in good
faith to the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. While they
may believe that the amendment is revolutionary and unjust, in
violation of the rights of Kentucky and the South, still the Southern
States, having in a way yielded up this question, for representation
and peace, they will stand by the Constitution as amended."

Finally, Mr. Trimble presented the following argument against the
measure: "This proposition is a direct attack upon the President of
the United States; it is a direct attack upon the doctrines and
principles taught by that distinguished man now holding the
presidential chair. This amendment is in violation, in my judgment, of
every principle that that man has held from his boyhood up to the
present hour. Sir, the President of the United States does not believe
that the Congress of the United States has the right, or that the
people have the right, to strike down the inalienable right of the
States to settle for themselves who shall be clothed with that high
privilege--suffrage."

The subject being resumed on the following day, January 24th, Mr.
Lawrence, of Ohio, addressed the House, premising his remarks by a
motion that the resolution and amendments be recommitted to the
Committee on Reconstruction, "with instructions to report an amendment
to the Constitution which shall, first, apportion direct taxes among
the States according to property in each; and which shall, second,
apportion Representatives among the States on the basis of adult male
voters who may be citizens of the United States."

He argued that "the rule which gave representation to three-fifths of
the slave population was wrong in principle, and unjust in practical
results. It was purely arbitrary, the result of compromise, and not of
fixed political principles, or of any standard of abstract justice. If
slavery was a just element of political strength, I know of no rule
which could properly divide it into 'fractional quantities;' if it was
not a just element of political strength, I know of no rule which
could properly give it 'fractional power.'

"The basis of representation was unjust in practical results, because
it gave to chattel slavery political power--a power accorded to no
other species of property--thus making what the slave States regarded
as wealth an element of political strength."

After having given a statistical table showing how representation was
apportioned among the several States having free