cussion, the resolution passed, twenty-one voting in the affirmative and eleven in the negative.

Mr. Patterson went forward to the desk, and the prescribed oaths having been administered, he took his seat in the Senate. Thus, on the last day of the first session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, Tennessee was fully reconstructed in her representation.

CHAPTER XXI.

NEGRO SUFFRAGE.

REVIEW OF THE PRECEDING ACTION-EFFORTS OF MR. YATES FOR UNRESTRICTED SUFFRAGE-DAVIS'S AMENDMENT TO CUVIER-THE "PROPITIOUS HOUR " THE MAYOR'S REMONSTRANCE-MR. WILLEY'S AMENDMENT-MR. COWAN'S AMEMDMENT FOR FEMALE SUFFRAGE ATTEMPT TO OUT-RADICAL THE RADICALS OPINIONS FOR AND AGAINST FEMALE SUFFRAGE-READING AND WRITING AS A QUALIFICATION-PASSAGE OF THE BILL-OBJECTIONS OF THE PŘESIDENT-TWO SENATORS ON THE OPINIONS OF THE PEOPLE THE SUFFRAGE BILL BECOMES A LAW.

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N the reassembling of the Thirty-ninth Congress for the second session, December 3d, 1866, immediately after the preliminaries of opening had transpired, Mr. Sumner called up business which had been introduced on the first day of the preceding session-a year before-which still remained unfinished-the subject of suffrage in the District of Columbia. In so doing, the Senator from Massachusetts said: "It will be remembered that it was introduced on the first day of the last session ; that it was the subject of repeated discussions in this chamber; that it was more than once referred to the Committee on the District of Columbia, by whose chairman it was reported back to the Senate. At several different stages of the discussion it was supposed that we were about to reach a final vote. The country expected that vote. It was not had. It ought to have been had. And now, sir, I think that the best way is for the Senate in this very first hour of its coming together to put that bill on its passage. It has been thoroughly debated. Every Senator here has made up his mind on the question. There is nothing more to be said on either side. So far as I am concerned, I am perfectly willing that the vote shall be taken without one further word of discussion; but I do think that the Senate ought not to allow the

bill to be postponed. We ought to seize this first occasion to put the bill on its passage. The country expects it; the country will rejoice and be grateful if you will signalize this first day of your coming together by this beautiful and generous act."

Objection being raised to the immediate consideration of the subject, it was decided that it must be deferred under a rule of the Senate until after the expiration of six days from the commencement of the session.

It is proper here to present a brief record of the proceedings upon the subject during the preceding session. The passage of a bill in the House of Representatives, and the discussion upon the subject in that body are given in a preceding chapter. This bill, as Mr. Morrill subsequently said in the Senate, was not an election bill, and conferred no right of voting upon any person beyond what he had before. It was a mere declaration of a right to vote. As such, the bill was favorably received by the Senate Committee to whom it was referred, and was by them reported back with favor, but was never put upon its passage.

Meanwhile the Senate Committee had under consideration a bill of their own, which they reported on the 10th of January. This bill provided for restricted suffrage, requiring the qualification to read and write. Mr. Yates, an original and uncompromising advocate of universal suffrage was opposed to this restriction. He was a member of the Committee on the District of Columbia, but had been prevented from being present in its deliberations when it was resolved to report the bill as then before the Senate. Fearing that the bill might pass the Senate with the objectionable restrictions, Mr. Yates moved that it be recommitted, which was done.

At a meeting of the committee called to reconsider the bill, Mr. Yates argued at length and with earnestness against disfranchisement on the ground of inability to read and write. The committee reversed their former decision, and reported the bill substantially in the form in which it subsequently became a law. The bill being before the Senate on the 16th of January, 1866, Mr. Garrett Davis opposed it in a speech of great length. He made use of every argument and referred to every authority within his reach to prove the inferiority of the negro race. After giving Cuvier's definition of the "negro," the Senator remarked: "The great naturalist might have added as other distinctive character

istics of the negro; first, that his skin exhales perpetually a peculiar pungent and disagreeable odor; second, that 'the hollow of his foot makes a hole in the ground.'" The Senator drew a fearful picture of the schemes of Massachusetts to use the negro voters, whom it was her policy to create in the South.

This subject did not again come up in the Senate until after the lapse of several months. On the 27th of June it was "disentombed" from what many supposed was its final resting place. Mr. Morrill proposed as an amendment that the elective franchise should be restricted to persons who could read and write. This was rejected; fifteen voting in the affirmative, and nineteen in the negative.

Mr. Willey opposed the bill before the Senate in a speech of considerable length. He advocated the bestowal of a qualified and restricted suffrage upon the colored people of the District. His chief objection to the measure before the Senate was that it was untimely. "Any thing not essential in itself," said he, "or very material to the welfare of the nation, or a considerable part of the nation, if it is calculated to complicate our difficulties, or inflame party passions or sectional animosities, had better be left, it appears to me, to a more propitious hour."

The "propitious hour" hoped for by the Senator, did not come around until after the opening of the second session. The subject did not again seriously occupy the attention of the Senate, with the exception of Mr. Sumner's effort to have it taken up on the first day of the session, until the 10th day of December, 1866.

On that day, Mr. Morrill, who, as Chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia, had the bill in charge, introduced the subject with a speech of considerable length. "This measure," said he, "not only regulates the elective franchise in this District, but it extends and enlarges it. The principal feature of the bill is that it embraces the colored citizens of the District of Columbia. In this particular it is novel, and in this particular it is important. In this particular it may be said to be inaugurating a policy not only strictly for the District of Columbia, but in some sense for the country at large. In this respect it is, I suppose, that this bill has received so large a share of the public attention during the last session and the recess of the Congress of the United States."

Mr. Morrill called attention to the remonstrance of the Mayor

of Washington, who had informed the Senate that in an election held for the purpose of ascertaining the sentiments of the voters of the city upon the subject, some six thousand five hundred were opposed to the extension of the elective franchise, while only thirty or forty were in favor of it.

"These six or seven thousand voters," said Mr. Morrill, "are only one in thirty at most of the people of this District, and it is very difficult to understand how there could be more significance or probative force attached to these six or seven thousand votes than to an equal number of voices independent of the ballot, under the circumstances. This is a matter affecting the capital of the nation, one in which the American people have an interest, as indirectly, at least, touching the country at large. What the National Congress pronounce here as a matter of right or expediency, or both, touching a question of popular rights, may have an influence elsewhere for good or for evil. We can not well justify the denial of the right of suffrage to colored citizens on the protest of the voters of the corporation of Washington. We may not think fit to grant it simply on the prayer of the petitioners. Our action should rest on some.recognized general principle, which, applied to the capital of the nation, would be equally just applied to any of the political communities of which the nation is composed."

In closing his speech, Mr. Morrill remarked: "In a nation of professed freemen, whose political axioms are those of universal liberty and human rights, no public tranquillity is possible while these rights are denied to portions of the American people. We have taken into the bosom of the Republic the diverse elements of the nationalities of Europe, and are attempting to mold them, into national harmony and unity, and are still inviting other millions to come to us. Let us not despair that the same mighty energies and regenerating forces will be able to assign a docile and not untractable race its appropriate place in our system."

Mr. Willey's amendment, proposed when the subject was last considered in the previous session, six months before, being now the pending question, its author addressed the Senate in favor of some restrictions upon the exercise of the elective franchise. "There ought to be some obligation," said he, "either in our fundamental laws in the States, or somewhere, by some means requiring the people to educate themselves; and if this can be