Mr. BINGHAM. I do not take that ground, nor did I intimate any such position; but I in sist that the terms of the 9th section of the 1st article of the constitution affirm beyond all question that every ca itation tax is a direct tax; and I will say further that the 3rd clause of section 2nd of the 1st article of the constitution, which my colleague by his substitute proposes to strike out, requires and enjoins that. every capitation as well as ever other direct tax shall be apportioned among the States, and that the moment it is apportioned it ceases to be a tax upon the person and becomes a tax upon property. I insist further that, if you strike out the 3rd clause and lay your capitation tax, and assess it without apportionment, not upon property, but upon the person, you thereby adopt a mode of assessment which the fathers of the constitution wisely forbade, and which I trust the people of the U.S. will forever prohibit. Now, Mr. Speaker, what more is there of this proposed amendment reported by the JtCommee? I have stated that it stands in the very words of the constitution, omitting the word “free.” What objection, then, can there he on that side of the House to enacting it? “Oh! the proviso, ” say the gentlemen“the proviso which declares that. whenever the elective franchise shall be denied or abridged in any State on account of race or color, allpersons of such race or color shall be excluded from the basis of representation. ”I beg my friendfrom California, Mr. HionY] and my honorable colleague, Mr. SusiiAnAnoin] to consider that a grant of power by implication cannot be raised by a law which only imposes a penalty, and nothing but a penalt, for the non-performance of a dut or tevioation of a right. Within the last hundred years in no countrywhere the common law obtains, venture to say, has any implication of a grant of power ever been held to be raised by such a law, and especially an implied power, to do an act expressly pprohibitedby the same law. The guarantee of your constitution, that the people shall electtheir Representatives in the several States, cannot be set aside or impaired by inserting in your Constitution as a penalty for disregardin it the provision that the majority of a State that denies the equal rights of the minority shall suffer a loss o political power. I have endeavored to show that the words of the constitution, the people of “ the States shall choose their Representatives, ” is an express guarantec that a majority of the free malc citizens of the U.S. in every State of this Union, being of full age, shall have the political power subject to the equal right of suffrage in the minorit of free male citizens of full age. There is a urther guarantee in the constitution, of a RFG to every State, which I take to mean that the majorit of the free male citizens in every State shall have the political power. I submit to my friend that this proviso is nothing but a penalty for a violation on the part of the people of any State of the politics right of franchise guarantied by the constitution to their free male fellow citizens of full age.