Mr. HENDERSON. Sometime in theoarly part of January, the precise date I do not re member. The figures I use are taken from the census, and I may not state the objections just as Mr. Biaixssiated them. ldo substantially, forI happened to hear his remarks against the measurewhich hiid the ti“Pl0l)flllOXlof many west ern members, and which yet is thought by them to be the best. The real objection to it in my mind consists in cheapeuing the franchise to obtain political power. As I have Suit. however, the proposition died so soon as it was found that he East was to lose by it. I do not blame these Eastern entlemeu. They want the privilege to exc ude their women and mine rs from the suffrage, yet they want them counted in the basis of repremutation in the Federal Government. Atleast, they object to any penalty being imposed on them foitheirexclusion. ButIhasten on. something was to be done. The negro must be enfranchised, but the difficulty consisted in choosing words that would place the penalty for denying suffrage on the South, and yet let the North and East deny it with impunity. The next difficulty was to select words, that would act as a penalty on the South, without incur ring the prejudice aeainst negro suffrage in the North and East. Mr. Baum: finally obtained the happy words, and these happy words are now embodied in the proposition of the committee, which I have read. The 1st inquiry of the country will be, what object is contemilated by this amendment? What is to be e ected? After 6 or 7,000 million dollars have been expended, after mourning has been brought to almost every house in the land, after blood enough has been spilled to float our heaviest monitors, after the deepest interest has fixed itself in the public heart and intense anxiety is depicts on every face, it is simply contemptible to trifle with the sad earnestness of an intelligent people by the use of ambiguous language. hey have a right to know our meaning, the purport of our measures, and they will be satisfied with nothing less. This resolution is now before us, and many earnest Union men think it must be adopted that its defeat will be attended with great danger to the best interests of the country. Ilence, many will not stop to inquire what results may flow from it. I read it again: Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union accordingto their respectivenumbers.count cinludtihneg whole number of personsin each State exIndians nottaxed: Iruvidul, That whenever the elective franchise shall bedeniedor abridgedin any State on account of race or color. all persons therein of such raceor color shall beexcluded from the basisof representation. It will be observed that after the word “ Rep Representatives, ” the 1st word in the resolution, the committee have seen fit to drop the 3 words which follow in the text of the Constitution as it now stands. to wit, “and direct taxes." So if the amendment should pass, representation may be fixed on one basis and direct taxation on another. So jealous were our forefathers on this subject that they never thought for a moment of separating taxation and representation. In their judgment, such separation was tyranny. It was so declared throughout the revolutionary struggle, and at the time of the adoption of the Constitution a proposition like this, under which, a people paying full taxes, should have but half re re sentation, would have received no favor whatever. A direct tax would operate harshly against my State. It is a tax levied in proportion to the numbers of the people. he people in the newly settled States are generally poor, and a tax on each person of an equal amount may be paid easily by the rich men of the old settled States, while it would drive to poverty the people of the new. If the rich States of the At antic sea board, now having the power in consequence of the wicked ab sence and rebellion of the South, should be able to adopt a basis of representation under which they could pay the public debt by direct taxation, the West and South might be impoverished, while the people of NewEngland and the middle States won d grow yet richer. I shall watch rebel influence and keep it out of the councils of the nation. The North will be forced to join me in this, but in foolish fear of rebel influence I will not consent to run into this danger. My State is as much interested in this proposition, as the East is in having their women and mine rs represented in Congress. The loyal men of the South, robbed of their substance is rebel tyranny, will join Missouri loyalists in having this great debt paid, as far as possible, from the wealth of the country, and not wrung almost entirely from the sweat of oor men. The oor men go from the East to the est. the ric stay where they can enjoy the comforts ofan older civilization. I see no reason to run in base fear from antinegro aristocratic rebel influence into the hands of a moneyed aristocrac. But whence comes this eternal specter o rebel power, in Congress, to fri Men as from all propriety? I thought we had eter mined to reject all rebel organizations in the southern States, and to tolerate and recognize none but loyal Governments. If we do so, where is this rebel specter? It is, like many other ghosts, used for a purpose. I am not rid