Mr. ROGERS. I do say that no such construction as that can be ven the law, because it is a wellsettled prinnciple of construction that on must look at the intent and object of the Legislature which passed the law. n the construction of a law on must ascertain what was the mischief the cgislature intended to rem edy. That is the way to construe a law. It is a settled maxim of construction that the object and intent of the Legislature are to be ascertained by finding out the mischief it intended to remedy. What is the object of this amendm ent? What is the injury it is intended to prevent? The injury is that negroes are not allowed to vote on account of their race. The object, then, is to prevent that injury by annexing such a penalty to the continuance of the mischief as will eventually comel the States to grant to the negroes unqualified suffrage. Now, sir, if the States abridge the right o suffrage to the negroes, would not a true construction of this amendment make such action of the States a violation of the organic law, in this, that such action would prevent the aim and object of the law, and for that reason the States would lose their representation for such race? By refusing the States untrammeled sovereignty over the elective franchise you violate the great principle of democracy, that all the population in a country ought to be represented, although notal lowed to exercise the elective franchise. The withdrawal of that right ought not to deprive them of representation. o The object of this amendment is to remed his suppposed evil which the members of the republican party suppose exists in the Constitution in allowing to teStates in their sovereign capacity the right to control the elective franchiseeither to disallow it entirely, or to put such restriction on it as the States in their sovereign power may dictate. Therefore they claim that the Federal Government ought to take under its wings and under its control this sovereign power of a State by saying to it, “If you reuse to allow a certain portion of your population to vote, or impose conditions upon their voting, on account of race or color, you shall have no representation in the councils of this count for any of the people of that race or color.” Why, sir, was there ever anything so unjust in the annals of the history of legislation in this country? Was there ever anything proposed that strikes at the foundation of liberty ike this; that pours out the vials of despotic wrath so profusely upon the heads of the people of the southern States States which now, in my judgment, constitute allant stars in the alaxy of the glorious old niomof the U.S. as it cicisted before the commencement of civil hostilities in this land?