The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-09-12
TEN YEARS OF ALABAMA
Mo- 39.-The Fourteenth Article of Amendment
 Be Continued)
1865-1874

historic cases, generation ago, the trend of the opinions has been toward the minority position then taken and against the decrees.
 The active provisos of the first two sec tions are that one which promises that mo person shall be deprived of life, lb- erty or property without due process of law and that which defines a federal citizenship. The fifth article of amend ment, incorporated many years ago, con tained the identical words securing to every litigant due process of law" The same words in the fourteenth article con- vey no additional security to the people The courts at an early time declared that all citizens of state were citizens of the United States
 Riches, leisure and culture, as against poverty, toll and ignorance have at all times classified white people. The classl- hcation is artificial and liable to disruption by natural causes. All classes of white men were citizens known as we the peo- pie, upon which the scheme of gov ernment was founded. The scheme of government provided at the beginning for the migration" of white population from beyond the seas, and for the nm portation" of blacks. To immigrants was attached the right of citizenship to im- portation was prepared the lot of slavery.
 ANo attciHpl lO 1tcOTQ the eXDerlence of Alabama here discussed may avoid re- port of the profound anxiety with which the public mind received the information that Congress had legislated the four teenth article into the constitution President Johnson, himself a great law yer denounced the usurpation, the Sec retary of State, Seward, formally dis- ceolted and renounced 1t, few if any law yers In this state accepted it. George s. r. al and revolutionary lesislation;" Fran cis s. Lyon called 1t "a congressional con- stltution.' In several counties public meetings discussed the article, and in all condemned 1t as without authority of law. One of these meetings, at We tumpka, was presided over by Benjamin Fitzpatrick and in none was the intelli- gence of the bar and the laity more fitly expressed in revolt against the usurpa ton of Congress-
 In the first generation after the legilat- ing of this article into effect, the notice- able disposition developed among liti- sants and lawyers, to test the more spec ulative aspect of public and private causes by its i'll digested provisos. The difficult ties of the proceedings and the surprises Of final decrees could not fail to excite a deep suspicion of the presence of phe- nomena of character in the article itself. We shall now proceed to cite some of the incident sthat lie in the history of the conception, and passage through the sit ting fragment of Congress and the at tempts to ratify the article by the help or non descript Legislatures, Alabama in- cluded.
 On Saturday night, January 20 1S66 q caucus of the Republican members, who numbered l2 of the 15 members of the Reconstruction committee met privately and prepared and adopted the following joint resolution to be known as the four teenth article of amendment
 Representatives and direct taxes (sic) shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this Union according to their respective num- hers, counting the whole number of per sons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed: Provided, That whenever the cleo tive franchise shall be denied or abridged in any state on account of race or color, all persons of such race or color shall be excluded from the basis of representa- tion.''
 On Monday, 22d. MT Wilson. a Repub- llcan member of the committee, intro duced to the Senate the caucus resolu- ton
 On the same day MT. Stevens. Repub- lican leader of the House and chairman Of the Reconstruction committee. intro duced the same resolution to the House
 MT. Anthony, Republican from Rhode Island, urged the Senate to take up the caucus resolution and pass 1t at once,
 without debate" The Senate refused the motion and let the matter go over.
 In the House at the same hour. MT. stevens, with imperious manner urgef immediate passage of the resolution. He exclaimed: T intend if the House is ready, to have this joint resolution passed before the sun goes down." (Congres- sional Globe, Thirty-ninth Congress, Vol. l. page 25l).
 MT. Samuel J. Randall, a colleague of Stevens from Pennsylvania, Democrat, spoke in firm protest; He had never heard Of such resolution before that moment The committee had no right to report an article of amendment to the Constitu- ton. The committee was authorized to inform the two Houses of Congress of conditions in the Southern States IL Tad no other duty and could perform no other act. Mr. Randall demanded that the resolution lie on the table and be printed. In due time he would be ready to discuss it. ''The country is wholly unaware of the proposition" he said He discovered to his amazement that proviso in regard to apportionment would rob Pennsylvania Of part of her represen- tation-that is to say, Pennsylvania would not enfranchise the negro within her bounds
 The House immediately went into an ex- cited debate. MT. Rogers of New Jersey, in opposition. said in States where the neg:o population was sufficiently numer- ous, it could disfranchse the whites. He Il ought 1t was time to begin to legislate for white people. He saw through the purpose of the committee The commit tees aim was to keep the South out of the Union until the Republican party could accomplish certain purposes. To this he would object. The effect of the article of amendment would be to reduce the representation of New York. New Jersey. Pennsylvania. Ohio in the govern nent because those States did not accord to the negro equal political rights and would not.
 MT. Roscoe Conkling of New York fa- vored the article and replied to MT. Rogers. He would not permit one white man in the South to surround himself