as I have said, is,
through the Federal power, to force the States to adopt unqualified
negro suffrage, by holding over them the penalty of being deprived of
representation according to population.

"But I object to this joint resolution upon another ground--upon the
same ground that I objected to the passage of the Negro Suffrage Bill
for the District of Columbia--without consulting the people. It has
been said in this country that all power emanates from the people. And
I say that to submit this grave question to the consideration and
decision of partisan Legislatures in the different States--Legislatures
which were elected without any regard to this question--is violative
of the great principles which lie at the foundations of the liberties
of this country; that no organic law, affecting the whole people,
should be passed before submitting it to the people for their
ratification or rejection. Now this joint resolution proposes simply
to submit this amendment for ratification to the Legislatures of the
different States. The Legislatures are not the States; the
Legislatures are not the people in their sovereign capacity;
Legislatures are not the source from which all power emanates. But the
people, the _sacred people_, in the exercise of their sovereign power,
either at the ballot-box or in conventions, are the only true and
proper forum to which such grave and serious questions should be
submitted.

"I maintain that the Constitution of the United States, as it now
exists, is not as liberal toward the Southern States, now that slavery
has been abolished, as it was before the abolition of slavery. Why,
sir, in the days of the past, under our Constitution, the Southern
States have been allowed a representation for a population that was
not classed as citizens or people; they were allowed a representation
for people who had no political _status_ in the State; persons who
were not entitled even to exercise the right of coming into a court of
civil justice as a plaintiff or defendant in the prosecution or
defense of a suit.

"Now, after the raging fires of war have swept from the domain of
every State in the South the pernicious institution of slavery; after
the result has been that every slave has received his freedom; after
the slaves have gained more by the success of this war than any other
class of people in the United States, white men, men who are the
representatives of the white race, come here proposing to comp