it admits by
implication that a State has the right to disfranchise large masses of
its citizens. No man can show that in that Constitution which the
fathers made, and under which we have lived, the right is recognized
in any State to disfranchise large masses of its citizens because of
race. And I do not want now, at this day, that the Congress of the
United States, for the purpose of effecting a practical good, shall
put into the Constitution of the land any language which would seem to
recognize that right.

"The next objection I have to the amendment is this: that it enables a
State, consistently with its provisions, by making the right to vote
depend upon a property qualification, to exclude large classes of men
of both races. A State may legislate in such a way as to be, in fact,
an oligarchy, and not a republican State. South Carolina may legislate
so as to provide that no man shall have the right to vote unless he
possesses an annual income of $1,000, and holds real estate to the
amount of five hundred acres. Every one sees that that would exclude
multitudes of all classes of citizens, making the State no longer
republican, but oligarchical. Yet gentlemen say that under the
Constitution Congress is bound to see to it that each State shall have
a republican form of government.

"The third objection I have to this amendment is, that it controls by
implication that power; because, while the Constitution now says that
Congress shall guarantee to every State a republican form of
government, this amendment, as reported by the committee, admits by
implication that, although a State may so legislate as to exclude
these multitudes of men, not on account of race or color, but on
account of property, yet, nevertheless, she would have a republican
form of government, and that Congress will not and ought not to
interfere."

Mr. Pike, of Maine, had, on the assembling of Congress after the
holidays, offered a resolution, expressing the idea contained in the
report of the committee, but on reflection had come to the conclusion
that the resolution would not accomplish the purpose desired. He
stated his reasons for changing his opinion. He thought that the
provisions of the proposed amendment might be evaded. "Suppose," said
he, "this constitutional amendment in full force, and a State should
provide that the right of suffrage should not be exercised by any
person who had been a slave, or who was the descendant of a slave,