or sex, all persons of such race or color or sex shall be excluded
from the basis of representation."

"Is the gentleman in favor of that amendment?" asked Mr. Stevens.

"I am," replied Mr. Brooks, "if negroes are allowed to vote."

"That does not answer my question," said Mr. Stevens.

"I suggested that I would move it at a convenient time," said Mr.
Brooks.

"Is the gentleman in favor of his own amendment?" Mr. Stevens again
asked.

"I am in favor of my own color in preference to any other color, and I
prefer the white women of my country to the negro," was the response
of Mr. Brooks, which was followed by applause in the galleries.

Mr. Orth, of Indiana, obtained the floor for the purpose of offering
an amendment, which he prefaced with the following remarks: "My
position is that the true principle of representation in Congress is
that voters alone should form the basis, and that each voter should
have equal political weight in our Government; that the voter in
Massachusetts should have the same but no greater power than the voter
in Indiana; and that the voter in Indiana should have the same power,
but no greater, than the voter in the State of South Carolina. The
gentleman from Maine, however, states that the census tables will show
that by the amendment which I desire to offer at this time you will
curtail the representative power of the State of Massachusetts. And
why? Because he has shown by his figures that although Massachusetts
has a male population of 529,244, her voting population is only
175,487, being a percentage of twenty-nine, while Indiana, with a
white male population of 693,469, has a voting population of 280,655,
being about forty per cent. Why is this difference? Is it because our
voting population is so much greater in proportion than the voting
population of Massachusetts? Not at all. The difference arises from
the fact that the State of Massachusetts has seen fit to exclude a
portion of her citizens from the ballot-box. Indiana has done the same
thing. Indiana has excluded one class of citizens; Massachusetts has
excluded another class. Indiana has seen fit, for reasons best known
to herself, to exclude the colored population from the right of
suffrage; Massachusetts, on the contrary, has seen fit to exclude from
the ballot-box those of her citizens who can not read or write. While
we in Indiana are governed by a prejudice of color, the people of
Massachusetts, I might say, are governe