Kentucky MMiacshsiagcahnusetts I LOHl$lflnfl. 3, !!34Maryland. NewHampshire. ” 215 Mississippi. NewJersey. 4. 11!plHSSOUH. ” NewYork“ 2. 620 NCarolina. hio 2. 319 SCarolina. 2. 42 Pennsylvania 47. 180 Tennessee. RhdIsland 98?. Texas. Vermont 140 Virginia. Wisconsm 6, 353 o "This last. table. compiled from page 116of the com)endiuui of the 7th Census. shows. in a most loci and starth ng manner. how iicgroes, slavery. an slaveholders are driving the native non-slave holing whites away from their homes and keep at a distance other decent people. From the Son the tide of emigration stil flows in awesterly and northwesterly dircchpn and it will continue to do so until slavery is abolished. The following remarks, which whcextract from uneditorial article that appoured in the Memphis tTennessee) Bulletin, near the close of the year 1850, are worth considering in th“is connection: We have never before observed so large a nnmber of immigrants going westward as are crossing the river at this point daily. the 2 ferryboatssonietimes 3 genie crowded from curly morn until the boats ccase mnking their trips at night. It isno uncom monsighttoscc from 20 to 40 wagons eneam edon the cliff for the night. notwithstanding there i beena. stcady streams wing neross the river all day: and yet the cry in. Still they come. " These statements show that the effect of black labor has been to cause emigration from the slave States, and that wherever this cloud of black labor has rested upon the soil it has driven the white intelligent masses of the South away to the western and southwestern States, and to the Pacific coast. If the black laborer of the South is raised to the position of a citizen, with the right of suffrage, the same result must follow from the same cause, which is to be found in the instinctive antipathy of the white laborer to work with the black laborer in a section where the blacks are in a majority and degrade labor. Hear what Helpersa s further on this always bearing in mind that slavery, altpoouingth, dead. has, left the negro a dependent and igno rant being: “As shown by the census report of 1850. which was grepared under the superintendence of anative of SCarolina. who certainly will not be suspected of injustice to his own section of the country. the sine iurtihmeprlne Smtaetnetss. athnedemasahc hving ae. Rlyuocifna Pennsyvania twaurm $422, 508, 64toh;e value of the samei. nSCarolina, in the same year, was only 886. 518. 033F8rom a compendium of the same census. we learn that the valpe of all thereal and personal propertyin Pennsylvania, actual propert, no slaves. amounted tp lhc vn no of 723. 144. 93: the estimate tdowsae wmereeinab SCarolina. oulnsCllvdaIfllufle of 384. 92 ncgroes amountedto only $288. 257. 694W. e have not beenable to obtain the figures necessary to show the exact value of the real and personal estate in Philadelphi. but the amount is estimated to be not less than, (Xltlfitl) and as in 1850there were 408. 762 free inhabitants in the single city of Philadelphia. against 213. 5“ of the same class in the whole i tale of SCarolina, it is quite evident that the formeris morepowerful than the latter, and far ahead of her in all the elements of gepuine and permanent superiority. In Pennsylvania. in 1850, the annualin come of public schools amounted to $1, 348. 26;the samein SCarolina, in the sameyear, amounted to only In the former State there were 393 libraries other than private. in the latter qnl 23; in Pennsylvania 310 newspapers and periodica s published. circulating 84. 898. 67c2opies annuallyw: erine SCarolina only 46 newspapers and periodicals were published. simulating but 7.145.930 copies perann. “m lucontroyortible facts we have thus far presonted arc. wo think, amply sufficient, both in number and magnitude to bring conviction to the mind of every candid reader that there is somethingwronr socially, politically and morally wrong in the policy under which the South has so long, loitered and languilllltd. Else. how is it that the North. under the optrationsofa policy directly the opposite of ours. ha! Surpassed us in almost everything great and good and V1866. 383 left us stspding before the world m object of merited rerchensim and derision? For one, we are heartily ashamed of the morons able weakness. inertia, and dilapidation eve where so manifest throughout our native section: at the blame hproperl attaches itself to n usurping minority oft a peep c and we are determined that it shall rest whereit belongs. More on this subject. howsvpr, after a brief but general survey of the inequalities and disparities that exist betwcen those two great divisions of the country, which, withont referenceto the situation that any part of their territory bears to the cardinal points, are every day becoming more familiarly knownby the appropriate appellation of the free and slave States.” clper, p. 19. Sir, it was stated by the Gentfrom Pennsylvania yesterday, in his remarks when. resenting this resolution, that it wasdesirable oppress it upon the country in order that there might be prompt action on the part of Legislatures that might otherwise adjourn. I doubt the wisdom of any such effort to force the Legislatures to act. We are here as the Representatives of the people, and not as their compelliu power. this not our duty tor anticipate the will of the people, but to obey it; and if there is any safety in our legislation, if there is any security in the future for this House and for the system of government under which we live, it isiu adhering to the strict character of a representative Government, and avoiding all these dangers that beset us in the course of our tendency toward centralization. Cen tralization, sir, is the constant and direct tend ency of all these measures. The temperof the people just come from the stern and bloody conflict of a civilWar is not calm and sedate. The people are scarcely free from the opressive laws which a militar despotism lai upon them mountain high. he innocent and the guilty, Union men and rebels alike were held own by the military despotism which necessity forced upon the country and now, when the hand of power isjust loosed from the throats of the people, and before they are allowed time to breathe freely, you rush uponthem, and demand immediate and prompt action on questions which involve the greatest interests oft is country. the interests of every individual not on] in the South but in the North, questions which have occupied the long and serious deliberation of the wisest and best men that the country has ever produced. Sir, a great deal is said upon the other side with regard to the soldier element in this country. A constant appeal is made by gentlemen upon that side to the soldiers of the Union. Sir, it is our especial boast that the people of this country, imitating the noble exam is of Washington, when their liberties and nion had been secured, laid down the sword and retired to the full exercise of their duties as citizens. This apeal to the soldier now, when he is discharinglliis duties as a citizen, is inflammatory i it is not unwise, and is certainly unbecoming the Representatives of the peOple. The greatest power of the people exists in the exercise of their rights as citizens, not in the exercise of the power of the soldier. The question of representation, which is as sailed by this JtResolution, is one which has ahistory peculiar to American institutions and in violating that rineiple we are drifting back to that period oi2 histor when Roman olity ruled the world. One whohas, perhaps, a most asmuch experience and learning as the chairman of the ComReconstruction, who stands as high in the government of his own country, and shows more learning, perhaps, in constitutioual law, Lord Broughoni, says in reviewing this question of representation: “It is exceedingly instructive to examine narrowly the Roman provincial policy, because it showstowhat Various devices the republic was driven" They were republicans and not democrats; there is a distinction, deep and broad, between the 2 systems of government " to what various devices the republic wasdrivenin order that it might be enabled to extend its dominion while its constitution remained unchanged. It illustrates. in. striking manner. the grand difference between ancient and modern policy, introduced by the happy contrivaucc of representation.” Sir, the grand distinctive policy of this Government isthat all power arises from the people, and that all power that descends upon the people is exceptional and hostile to the spirito our constitution and to the whole system of our Government in form and in spirit. whhen the Romans conquered any portion of their neighboring territory they fixed upon that territory a systemof provisional government, and fixed it upon them or all time. They held them by military power and excluded them from any exercise of power in their Government. gore the hammer fell.] 1. BAKER obtained the floor.