The loyal Georgian., 1866-02-03

We II. w. DURGER,
Assistant Adjutant General.
Official: Alexander Moore, Brew. Ma
jor and Aid-de-Camp.
SPEECH OF Mr. CONKLING.,
Mr.. Conkling said: The principle of
the pending amendment is that political
representation does not belong to those
who have no political existence. The
slaves of the South were not members of
political society which formed the Con
stltution of the United States being with.
out acknowledged political rights, and in
our system the anomaly. the nondesc, ipt
As it could not be maintained by the
slaveholding States that slaves were per-
sons to be represented, nor by the free
States that slaves were persons to be
taxed, it was agreed, as one of the COM
promises of the Constitution, that the
free people of all the States should be
counted alike, and should all have their
share of power as thus ascertained, and
that then the free people Of the slave-
holding States should have as much more
power beside as would be measured by
counting every slave as three ffths of a
person, direct taxes to f flow the same
rate. This covenant was in operation 80
long as there was anything for it to ope-
rate upon; but that provision has be-
come impotent, and We have no hing to
rely upon in its place but the esidue of
the second section of the first article,
which, owing t. the rupture of the tech
nical tie of 5 avery, would, as it stands,
work out results now which when the
Constitution was made, were condemned
by the judgment of all. Four millions
of peop'e, olce slaves, have become free
people, but have no political status, being
emancipated but not yet enfrauchised !;
that is, to become of the power they re-
presented Whereis it to go? Ii it be
true, as we are told, that the blacks are
unfit to WELD even fraction of power,
there is an end of the controversy, for
there is no place logically for this power
to 90 save to the blacks. 1t they are
,nft to have it, it should not exist. Our
fathers never dreamed of there being
100000 persons in the country unfit
for political existence. They trusted to
gradual and voluntary emancipation to 60
hand in hand with education AMI enfran
chsement The three~6fths clause gives
slaveholding States, over and above their
just representation, eighteen represen.
tatives. Besides the new census Of 1860
will enable them to claim twenty>eIgbt
beside their first proposition to be cast for
those held not fit to be jurors, nor
witnesses, nor plaintiffs in suits, nor
voters. Shall l27, 900 white people in
| New York cast but one vote in this house
and in the Electoral college, while the
same number of white people i'll the
South have two votes =? Shall the death
OF slavery add two ffths to entice power
which slavery had when slavery was liv-
ing T? Shall one white mau have as much
share in the Government as two other
white men, merely because he lives where
blacks outnum er whites two to one
this is privilege, clan, aristoeracy In ltS
|'most hateful form. It is not democr cy,
or republicanism, or free government at
all. Three m DIES have beeu proposed to
level this favoritlsm. First: 70 make
the basis of representation IN Congress
aud in the Electoral College Of sufficiently
qualified voters alone. Second: To de-
prive the States of the power to unqual'ty
OF discriminate politically or on account
of race or color. Third: To leave every
State perfect y free to decide for itselt
not only who shall vote, but who shal
belong to its political community in any
way, and thus to say who shall enter int
its basis of representation, and who shal
be shut out The last proposition has me-