e Constitution, and being
made the companion of its other clauses, thereby construes and gives
new meanings to those other clauses; and it thus lets down and spoils
the free spirit and sense of the Constitution. Associated with that
clause relating to the States being 'republican,' it makes it read
thus: 'The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union
a republican form of government;' provided, however, that a government
shall be deemed to be republican when whole races of its people are
wholly disfranchised, unrepresented, and ignored.

"4. The report of the committee imposes no adequate restraint upon
this disfranchisement of races and creation of oligarchies in the
States, because after a race is disfranchised in a State it gives to
one vote cast in such State by the ruling race just the same power as
a vote has in a State where no one is disfranchised.

"5. These words of the amendment, to-wit, 'denied or abridged on
account of color,' admit of dangerous construction, and also of an
evasion of the avowed intent of the committee. Thus, for example, the
African race may, in fact, be disfranchised in the States, and yet
enumerated as part of the basis of representation, by means of a
provision disfranchising all who were slaves, or all whose ancestors
were slaves.

"6. The pending proposition of the committee is a radical departure
from the principles of representative republican government, in this,
that it does not provide for nor secure the absolute political
equality of the people, or, relatively, of the States. It does not
secure to each vote throughout the Government absolute equality in its
governing force. It, for example, permits twenty-five thousand votes
in New York city to elect two members of Congress, provided one-half
of its population should happen to be foreigners unnaturalized, and
not electors of the State, whom the law deems unfit to vote; whereas,
twenty-five thousand votes in Ohio would elect but one member of
Congress, provided her citizens were all Americans instead of
foreigners."

Mr. Eliot submitted an amendment to the effect that population should
be the basis of representation, and that "the elective franchise shall
not be denied or abridged in any State on account of race or color."
He stated the following grounds of objection to the resolution offered
by the committee: "First, the amendment as it is now reported from the
committee is objectionable, to my mind, because