the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State."

"ART. XV., SECTION 1. The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

To each of these is added,

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Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." Thus the power to execute is as broad as the subject-matter. And the means to be employed may be all that are necessary and proper, either to enforce the national power, restrain the States, or to protect the citi

zens.

A glance at the history which produced these great results is an inviting field; but it would be the history of the government itself. The word "slavery" is here, for the first time, introduced into the Constitution. But as a fact it was acknowledged in the contrast to "free persons," and the "two-fifths of all other persons," in the basis of representation now supplied by a new clause; in the "importation of such persons as any of the States originally existing should think proper to admit for a period of twenty years; in the "persons held to service in one State escaping into another," and in the prohibition to amend so as to prohibit the importations of "such persons"

Tatil 1808. Thus our fathers shrank from the mention of the

word, so at war with the enlarged idea, that "all men are created free and equal," for which they had fought, as a selfevident proposition; but they did not hesitate to incorporate three-fifths of them into the representation, giving an increased power, without any of the moral responsibility which should ever exist between representatives and constituents; to provide for their increase by licensing the barbarous and inhuman traffic in them, without the possibility of removing the moral taint for the fifth of a century; and by entering into a solemn compact among the States to surrender those who should endeavor to escape from their servitude.

Far be it from me to censure those who thus dealt with great facts as they were. The States were free to agree to this 66 more perfect union " or not as they chose; and as the union could not have been formed without this compromise, he is a bold man who will now say that it would have been better had it never been created..

The time limited for the slave trade having elapsed, our fathers made haste to prevent it, in a great measure, by severe prohibitory legislation. They also narrowed the area in the Northwest by the contemporaneous ordinance which excluded it from the common territory. And as men emigrate more from instinct than reason, and the march of our people has been westward, the free territory received three times the accessions from the slave section which the latter received from the former, thus transferring the balance of power to the division. of free labor.

The time has hardly arrived to discuss the institution of African slavery in America, humanized as it was.

Born and reared in its very center, having spent my life in its midst; surrounded by the school which defended it, yet never responsible for its evils, I am not here to severely censure one generation or another in regard to it. Certainly I am not going to defend it, or to deny that in all its tendencies it was economically depressing, and nationally, religiously, and in

dividually demoralizing. It is enough that it is thus described by the best of our law writers:

"By the civil law slaves could not take by purchase or descent. They had no heirs, and therefore could make no will They were not entitled to the rights and considerations of matrimony, and therefore had no relief in case of adultery. Nor were they proper objects of cognation or affinity, but of quasi cognation only. Contubernism was the matrimony of slaves; a permitted connection, not partaking of the lawful marriage, which they could not contract. The state of slavery in this country compares with that existing under the Roman law in many respects. The progress of society in civilization, more correct notions on the subject of moral obligation, and, above all, the benign influence of the Christian religion, have softened many of the rigors attendant on slavery among the ancients. But the rights of the slave in respect to marriage, and the acquisition of property by way of inheritance, remain substantially on the same ground."

To this evil may be added the absolute right of buying, selling, controlling, and almost unlimited punishment by the master; the necessity of preaching a lower religion for the slave, and of giving a lower interpretation of the Divine Word; of denying all education to the bondmen, and yet to live in the constant dread that they would at some time assert their freedom.

But all these evils and every fancied good have been swept away by these few simple words: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude * **shall exist in the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

I would gladly turn away from the sight of the serried hosts, horses and chariots, which perished in the red sea of blood, in the background of these words engraved upon the tablets of the great American heart. I am persuaded that a smaller number would be found to cancel this declaration, than to dash to pieces the tables of stone on which were engraved

the Divine commandments amidst the thunders of Sinai. The destruction of slavery was the loss of fortune and of all the advantages of affluence to many families. They can illy adapt themselves to the change. Yet few would take the step backward. The States where it existed, however unwillingly at the moment, acknowledged the necessity of engrafting this same principle into their own organic laws, and, generally, they ratified this amendment. It was proclaimed on the fourteenth day of December, 1865. It not merely swept the name and the fact of the system from all our laws, and took from the States the power to restore them, but it also opened new fields of inquiry.

Through all the history of our country words of ordinary signification had been of very doubtful meaning in our law and polity. Thus "people," "persons," "citizens," "residents," and "inhabitants" had to be twisted and tortured in every place where they described the free man, the native of the soil, the naturalized man, the elector. The tinge of color, whether in the free States or slave States, with a few excep tions, was a sufficient crime to exclude from all rights the emancipated people of African descent. They were not acknowledged to be of the "people" who ordained the Constitution; the "electors" who might choose representatives and president; the "citizens" eligible to any office, or entitled to inter-state "privileges and immunities," to passports, trial by jury, or to the rights of property. They were denizens with no defined status. Yet, whether as men or chattels, these beings were a mighty element in the political history of the nation until the final day came. "Soundness upon the negro controlled all other politics. Extremists for or against slavery were the successful competitors for honors. And when, by war, and as the logical fruit of the contest, four millions of freedmen were added to the nondescript half million of emancipated, free persons of color,-half of whom were in the free and half in the slave States, there still remained a problem

which had to be solved. The word "citizen," which meant one thing for representative, another for senator, something more definite for President, but entirely indefinite as to rights in the national courts, of twelve classifications as to the modes of creation and description, of no signification as to the right of suffrage, had now to be defined by organic law. It is strange that no definition is found in the original instrument, or in any of the first twelve amendments, which constituted our bill of rights. The comprehensive language transmitted from Magna Charta was generally held not to apply to those who could not claim Caucasian descent.

As a necessity, a definition and some remedies for the invasion of their civil rights had been passed over the President's veto. The angry discussions which followed, and the conflicting opinions and judicial decisions upon the constitutionality of the civil rights law, rendered it necessary to remove the doubts as to congressional power, or to recede, to make the law organic, or to risk its repeal. The former course was adopted, and more comprehensive words could not have been employed.

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

This, with other sections of this amendment, was put before the people and virtually carried by popular elections. But however carried, it has been proclaimed and acted on as a part of the organic law; it is the universal sentiment of the nation; and there is no fact against the means which does not apply to the thirteenth amendment. All the amendments have been adopted by the great law of general acquiescence. Sa that we could no more recede as to the one than the other.

As already intimated, the term "persons" had been one of varied signification. But contemporaneous history leaves no doubt of what was intended here. By general terms it was intended to incorporate those made free by the thirteenth

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