guilty accomplices in the maiming and
murder of American citizens, who were only seeking to exercise their
Constitutional right of suffrage.

The Republican victory of 1866 led to the incorporation of impartial
suffrage in the Reconstruction laws. The Republican victory of 1868,
it was now resolved in the councils of the party, should lead to the
incorporation of impartial suffrage in the Constitution of the United
States. The evasive and discreditable position in regard to suffrage,
taken by the National Republican Convention that nominated General
Grant in 1868, was keenly felt and appreciated by the members of the
party when subjected to popular discussion. There was something so
obviously unfair and unmanly in the proposition to impose negro
suffrage on the Southern States by National power, and at the same
time to leave the Northern States free to decide the question for
themselves, that the Republicans became heartily ashamed of it long
before the political canvass had closed. When Congress assembled,
immediately after the election of General Grant, there was found to
be a common desire and a common purpose among Republicans to correct
the unfortunate position in which the party had been placed by the
National Convention; and to that end it was resolved that suffrage, as
between the races, should by organic law be made impartial in all the
States of the Union--North as well as South.

Various propositions were at once offered, both in the Senate and
House, to amend the Constitution of the United States in order to
attain impartial suffrage. It was both significant and appropriate
that the draught proposed by Mr. Henderson of Missouri was taken as
the basis of the Amendment first reported to the Senate. In the
preceding Congress, when the Fourteenth Amendment was under
consideration (in the spring of 1866), Mr. Henderson had proposed
substantially the same provision, and had solemnly warned his
Republican associates that though they might reject it then, it would
be demanded of them in less than five years. This declaration was
all the more suggestive and creditable, coming from a senator who
represented a former slave-holding State. And it was not forgotten
that Mr. Henderson had with equal zeal and equal foresight been among
the earliest to propose the Thirteenth Amendment. Mr. Henderson's
proposition, now submitted and referred to the Judiciary Committee, was
in these words: "No State shall deny or ab