Mr. COWAN. Mr. President, I wish to state here my objection to any amendment to the Constitution upon this point. To me it isfundamental; it strikes at the veryvital part of the Constitution; it strikes at that part which is essential to the existence of the whole; it de stroys the freedom of the States; it destroys the RFG of the Stamf at was the struggle at the time the Coast: tution was formed IgIt was to create a Union of free States a general Federal Government such as we now enjoy. The 1st great design of the founders was to preserve the freedom of the States and to so bind them together that while they preserved that freedom they would still enjoy for certain general purposes the benefit of a consolidated Government. Whenever the U.S. undertake to say to the States “ You shall distribute the political power within your borders according to our dictation, ” that moment they violate their own guarantee that each State shall have a RFG, because the framers of the Constitution understood, and they have so said in the Federalist, that to have n constitutional form of government each State must make that government for itself. I cannot conceive of a plainer proposition than that. If a State is not at liberty to form its own government according to its own notions of propriety in that formation, it is not a free State; and it is of the essence of a free State that it distribute its political power as it chooses. It is just as much of the essence of a free State that it say who shall cast its bal lots as who shall hold its offices preciselythe same. Now, I ask you, Mr. President, and I ask any Senator in this Chamber, whether a State would be free if we could dictate to that State whom it should elect as its officers? certainly nobody would contend for that; and if we undertake to dictate to a State who shall be its electors that isequall a violation of its freedom. It is true 1: at the State chooses its electors by a general rule and chooses its officers by a particular vote; but the electors are just as much the depositaries of the political power of the State in the beginning as the officers are the depositaries of its power and authority in the end. It is idle to talk to me about a free State or to talk about the independence, of these States. as the framers of the Constitution understood it, if either the U.S or any other authority can interfere with them in the distribution of their political power within themselves. Why, Mr. President, if anybody has the power to say directl or indirectly to the State of Pennsylvania, “ on must allow 100,000 of your citizens who have been de prived of votin to vote, " is not that to introuce from ontsi e, ab extra, into Pennsylvania a power equivalent to 100,000 votes? Is she free if she submits to the dictation of this power ab extra? It seems to me to be a plain proposition. It is one of the fundamental principles of the Constitution, which is out of the reach of amendmentt because to amend it, to touch it, is to violate the spirit of the instrument itself and to violate its own guarantee. What was the force of that guarantee? When we guarantied to the States a RFG we guarantied their freedom; we guarantied that they should do the very thing you are now tryin to take away from them; we guarant ied that they should, as to the distribution of their own political power, be free; and now, in the face of that guarantee, can we claim the right to say to them that they shall let this class or that class or the other class of their people vote? Mr. President, when this is done there is no U.S.A., there will be no States, the whole will be consolidated and ag glomerated into one great government, and you will lose all the advantage that you have erctofore derived from the checks and bal ances which are to be fOund in the fact that the States are free. This power is essential to the very existence of a ree State. Whether a State exercises it right or whether she exercises it wrong, is not the question. It lies there at the very foundation of the fabric, imbedded in the Constitution itself, and to move 1t, to attempt to move it, to touch it in an way, is to destroy the very base of the whole abric. It is not amending the Constitution in form; it is not like amending the Constitution in so far as a great legal principle is concerned; but it is amending the Constitution in touching with intent to destroy the very thing that the r Constitution itself was made to subserve and i to support. I know a great many say that because we have guarantiecl to the States a RFG, therefore we must supervise their forms in order to see that they are republican. Mr. President, the guarantor is on y bound to discharge his guarantee when he is called upon by the arantied. No guarantor ever interferes With the guarantied and says, “ I am going to perform and discharge or guarantee.” Nobody ever does that. It will be time enough for us to discharge this guarantee when some State comes here and says to us, “ We have been interfered with." We ask, “Are you not free to form your State government as you choose?” “ No.” “ ell, who has interfered with you?” Whoever cre ates that interference, we the U.S. are bound to interfere against and to prevent it; but we have no more warrant to interfere our selves than any outside power has authority to interfere. These are my objections to any amendment to the Constitution touching the basis of Representation. It is out of our reach. It is true that some of these amendments do not do this directly, but they hold the whip over. the head of the States and they say, “If you do not give suffrage to a certain class, we will deprive you of representation prolento to the same extent, ” which is the same thing. I trust that no one of these attempts to destroy the freedom of the States will prevail. That freedom to me is worth more, 1,000times over, than all that is expected to be gained by this digging about the very foundation and corner stone of the Constitution. This is temporary, but that is for eternity. The freedom of the States is necessary to the perpetuation of the fabric; and the moment that is gone, the fabric itself ceases to be as it was originally established.