of such ghosts. The people of this counwill never sulfer any but loyal men to govern these southern States, and the sooner, the disloyal there know it, the better for them. I know they may give us trouble, and a great deal of it. But the loyal men will possess the country at all times. If I am right, then, this proposition is not so efficient, as a means of wea enin rebel influences, as to place, in the hands of the more wealthy States the power, to tax unjustly the loyal and disloyal white and black of the poorer States South and West. I acquit gentlemen, of course, of any such intention, but such may be the result. The answer comes back to me, all this maybe avoided by the simple act of justice to be performed by the States, the enfranchisement of the blacks. Well, is it right to enfranchise them? Do you say so? on do not so declare, but you expressly declare the right to disfranchise. You admit that a good reason may exist for the disfranchisement, and invite it by implication. Suppose the white southern landlords agree to accept your proposition. Suppose that they take diminished representation and unjust taxes by Congress, both upon themselves and the negroes, in lieu of the right which you propose to give them, the right to deny the negro representation in the State organizations and the privilege to fleece him from year to year of his hard earnings by unjust State laws? Has Missouri no interest in this bargain? Remember, if the negro is represented in congress, his interest is the same as that of my constituents. Our forefathers gave him a 3/5th s representation as a slave, and a full representation when free. This proposition offers a bargain by which the southern white may rob the negro, provided he, forhimselfand the negro, will consent to be robbed at the discretion of others. Massachusetts and SCarolina made a bargain once bpfore I mean the bar gain by which had: was legalized and man stealing carrie on y law until America was filled with slaves. Other people suffered by this thing. My State and others are likely to suffer by this new compact, and I think it best to have nothing to do with it. But I have said the people will ask what this amendment means. It can mean but one of two things. 1st, it is intended to deny representation to a non-voting population; or, 2nd, it is intended to secure suffrage to the as re. f the committee intend to secure the 1st object, it must be because of the existence of a correct living, vital principle in our Government, that a non-voting population in one of the States ought not to be represented in the Federal Government. If this e the design, I should like to ask on what principle the women, mi nors, and aliens are to be retained in the basis of representation? If any principle be involved, these, too, must be excluded from the enumeration in each State because they do not vote. If it be said that no principle is involved, but that it is a mere matter of temporary expediency, I answer that I will never give my sanction to a constitutional provision on any such considerations. If there be no principle involved, then the amendment should not be made. But whence comes this idea, I have alread asked, that a non-votin free poulation sha I not be represented in congress Every tradition of our fathers; every utterance by those who builded our institutions; every principle on which they are founded, utterly reject and condemn the idea as false and mischievous. Our fathers left the suffrage with the States. Sufifrage at that day was much more limited than itnow is. In some States only freeholders voted; in some the heads of families; in all a property qualification was necessary; in some the free negroes voted, in others they did not. Mr. Madison said: “The definition of the right of suffrage is regarded veryjustly asa fundamenta articleof republican govornmsnt and he says further: “ To havu reduced the differont qualiflcationsin the different Statesto one uniform rule would probably have been as dissatisfactory to sumpof the Statesas it would have been to the Convention." Hence the Convention left the suffrage question to the States, believin, in the language of Mr. Madison, that it could not be “fears that the people Of the States will alter this rt of their constitution in such amanner as to a ridge the rights secured to them by the Federal constitution." In this Mr. Madison and the good men of his day were deceived. The States in many instances, it is true, enlarged the right of sutfrage to the whites, but as slavery became profitable, the rights of the free negroes were radually abri ed, " until all, except some otg the NewEnglan States, denied them the suffrage. I infer from this language of Mr. Madison, if the Convention could have foreseen this revolution in sentiment, the child of avarice in the white man, and not the result of discovered incapacity in the black for the duties of citizenship, some provision would have been made to prevent this abridgment of the suffrage. I am left to infer as much from what he says, in the 39th number of the Federalist, in defining a republic. He says: "It is essential to such a Government that it be derived from the great body of the society not from an inconsiderablo proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise.a