ndent importance and its unprecedented
character. It was the most vigorous and determined action ever taken
by Congress in time of peace. The effect produced by the measure was
far-reaching and radical. It changed the political history of the
United States. But it is well to remember that it never could have
been accomplished except for the conduct of the Southern leaders.
The people of the States affected have always preferred as their
chief grievance against the Republican party, that negro suffrage was
imposed upon them as a condition of their re-admission to
representation; but his recital of the facts in their proper sequence
shows that the South deliberately and wittingly brought it upon
themselves. The Southern people knew, as well as the members of
Congress knew, that the Northern people during the late political
canvass were divided in their opinion in regard to the requirements
of reconstruction, but that the strong preponderance was in favor of
exacting only the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment as the condition
of representation in Congress. It was equally plain to all who cared
to investigate, or even to inquire, that if that condition should be
defiantly rejected, the more radical requirements would necessarily be
exacted as a last resort,--rendered absolutely necessary indeed by the
truculence of the Southern States.

The arguments that persuaded the Northern States of the necessity of
this step were simple and direct. "We are willing," said they, "that
the Southern States shall themselves come gradually to recognize the
necessity and the expediency of admitting the negro to suffrage; we
are content, for the present, to invest him with all the rights of
citizenship, and to except him from the basis of representation,
allowing the South to choose whether he shall remain, at the expense of
their decrease in representation, outside the basis of enumeration."
It was the belief of the North that as the passions of the civil
contest should die out, the Southern States, if not inspired by a sense
of abstract justice, would be induced by the highest considerations of
self-interest to enfranchise the negro, and thus increase their power
in Congress by thirty-five to forty members of the House. It was the
belief that when they should come to realize that the negro had
brought to them this increased power and prestige in the National
councils, they would treat him with justice and with fairness. It was,