e people to the level plain of right to be enjoyed by them
equally with others of other races in your midst.' We say to them,
'You may enfranchise one-third or one-fourth of your people who are
black and deprived of the privilege of voting by introducing the
qualification of property, up to which one-third or one-fourth may
come; you may introduce a qualification of education, up to which a
number of them may come; but that will all be of no value; so long as
there is any denial or any abridgement of the right to vote of a
single man on account of his race or color, you shall have no part of
the population of that race or color counted to measure to you your
share of representation.'

"Now, I will not go into the abstract question whether they ought to
enfranchise the negroes at once or not; I will not go into the
question of how soon they ought to do it as a matter of expediency; I
say that, in all human probability, when they come to enfranchise, if
they do it at all, this portion of their population, they will do it
gradually; yet, by this amendment, as it comes from the committee, you
say that they shall not be represented for any part of it at all till
they completely enfranchise them and put them on the same footing with
the white population."

In conclusion, Mr. Schenck remarked: "New England, if she should even
lose a vote, or two votes, or a fraction of a vote, can not afford,
any more than Ohio or Indiana, or any other of those States can,
having these particular objections to the scheme, to let the
opportunity go by now and not introduce a general amendment which will
remedy the one great evil under which we are all laboring together. I
hold that Ohio must give up her objections on account of her negro
population; that the North-western States must give up their
objections on account of the fact that they are permitting persons to
vote who are not yet citizens of the United States. Those persons
would have to wait, 'to tarry at Jericho until their beards are
grown,' I hold that New England must give up her objections; and, if
we are to amend the organic law at all, we must do it by uniting upon
a common principle, a common sympathy, a common feeling, at least on
this side of the House, upon which the entire responsibility is
thrown, acting harmoniously, and adopting such an amendment to the
organic law as shall be entirely democratic and fair in all its scope
and action upon all the people of the States of