Mr. JOHNson. What is the right to do wrong? Let me tell the honorable member it is wrong in one sense, for the State of RhodeIsland to have two Senators here and for the State of NewYork to have but two. Why is it not wrong? Is it right in the abstract, not in the particular? If the honorable member cannot say that it is right, then he admits that it is wrong. What is the wrong? The wrong here is said to be the exclusion from the franchise of certain of her citizens. Is it wrong to exclude the female, who is not included in this amendment? Is it wrong to exclude because of age or because the parties have reached a certain age? That is not pretended by this amendment. Is it wrong to enforce a oqualification? That is not pretended by this amendment. Is it wrong to require any specific residence for the voter or for the party to be voted for? That is not included in this amendment. And yet in each of such provisions the man who is under 21 may, in one sense, be said to suffer a wrong because he is denied a right; the woman under or over 21 may be said to suffer a wrong; and the honorable member from missouri is evidently of that opinion, and he ought to include them in this amendment; because, if I recollect aright, the other day he voted to admit the female to the right of suffrage upon the ground that that was right. If it was right to admit them to exercise the suffrage here in the DistCol it is right to admit them to exercise the suffrage in the contemplated State of Nebraska; and being right the failure to give it, if the honorable member has the authority to give it and he says he has is a wrong; and yet he does not propose to redress that wrong. Upon that point, then, I conclude with saying that in my judgment there is nothing in the power which we have to admit new States which justifies our incorporating into the constitutions which they present any such condition as is contained in the amendment offered by my friendfrom Missouri. I now proceed, Mr. President, with the indulgence of the Senate and yourself, to say a word upon the other ground on which I understand the power to adopt an amendment of this description is placed, upon that part of the the Constitution of the U.S. which has been termed very correctly the guarantee section or the guarantee clause. If it can be maintained under that clause, it can only be because a constitution which denies to any of the citizens the right to vote is not republican. That would lead to very perilous consequences. What State is there in the Union that admits every body to vote who has the age and the residence which their laws require, even supposing they have a right to prescribe age and residence? Not one, as far as I am advised. Which of the States represented in the Convention of 1787, and which afterward adopted through their people the Constitution framed by that convention, admitted all to vote who had the prescribed age and residence? Not one. Most of them required a property qualification, more odious than anything. as the people afterward were taught to believe; correctly or not, I do not stop to inquire. Were they, and are those States where it does now exist, republican States? Is the want of the universal right of voting a want which makes the constitution of the State where it exists other than republican? Or, to use the language of the clause, does it cease to be of a republican form? If it is not of a republican form now, it was not then. Now, let us see where that will lead us; into what, I was about to say, absurdity that necessarily conducts us. The clause, it is said, by which the U.S. guaranty to every State in this Union a RFG embraces forms of government existing in the States then or thereafter which did not admit to an equal right of suffrage all the citizens. Do you think that was the view of the Convention? In the 1st place, how were they selected? Selected by the people of the States, or the Legislatures of the States then in existence. They represented, therefore, their respective States. Their object was, not to destroy, not to change the forms of government which their States had adopted, but to preserve and to protect them nothing else. The inefficiency of the Articles of Confederation had been demonstrated. Life, liberty, and happiness, which the DeclarIndep proclaimed to be inalienable, were, it was supposed, in imminent jeopardy because of the demonstrated inefficiency of the Government of the Confederation; and the Convention therefore met to accomplish what, as they declared in the preamble to the constitution, they thought they had accomplished, provisions for the organization of a Government which would form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity, of course, for ever. Did they propose to accomplish that, and did they think they had accomplished it by framing a Constitution which was to annul it in a particular which every man in every State claimed to be an invaluable right, the authority of the State to regulate suffrage for itself? The result would be that a Government in tended to be composed of States, under a constitution which said that the U.S. was to guaranty to every State a RFG in its very birth, not only commu nicated a power to the U.S., but made it the duty of the U.S. to assail every State constitution. A power to guard against domestic violence, a power to bring about a more perfect Union, a power to establish justice, and to secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity forever, is supposed to have been intended for the purpose of vesting in the Government created for the very purpose of accomplishing these ends the power to destroy the governments who were thus to be more absolutely united together That cannot be so. But is there a doubt about it? Contemporary construction, to be ascertained by what is not done as well as by what is done, is a familiar rule of interpretation, not only persuasive, but controlling. Was it ever attempted before? Never. Manhood suffrage, as it is termed, a right