The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1869-02-09
COLUMBIA, S. G.
Tuesday Morning, February 9. 1869.
The Proposed Suffrage Amendment to the
Constitution.

1t is probably fair estimate that, within
the last three years, nearly 100 propositions
have been offered in Congress to amend the
Constitution. In matters affecting the or
ganic law the mode of accomplj hing
changes. provided by itself, article five, is
when two-thiTds Of both houses shall pro-
pose amendments, or on the application of
two-thirds OF the State Legislatures, Con-
gress shall call a convention for proposing
amendments, which in either case, shall be
valid as part OF the Constitution when rati-
ted by the Legislatures of three-fourths of
the several States, or by convention, in
three-fourtbs thereof. In modelling our
own after English institutions. this was ne
cessarily prominent point of difference,
inasmuch as in Great Britain the supreme
legislative power resides in the crown and
in Parliament, whereas it is not confided to
Congress by the founders of the Constitu-
ton. We substituted an elective chief
magistracy for limited term for an heredi-
tary sovereign; adopted a parliament called
Congress, only substituting elective Sena-
tors for the House of Lords; availed our
selves Of the same guarantees for the security
of individual and political liberty, and
formed our Constitution on the basis of that
unwritten law which forms the English
Constitution. But, just at this point, it be-
came necessary to provide means by which
the Constitution might be modified in the
event OF the people desiring it, and here is
the difference which ought never to be for
hot -..l
preme legislative power resides in Parlia-
ment, and no difficulty of the constitutional
character of any law can arise, because Par
lament can effect whatever changes it
thinks proper, altering, for example, as it
did last year, the basis of parliamentary
representation throughout the kingdom, by
DISTINGUISHING particular boroughs, and de-
priving many of the constitution privileges
they had hitherto enjoyed. In our own
country, on the other hand, Congress was
entrusted with the duty of legislating for
the whole country on the basis of the Con-
stitution, but its enactments could be called
i'll question on the ground that they violat-
ed the fundamental law, in which event the
question was referred for the decision of the
Supreme Court, or if modification OF the
Constitution was desired, it could be effected
by the means above referred to-
In regard, therefore, to the resolution
proposing constitutional amendment re-
specting suffrage, which passed the House
of Representatives on Saturday last, we may
say, what we have before said, that if Con-
gress must have such o measure as that pro-
posed in the amendment, the course adopt
ed to effect it is in accordance with the
letter OF the Constitution, and in so far as it
recognizes that to be the supreme law, is an
improvement upon the modes and agencies,
ignoring that "obsolete instrument" by
which Congress has heretofore endeavored
to make itself as supreme over all law as the
British Parliament At the same time we
are equally clear in the conviction that the
regulation OF Suffrage would better be left
where the Constitution now leaves il. with
the States The amendment itself, in the
shape in which it was adopted, is violation
OF the spirit. if not of the form, of the Con-
stltutlon. 1t was designed by the founders
OF the Constitution that changes should be
made IN that instrument only in accord
ance with the popular will, whereas the
Legislatures to whom this amendment. if
adopted by the Senate, will be submitted
were chosen without any reference to such
question: and it may be more than doubted
whether the people. if it had been submitted
to them, would have given their consent.
inasmuch rs some of the largest Republican
States had refused TO adopt colorcd suffrage
in their own State by large major.ies.
Apart from this objection, the amendment
practically leaves the Southern States where