The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-09-14

1 Tn the preceding number we saw that
 the first section of the fourteenth article
 of amendment, as it now stands, passed
 the House on January 3l, 1866, after a vio-
 lent debate of more than a week, 120 to
 46 The article thus perfected and ac-
 cepted by the lower House did no more
 than O apportion representatives in
 Congress according to population of the
 respective states and @ punish the state l that denied or abridged the franchise on
 account of race or color Thus perfected.
 the article of amendment did not create a
 national electorate. It left the states.
 as they had been under the constitution
 of 17S7, in full possession of power over
 the suffrage.
 The House sent the article adopted by
 il by more than the necessary two-thirds
 majority, to the Senate. The Senate de- | bated it for more than month and on March came to a vote. The vote was
 25 ayes to 22 nays, the majority falling
 far short of the necessary two-thirds.
 Nearly half the negative votes were re-
 publicans and among them the repub-
 lican leader of the Senate, MT. Sumner of
 Massachusetts.
 | The Article as passed by the House | took from the freed negro, in fact, the right of apportionment and representa-
 ton in the federal government secured to | him by Article l. section B. of the original | constitution, to place that right wholly | at the discretion of the states severally. So the attempt of the reconstruction | committee, by means of an article of
 amendment, to reduce the southern states | to provinces, under negro domination, Tell | ignobly.
 The argument of MT. Sumner was in tho nadeouacy of the means to the end.
 senator remembered that the constitution | of Indiana, adopted in 1883, forbade the entrance of negroes into that state This | proviso had been stricken out when the | necessity of connecting the underground
 railroad" of Ohio with Indiana soil arose. i Slaves entced from Kentucky and Ten
 nessee and Virginia needed the open
 route to Canada. But the then existing
 legislature of Indiana had only recently
 voted down motion to admit the few ] negroes resident in the state to the eec- l torate.
 | Evidence was direct and cumulative,
 that several of the northern states would refuse to ratify an article of amendment l to the federal constitution, which inter | fered with the ancient prerogative of state regulation of the suffrage. much less | was it to be expected that they would
 hasten to remodel their constitutions and 1 laws to enfrancriise the negro. When the 1 American or know nothing party held | sway in certain parts, the essential doe | trines of which were opposition to for
 eign immigration and opposition to the l growth and influence of the Catholic
 church in the republic. the state of New | Hampshire amended her constitution to
 deny to any person, who was of the Cath ollie church. the right to hold office of any l kind under that state. The public school
 laws of Pennsylvania at the present
 time forbade mngling of the white and
 negro races in one school room. Ken l lucky now had two criminal codes one 1 for each race. The statute of Delaware denied the right of negro to testify in
 n court of justice. At the very moment | when Congress was angrily discussing ] the rights of the negro in federal and
 state politics and general society, Col | orado held before that body her applica- tion for admission to the Union. with a | constitution restricting the electorate tc | white" people Wisconsin was one of I several states where t-le prejudice of the
 people was acute against negro equality | in any particular. So distinct and general was this prejudice that in his first annual message, December 1865, President John ] son. referring to the provisional govern
 ments he had established in the south