supposed to exist in the mere fact of man hood, became in many of the States a subject of party contest, and it prevailed. Universal manhood suffrage almost was granted; limited suffrage was destroyed; property was no longer considered as necessary to give the right; it was supposed to be found in the fact that man was man, and had a right to a voice in the government which was to control or to have authority over his rights as a man. But this question was debated among the States interse. Nobody ever dreamed that the U.S. had any authority, and the U.S. not only never attempted to exert it, but as far as I am advised, (and I believe my knowledge upon the subject is accurate,) no member of Congress mntil the last few years ever suggested it. And even now the committee of 15, of which I was a member, in the measures which they thought proper to adopt and recommend, did not under take to interfere with the right of the States to regulate the suffrage. They forbore to do that; and they forbore to do it upon the ground that it was a right which not only belonged to the States, but which should belong to the States. All that they did was to provide, and that by a constitutional amendment, necessarily therefore conceding that the Constitution as it stands gave no such power, that upon the adoption of that amendment, which would then become a part of the Constitution, the representation of a State that might exclude from the right of suffrage any portion of its citizens should in that proportion be reduced; and that is all. But who was to vote was left to the States just as it was before. It has never been pretended by anyone, except by one or 2 gentlemen who seem to be in advance of the age, and, if I might be permitted to say so, of any age that we never know, that it would be conducive to the interest of the whole that the Government of the U.S. should have the power to regulate the right of suffrage in the States. How would it be in California or Nevada or Oregon? What my brother from Oregon [Mr. WILLIAMS] asks, perhaps, cannot be accomplished. He proposed a resolution this morning to regulate or to prohibit the immigration of the Chinese into the States on the Pacific. Suppose he cannot do it. I doubt very much whether he can. That is a subject, however, on which I must not be understood as giving an opinion. Suppose it cannot be accomplished. They are there now to a large extent and cannot be driven out except for crime. I suppose that will be conceded. One of these days some gentleman who is as fond of party as my friendfrom Michigan, may find it necessary to the success of a presidential election to have the Chinese vote. How is he to do it? Nevada will not let him vote; Oregon will not permit him to vote; California will not permit him to vote. Oh, but party looms up; “the Chinese will adopt my policy, ” my friendfrom Michigan has a “policy” as well as President Johnson, and “my President cannot be elected unless they are authorized to vote.” Well, as you in Oregon will not do what is right, as you are blind to the interest of party, you must be made to do what is right; you must be made to do something that will inure to the interests of party; and if I cannot do it in any other way, if I cannot get the Constitution amended, I will invoke the guarantee clause. The constitution of Nevada, that of Oregon, that of California excludes the Chinese who are men I do not suppose even my friendfrom Missouri supposes they are women [laughter] from the right of suffrage. Each of them is not a government republican in form, and our duty is to have it so; and as the honorable member from Michigan said in his speech today, the duty being imposed on Congress, and the power with which to perform that duty being given to Congress to guaranty to each State a RFG, it can only be done, Congress having no other power, by means of legislation, and we will by legislation provide that my friend's [Mr. WILLIAMs's] voting constituents shall be these Chinese! How long would the people of the Pacific States remain in the Union? They are loyal I know, as loyal as any States in the Union, as wedded to it, as determined not to leave it; but how long would it be before they would lose their love for it if Congress was to undertake to say that they should be subjected even to the votes of the Chinese who are there now, or to that immense mass of Chinese population that is sure to spread itself over these Pacific States, if they are permitted to become immigrants to the U.S.? I do not think they would stay an hour, unless they have some peaceable remedy not exercising any right of secession, that is dead, but exercising that inherent right which belongs to every State and every people to war against tyranny. Now, Mr. President, a word or 2 upon the actual meaning of that clause. The senate will see by looking at the clause that it really contains 3 guarantees. The 1st is a RFG; the 2nd is to protect the States from invasion from without; the 3rd is to protect them against domestic violence. The latter power is not to be exerted unless the government, where the domestic violence arises, calls upon the Executive through the Governor, if the Legislature is not in session, or the Legislature calls upon the Executive here for aid. The other 2 are absolute to guaranty, a RFG how, when, through what instrumentality the clause does not tell us to guard each State against invasion. That we can understand, although the clause does not tell us. It can only be by meeting the invader and driving him from the limits of the State. To protect each State against domestic violence when called for in the manner provided for by the clause we can also ascertain; it is to put it down. But what is the “form of government” which is included in the clause? What is the government? if I understand it, it is not to protect the Governor or the executive officers, whoever they may be, or the legislative dept of the State from any violence, for that is included in the provision that