handful oft rancir nlnobles.exercising tmhiegirht oppressions by a ele ntion of their powers. as ire to the rank O republicansan claim for their ovornment the honorahlotitlo of republic.” These things were not provided against because they were not anticipated. hey have now come upon us, and it behooves us to rem edy the evil, not by saying the evil may continue and if it. does, we will add another evil to it, but by making our State governments truly republican representation was purposely made unequal in the Senate, but in the lower House it was purposely placed where the States could not alter it if they would. It was based, not on voters, but on the masses of pea le, old and young, black and white, sane an insane, excluding Indians not taxed and including 3/5ths of the slaves. There was a contest as to whether slaves should be represented in the Federal basis. There never was any contest as to free persons. All admitted the justice of including them in the ratio. In the fit y 4th number of the Federalist, Mr. Madison says: “It is not contendedthat the numberof peoplein eachState ought not.to be the standardfor regulating the proportion of thosewho are to representthe peopleof eachState." He says further, in that connection, that“ The establishment of the samerule for the apportionment of taxaswill probably be as little contested." Though he insists the rule in the latter case is not. founded on the same principle. This is true. Nobody can doubt that. representation should be based on population. Taxes may properly be based on wealth; but is it not monstrous that a proposition should be urged, at this day of experience in the science of gov ernment, proposmg that representation should be substantiu ly confined to voters, while taxation is urposcly leftto be apportioned on numbers? hfissouri has nowa greater population than Massachusetts. Massachusetts has 3 times her wealth. Under this rule Missouri will any larger taxes than Massachusetts and have less power in Congress. Mr. Madison said that representation should be based on population because “ the rule is understood to refer to the personal rights of the people. with which it has a natural and universal connection.” In the case of taxation, he said "the rule is in no case a precise measure and in ordinary cases a very unfit one.” The less wealthy States had to accept the rule in the case of taxation. It was then, and is now, hard enough. Butwhenlam asked to give uppolitieal power, that the practicalhpplication oi)un always unjust rule in taxation, now to be made odious, may be enforced against me, I cannot, I will not, consent. It is no answer to say that you mean well. If so, why not do well 3 The negroes of the South must be included in the ratio of Federal representation or we are no better than those who exclude them from the suffrage. You give their former owners the right to drive them from the ballot box, and the only punishment you propose is to robboth the oppressor and the oppressed of their money. It is a compromise that the whites may govern the blacks in the State governments of the South and wring from them sweat and tears, provided the northern and eastern States are permitted to control the national Government. his is a Government of the entire people. Women and mine rs have an interest in it. Your legislation acts upon them. It gathers taxes of them without asking them if their respective States permit them to vote. Why should they not O represented here, even thong they are not permitted to vote in the States? The Constitution provides that"The Congress shall have powarto lay and collect taxes.duties.irn osts, and exeisos.to pay the debts and provide for t o common defense and general welfare of the U.S. " If the negroes now in the State of Louisiana continue to live there with the whites, their pursuits will be of the same character as those of the whites. Whatever may be existing prejudices between the whites and the blacks, the future will develop an identity of interests. What is favorable to one will be favorable to the other. What is inurions to one will be injurious to the other. f the white man grows sugar cane and makes an r in Louisiana, the negro will do the same. I, in Alabama, the old planter or Yankee adventurer who will go down there, undertakes to grow cotton, the negro will grow cotton also, and the interests of the planter and the Yankee adventurer and the negro are identically the same. You cannot separate them. Have the women of Maine and Massachusetts no interest in the legislation of Congress? Do you dare say that thely are not interested as much as the men? of they not pay taxes? The Senfrom Massachusetts tol us the other day that James Otis said that taxation without representation is tyranny. The Senfrom hfin yland [Mr. ] ounsos] replied that this referred onlyto representation in the English Parliament, where we had none. But if the principle be true only as up lied in that case, how dare you make partia representation? If it be odious and tyrannica to deny representation entirely, the least diminution of it opens the door to wrong. Lead us not into temptation. Power is dangerous, when properly obtained. When unjustly obtained, it cannot exist, except in the corrupt elements which gave it birth.