Mr. CONKLING. Mr. Speaker: “Representativesand direct taxes shall be apportioned among the so veralStateswhich may be included within this Union accordingto their respective numbers, which shall bedeterminedby addingtothe twohsoelervnicuemfobrear otferfmreeopeyresaornss. adnndeludingthose bound not. taxed, 3/5ths of all other epxecrlsuodnins. gInCdoiaanms union. art. 1, sec. 2. This is the provision by which apportionment and representation have till now been regulated in the U.S. It is one of the compro mises of the constitution. Strange as it may seem to the Gentfrom NewJersey, [Mr. Hoosnsfl itowes its existence to the same principle asserted in the pending amendment. What is that principle? That political representation does not belong to those who have no political existence. The government of a free political society belongs to its members, and does not belong to others. If others are allowed to share in its control, they do so by express concession, not by right. It was this principle which rendered necessary such a provision as I have read. It was thisprinciple which brought that provision into our national charter. The slaves of the South were not members of that political society which formed the constitution of the U.S. They were without personal liberty, and therein they were withouta natural right, not a political right; but they were also Without poiitical rights and therefore they were not members of the political communit. From this it followed that they were not to be represented as members. from this it followed that political power was not to be apportioned by treating them as political persons. Natural persons they were, producers they were, and the product of their labor was the propersubject of taxation. But direct taxes and representation ought to be distributed uniformly among the members of a free Government. All ali e should bear the burdens; all alike should share the benefits. Here was a clear principle, palpably right and pass and certain in its application. It applied itself. It applied itself universally, and covered the whole ease with only one exception. I do not treat “Indians not taxed” as an expection, because uncivilized Indians in their triba state were so far beyond the scope within which the constitution was to act that they were named only to icvent possible mistake as to the meaning of anguage. Neither was a fixed exception, or even an obstacle, found in the case of aliens or unnat uralized foreigners. The constitution was to leave to the States and to give to the Congress power to clothe foreigners with full political rights as fast as they should be prepared to assume them. The only question remaining, therefore, as to them, wgs how they should be treated during the interval between their arrival and their naturalization, during their political nonage. This question was disposed of in the liberality in. whiich the Government was conceived. The political disabilit of aliens was not for this purpose counted at a 1 against them, because it was certain to be tem orary, and they were admitted at once into the basis of apportionment. The slave alone was the anomaly and the nondescript. A man, and not a man. In flesh and blood, alive; politically, dead. A native, an inhabitant, a producer, but without recognized political attriute or prerogative; the representative in the system of nothing but va me. What could be done with him? He was nowhere. It could not be maintained by the slaveholding States that slaves were persons to be represented. It could not be maintained by the free States that slaves were persons to be taxed. For these purposes slaveswere excluded alto gether by the principle on which the Government was built. They were not embraced with in it because they had no political standing in the States wherein they were held. Without some. special provision, therefore, they would have been altogether ignored. laxes, however, were desirable on the one side and representation on the other, and for mere convenience a compromise was invented for the sake of both. F be at once melted off in the fires of war. A purely arbitrary agreement was made and inserted in the constitution, an agreement with nothing to support it but the consent of the parties, based upon the facts as they then stood. It was agreed) in substance that the free people of all the States should be counted alike, and should all have their fair share of power as thus ascertained and that then the free people of the slaveholding States should have as much power beside as would be measured by counting every slave as 3/5ths of a“ person;” direct taxes to follow the same rule. ie power thus agreed upon could not be exercised by the fractional persons themselves, but as somebody else owned them, it was so arranged that that same some bod else should own the political power also. The covenant, whether wise or not, was operative as long as there was anything for it to operate upon. That time is past. The provision has become impotent. The fall of slavery has superseded it. We have nothing now to rely upon in its place but the residue of the 2nd section of the 1st article of the constitution. That section, owing to the rupture of the technical tie of slavery, would, as it stands, work out results now which, when the constitution was made, were condemned by the judgment of all. “Free persons” was the term employed to describe a lwho had political rights and standing; because only slaves had neither. at now a new anomaly exists. 