grasping policy."

Mr. Donnelly of Minnesota supported the measure, not as a finality
but as a partial step,--as one of a series of necessary laws. Mr.
Sloan of Wisconsin made an urgent argument for the basing of
representation upon voters, "as those voters are determined by the
States." Mr. John Baker of Illinois objected to the amendment,
because it "leaves any State of the Union perfectly free to narrow
her suffrage to any extent she pleases, imposing proprietary and other
disqualifying tests and strengthening her aristocratic power over the
people, provided only she steers clear of a test based on race or
color." Mr. Ingersoll of Illinois followed the speech of his
colleague, Mr. Baker, by moving to add to the Constitutional amendment
these words: "and no State within this Union shall prescribe or
establish any property qualifications which may or shall in any way
abridge the elective franchise." Mr. Jenckes of Rhode Island argued
against Mr. Ingersoll's amendment as needlessly abridging the power of
the States. On the 24th of January Mr. Lawrence of Ohio moved that
"the pending resolution and all amendments be recommitted to the
Committee on Reconstruction, with instructions to report an amendment
to the Constitution, which shall, first, apportion direct taxation
among the States according to the property in each, and second,
apportion the representation among the States upon the basis of male
voters who may be citizens of the United States."

Mr. Shellabarger followed his colleague, giving objections to the
amendment as reported by the Committee on Reconstruction: "First, it
contemplates and provides for and in that way authorizes the States to
wholly disfranchise an entire race of people; second, the moral
teaching of the clause offends the free and just spirit of the age,
violates the foundation principle of our own Government and is
intrinsically wrong; third, associated with that clause in our
Constitution relating to the States being republican this amendment
makes it read thus: 'the United States shall guarantee to every State
in this Union a republican form of government, provided, however, that
a government shall be deemed republican when whole races of its people
are disfranchised, unrepresented and ignored.'" Mr. Eliot of
Massachusetts moved an amendment that representation should be based
upon the whole number of persons, "and that the elective franchise
shall not be denied or abridged in any St