Year: 1870

at Louisville, in which he sustained


the Fourteenth Amendment, when he
said that the political right to hold of
fee was another thing We have known
of States where every man could vote
but where man could not be member
of the Legislature without having q
certain qualification. think in New
York under the old constitution man
could not be member of the Senate
without freehold of = certain prescrib-
ed value. IL is so in Delaware now
The right to hold office, therefore, is
one thing, the right to vote is another
thing; and this eminent lawyer, this
head and front of the Republican par
ty in Georgia, this chief advocate Of
the reconstruction measure, told the
people of Georgia everywhere, with the
weight of his name, that if they adopt
ed that constitution il would not con-
fer upon the negro anything but the
right to vote it would not confer up
on him the right to hold office.


Well, sir, the people did adopt the
constitution the Legislature assem-
bled, and, as If they had determined
to submit, to the will of the dominant
party in this country as far as possible,
as if they had been determined to re-
move all doubt about their good faith,
they ratified the Fourteenth Amend-
ment before the colored members were
expelled and they elected their Scna,
tors before the colored members were
expelled Both these things were done.
Then, you cannot complain. Tho SEN
ator from Indiana, [Mr MortonI, when
he was asked by the Senator from Con


necticut, Mr.. Ferryl, why no insisted
on their ratifying the Fourteenth Am
endment again, said that that was an
unlawful Legislature. Unlawful why?
Unlawful because it had expelled the
negroes2 No such thing, sir. Every
negro had his seat there when the
Fourteenth Amendment was ratified
not ono of them had been expelled
! Unlawful because there were three or
four mon there disqualified to be there,
as it is said but not proved There is
no proof before the Senate this day,
and | defy Senator to point mo to a
scintilla of legal proof that any mem
Der of that Legislature was disqualified
under the Fourteenth Amendment
We have Governor Bullock's opinion,
and that is all we have Governor Bull
locks surmise, and that not under
oath, in the evidence which was taken
before the House Reconstruction Com
mittee not sworn statement, but his
mere surmiso, his mere belief his
mere suspicion that there are four or
five Of those members were disqualified
under the Fourteenth Amendment


Such was the state of the case. That
Legislature met obcdient to your will,
even to scrvility. 1t adopted your
Fourteenth Amendment, it elected its
Senator'S, and after that, and upon the
maturest consideration Of this legal,
this constitutional question, it decided
that under the State Constitution of
Georgia colored men were not eligible
to hold Office and that is its great sir.
And now If y'u turn her out you turn
her out not because she has disobeyed
any reconstruction act of Congress, not
because she has disregarded any act of
Congress, not because in anything she
has done she has set the power of The
General Government at defiance, not
because she has in any respect infring-
ed the Constitution of the United
States, not for any ono of these reas-
ons but because her Legislature, in
the exercise of an indubitable power,
have made an error in tho interpreta-
ton Of her own State Constitution. -
Hide it if you will, conceal it if you
will, the pretext for turning her out ia
nothing more than this nothing less
than this, that her Legislature have
misinterpreted her own State Consti,
tuition that they have followed the
guidance and legal advice of the head
and front of the Radical party in Geor,
gia that they have followed that legal
opinion, which was promulgated from
F one end of Georgia to the other before
the Constitution was adopted, that un


der that Constitution colored men
would not be entitled to hold office.


Why, sir, H. you can now go into thai
State and turn out the present memb


ers OF the Legislature and reinstate
those negroes, you can do the same
thing with regard to any State in this
Union if you think its General Assem-
bly, misinterprets its own State Consti'
} tuition. 1t is only two years ago that
We had case in Ohio, A member was
elected to the Senate of that State, re-
ceived certificate of election as a
member Of that Senate, and his elec,
ton was contested on the ground that
colored persons voted for him and gave
him his majority. Upon the hearing
of the contest the whole case turned
upon this, whether person having
more white than black blood in his
veins was an elector in the State OF
Ohio under the constitution of that
State. The Supreme Court of the State
bad dacidad that ba vaa aud ;f tbat