sis of representation all unnaturalized
foreigners. I do not wish to discuss the question whether this would
be judicious or not, but I do not want a measure of this almost
supreme importance loaded down with these questions, and its passage
jeopardized by the incorporation of provisions which, would render it
so liable to attack and misrepresentation."

Mr. Cook referred as follows to some objections urged against the
basis of representation proposed by the Reconstruction Committee: "It
is said that the Southern States may impose a property qualification,
and so exclude the negroes, not on account of race or color, but for
want of a property qualification, or that they might provide for a
qualification of intelligence, and so disfranchise the negroes because
they could not read or write, and still enumerate them. To do this
they must first repeal all the laws now denying suffrage to negroes;
and, second, provide qualifications which will disfranchise half their
white voters; two things neither of which will, in any human
probability, occur. And in the event that it was possible that both
these measures should be adopted, and all the blacks and half the
whites disqualified, it would become a grave question whether the
provision of the Constitution which requires the United States to
guarantee to each State a republican form of government would not
authorize the Government to rectify so gross a wrong. There is no
measure to which fanciful objections may not be urged; but I believe
this to be the least objectionable of any measure which has been
suggested to meet this evil. But above all, I am well persuaded that
it is the only measure that can meet the approval of three-fourths of
the States; consequently, that this is the only practical measure
before the House."

Mr. Marshall, of Illinois, declared the proposition, as reported by
the committee, to be "wholly untenable, is monstrous, absurd, damnable
in its provisions, a greater wrong and outrage on the black race than
any thing that has ever been advocated by others."

He thus set forth the measure in the light of injustice to the negro:
"The gentlemen who report it profess to be, and doubtless are, the
peculiar advocates of the African race. I wish to ask them upon what
principle of justice, upon what principle of free government, they
have provided that if, after this amendment is adopted, South
Carolina, Mississippi, or any other State shall adopt a provision tha