it worse so far as many of the
States are concerned; for my honorable friends from the Pacific coast,
where there is a large number of foreigners, would hardly be willing
to have them cut off; and they have no benefit of political power in
the legislation of the country arising from the number of those
foreigners who make a portion of their population. The difficulty is,
that you meet with troubles of this kind every-where the moment you
depart from the principle of basing representation upon population and
population alone. You meet with inequalities, with difficulties, with
troubles, either in one section of the country or the other, and you
are inevitably thrown back upon the original principle of the
Constitution.

"It will be noticed that the amendment which we have thus presented
has one good quality: it preserves the original basis of
representation; it leaves that matter precisely where the Constitution
placed it in the first instance; it makes no changes in that respect;
it violates no prejudice; it violates no feeling. Every State is
represented according to its population with this distinction: that if
a State says that it has a portion, a class, which is not fit to be
represented--and it is for the State to decide--it shall not be
represented; that is all. It has another good point: it is equal in
its operation; all persons in every State are to be counted; nobody is
to be rejected. With the very trifling exception fixed by the original
Constitution, all races, colors, nations, languages, and denominations
form the basis.

"But, sir, the great excellence of it--and I think it is an
excellence--is, that it accomplishes indirectly what we may not have
the power to accomplish directly. If we can not put into the
Constitution, owing to existing prejudices and existing institutions,
an entire exclusion of all class distinctions, the next question is,
can we accomplish that work in any other way?"

Concerning the "counter-proposition" of Mr. Sumner, the speaker said:
"It is, in one sense, like a very small dipper with a very long
handle; for the preamble is very much more diffuse than the proposed
enactment itself. I looked to see what came next. I supposed that
after that preamble we should have some adequate machinery provided
for the enforcement and security of these rights; that we should have
the matter put to the courts, and if the courts could not accomplish
it, that we should have the aid of the milit