proclaimed by the fathers of the republic when they enunciated the
Declaration of Independence, and protested against the tyranny and
despotism of England, because she attempted to tax the people of the
colonies without allowing them representation in the councils of the
kingdom. The amendment now under consideration proposes the very same
identical thing that the Parliament of England proposed when it
attempted to inflict upon the American colonies taxation without
allowing the people of the colonies to have representatives in the
Parliament of England to represent them upon the question whether they
should be taxed by the mother country or not.

"The first objection I have to the passage of this joint resolution
is, that it is violative of the main principle upon which the
Revolutionary War was conducted, and which induced our fathers to
enter the harbors of Boston and New York and throw the tea into the
water. Because the British people attempted to inflict taxation upon
them with regard to that tea, and refused to allow them representation
in the Parliament of England, our fathers rebelled against their
mother country. What has come over the fortunes and happiness of the
people of this country that the great principle of the Constitution
should now be violated, that principle for which our fathers spilt
their blood to sustain, the great axiom of American liberty, that
taxation never should be imposed upon a people unless that people have
a corresponding representation? If this amendment to the Constitution
should be carried into effect, it will prevent any State, North or
South, from allowing qualified suffrage to its colored population,
except upon forfeiture of representation; and if qualified suffrage
should be allowed to the colored population of any State in this
Union, on account of race of color, and but one single negro should be
deprived of his vote by failure to meet the requirements of the
qualification imposed, that State would be denied representation for
the whole of that colored population--men, women, and children.

"More than that: this bill attempts, in an indirect manner, to have
passed upon, by the Legislatures of the different States, a question
which the party in power dare not boldly and openly meet before the
people of this country, because there can be but one object lying at
the foundation of this bill--an object which has been explained and
expatiated upon in this House--and that object,