in active
life. They placed suffrage then upon the broad common-sense
principle that it should be lodged in and exercised by those who
could use it most wisely and most safely and most efficiently to
serve the great ends for which Government was instituted. They
had no other ground than this, and their work shows that they
proceeded upon it, and not upon any abstract or transcendental
notion of human rights which ignored the existing facts of social
life.

Now, sir, the objection which I have to a large extension of
suffrage in this country, whether by Federal or State power, is
this: that thereby you will corrupt and degrade elections, and
probably lead to their complete abrogation hereafter. By pouring
into the ballot-boxes of the country a large mass of ignorant
votes, and votes subjected to pecuniary or social influence, you
will corrupt and degrade your elections and lay the foundation
for their ultimate destruction. That is a conviction of mine, and
it is upon that ground that I resist both negro suffrage and
female suffrage, and any other proposed form of suffrage which
takes humanity in an unduly broad or enlarged sense as the
foundation of an arrangement of political power.

Mr. President, I proposed before the debate concluded, before
this subject should be submitted to the Senate for its final
decision, to protest against some of the reasoning by which this
amendment was resisted. I intended to protest against particular
arguments which were submitted; but I was glad this morning that
that duty which I had proposed to myself was discharged, and well
discharged by the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Brown]. For
instance, the argument that the right of suffrage ought not to be
conferred upon this particular class because they did not or
could not bear arms--a consideration totally foreign and
irrelevant, in my opinion, to the question which we are
discussing.

But, sir, passing this by, I desire to add a few words before I
conclude upon another point which was stated or suggested by the
Senator from Missouri, and that is the question of reform or
improvement in our election system; I mean in the machinery by
which or plans upon which those elections proceed. After due
reflection given to this subject, my opinion is that our