the government is to be protected from such violence. What, then, does it mean? It means this and only this: whenever the criminal ambition of those who are in the possession of it induces them to pervert its powers and to assail the people, that the people are to be protected against any change in the form of government that may be brought about by such causes. There is nothing more clear than that, as I think. Take the State of my friendfrom Oregon [Mr. WILLIAMs] by way of illustration. I do not select that because it is more likely to hap pen there than anywhere else. The government does not mean the constitution; that remains; but the government existing by force of the constitution coming into power under its provisions turn traitors to it; they assume the tyrant, violate the rights of the citizen, usurp powers not granted, exert powers prohibited, and establish as among themselves a government wholly discharged from all the guards and protection which belong to the constitution under which they came into power, and that government is not republican in form. It becomes known to the U.S.; the people complain; they want to be protected; and the contingency then happens, and then happens for the 1st time, when it becomes the i. of the General Government to stand between the usurped government and the people over whom they are tyrannizing, and reestablish the government which was republican in point of form, by protecting the people against its abuse and the substitution of another which was not republican in point of form. There must be some mode by which you are to ascertain whether any government is republican in point of form for this very obvious consideration: the U.S. are to guaranty each State a RFG. My friendfrom Massachusetts says, and my friend who offers this amendment says, that to exclude the black man from voting shows that the government is not republican in point of form. Why? Was he not excluded when the Constitution was adopted in every State in the Union, or almost every State in the Union? Yes. Did not the States that adopted it do it under the impression that they were States republican in point of form? Did not the Convention that inserted in the Constitution this guarantee go upon the assumption that the States were republican in point of form? Why, certainly, unless they intended to break up all the States. That we know they did not intend; and not intending that, can it be supposed that they designed by this clause to place it in the hands of Congress to decide from time to time, as passions might be excited, party spirit prevailed, the exigencies of party success demanded, to interfere with the State governments by bringing into the enjoyment of the elective franchise those whom the States had excluded? Not only that, if the proposition is true it goes a step further than that; if possible, infinitely further. Does it give to the U.S. the authority to interfere with any of the existing rights belonging to the States at the time they adopted the Constitution? If it did, then every thing was thrown afloat; the U.S. then, by its Congress, is to become a great convention, not only to deliberate for the interest and safety of the people of the U.S., but for what they may believe from time to time is to be the interest and the safety of the people of each State in the management of its own domestic concerns. There is a rule, and it is the only rule, as I think, consistent with what must have been the intention of the Convention and of the people, and that is this: that every government is republican in point of form which corresponds with the governments in existence when the Constitution was adopted. All rights secured by positive constitutional provision, all powers prohibited by positive constitutional. that were secured or prohibited in the several State constitutions of the States whose representatives framed the Constitution and whose people adopted the Constitution, are perfectly consistent with our idea and the people's idea of what constitutes a RFG. There is no other rule by which you can construe the clause that will not place every State in the power of the U.S., exercising that power through the Congress of the U.S., which from time to time that body may think actually or professedly will conduce to the interest of the people of each State, and give them what they consider to be a government republican in point of form. Mr. President, no Constitution can endure even for years, much less for the future when our posterity will be here &nd we gone, which contains such a power in the General Government. Leave to the States the rights and the powers existing in the States that formed the constitution, and leave them all in the same condition in relation to the States who have in the past become members of the Unjon or who may in the future become members of the Union, and the country will endure. Some one State, by the folly of its people, or some sections may seek to fo it and to destroy it, but the last 5 years show that such an effort will be futile, will inure in nothing but in desolated households, ravaged fields, and the annihilation for the time of all the subjects of enterprise and of industry, which it will take years to revive. I have no fear, therefore, unless we commit, or those who are to follow us commit, outrages upon the rights of the people which will authorize them, in the exercise of the inherent power of revolution, to rise up in their majesty and establish another form of Government, or rather to insist upon having preserved the Government in the form which our fathers intended unless that is done, I have no fear but that the political institutions of the U.S. will endure for ages and I trust forever, extending as they now do from ocean to ocean, distributing their blessings everywhere, and enabling them with perfect assurance to feel no apprehension, and that they never will be called upon to feel any apprehension against any violence from within or any invasion from abroad.