4 million pebple are suddenly among us not bound to anyone, and yet not clothed with an political rights. The are not slaves, but ey are not. in a politica sense, “persons.” I o figment of slavery remains with which to spell out a right in somebody else to wield for them a power which the may not wield themselves. This was one of the appurtenances of property in man, and has been extinguished byconstitutional amendment, if it was not destroyedbefore. this emancipated multitude has no political status. Emancipation vitalizes only natural rights, not political rights. Enfranchisement alone carries with it political rights, and these emancipated millions are no more enfranchised now than when they were slaves. They never had political power. Their masters had a fraction of power as masters. But there are no masters now. There are no slaves now. The whole relationship in which the power originated and existed is gone. Does this fraction of power still survive? If it does, what shall become of it? Where is it to go? We are told the blacks are unfit to wield even a fraction of power, and must not have it. That answers the whole question. If the answer be true, it is the End of controversy. There is no place logically for this power to o save to the blacks; if they are unfit to have it, the power would not exist. It is a power astray, without a rightful owner. It should be resumed by the whole nation at once. It should not exist; it does not exist. This fractional power is extinct., A moral earthquake has turned fractions into units, and units into ciphers. If a black man counts at all now he counts 5 5ths of a man, not 3/5ths. llcvolutions have no such fractions in their arithmetic; war and humanity join hands to blot them out. 4 millions, therefore, and not 3/5th: of 4 millions, are to be reckoned in here now, and all these 4 millions are, and are to be, we are told, unfit for political existence. Did the Trainers of the constitution ever dream of this? Never, very clearly. Ourfathers trusted to gradual and voluntary emancipation, which would go hand in hand with education and enfranchisement. They never peered into the bloody epoch when 4 million fetters WIould he never saw such a vision as we see. 4 milions, each a Caspar Hauser, long shut up in darkness, and suddenly led out into the full flash of noon, and each, we are told, too blind 1866. 857 to walk, solitically. No one foresaw such an event, an so no provision was made for it. The 3/5ths rule gave the slaveholding States over and above all their just representation, 18 Representatives beside, by the enumeration of 1860. The new situation will enable those States when relationships are resumed, to claim 28 Representatives beside their just proportion. 28 votes to be cast here and in the Electors College for those held not fit to sit as jurors, not fit to testify in court, not fit to be laintiff in a suit, not fit to approach the ballot ox. 28 votea, to be more or less controlled by those who once betrayed the Government, and for those so destitute, we are as sured, of intelligent instinct as not to be fit for free agency. Shall all this be? Shall 4 million beings count 4 millions, in managing the affairs of the nation, who are pronounced by their fellow beings unfit to articipate in administering government in the States where they live, or in their counties, towns, or precincts; who are pronounced unworthy of the least and most paltry part in local political affairs? Shall 127,000 white people in NewYork cast but one vote in this case, and have but one voice here, while the same number of white people in Mississippi have 3 votes and 3 voices. Shall the death of slavery add 2/5ths to the entire power which slave had when slavery was living? Shall one white man have as much share in the Government as 3 other white men merely because he lives where blacks outnumber whites 2 to one? Shall this inequality exist, and exist only in favor of those who without cause drenched the land with blood and covered it with mourning? Shall such be the reward of those who did the foulest and guiltiest act which crinisons the an nals of recorded time? No, sir; not if I can help it. his is privilege, class, aristocracy, in its most hateful form. this not democracy or republicanisin or free government at all. I take issue with the Gentfrom NewJcisey [Mr. Roo Ens] at this point, as at many other points. I say it is monstrous and not fit to be. I deny that the law shall invest any man, though the blood of all the Howards were running in his veins, with one political right, with one home or fireside immunity, not given to the humblest and the poorest patriot I am permitted to represent. To level this favoritism which has come out of the results of the war, 3 modes have been proused, each of course by way of amendment to the constitution. 1st. To make the basis of representation in Congress and in the Electoral College consist of sufficiently qualified voters alone. 2nd. To deprive the States of the power to disqualify or discriminate politically on account of race or color. 3rd. To leave every State perfectly free to decide for itself, not only who shall vote, but who shall belong to its political community in any way, and thus to say who shall enter into its basis of representation and who shall be shutout. What the States decide for themselves in their own affairs they decide for themselves in their national affairs. If any State contains a class unfit or supposed to be unfit for political rights, unwort y to act politically in the States, this class shall not be put upon the nation as fit and worthy to be represented in the nations councils. The last proposition has met the approval of the committee, and the others have not. To the 1st proposition several objections have been urge, some of which will probably be found exaggerated, if not untenable, yet there are serious objections. If voters alone should be made the foundation of representation, the actual ratio would, vary infinitely among different States. One State might let women and mine rs vote. Another might some of them dogive the ballot is those otherwise qualified who have been residents for onlIvl ten dii s. Another might extend suffirage to aliens. Ihis would lead to a strife of unbridled suffrage.