Opinion ID: 108221
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Historical Setting[3]

Text: The point of departure for considering the purpose and effect of the Fourteenth Amendment with respect to the suffrage should be, I thin, the pre-existing provisions of the Constitution. Article I, § 2, provided that in determining the number of Representatives to which a State was entitled, only three-fifths of the slave population should be counted. [4] The section also provided that the qualifications of voters for such Representatives should be the same as those established by the States for electors of the most numerous branch of their respective legislatures. Article I, § 4, provided that, subject to congressional veto, the States might prescribe the times, places, and manner of holding elections for Representatives. Article II, § 1, provided that the States might direct the manner of choosing electors for President and Vice President, except that Congress might fix a uniform time for the choice. [5] Nothing in the original Constitution controlled the way States might allocate their political power except for the guarantee of a Republican Form of Government, which appears in Art. IV, § 4. [6] No relevant changes in the constitutional structure were made until after the Civil War. At the close of that war, there were some four million freed slaves in the South, none of whom were permitted to vote. The white population of the Confederacy had been overwhelmingly sympathetic with the rebellion. Since there was only a comparative handful of persons in these States who were neither former slaves nor Confederate sympathizers, the place where the political power should be lodged was a most vexing question. In a series of proclamations in the summer of 1865, President Andrew Johnson had laid the groundwork for the States to be controlled by the white populations which had held power before the war, eliminating only the leading rebels and those unwilling to sign a loyalty oath. [7] The Radicals, on the other hand, were ardently in favor of Negro suffrage as essential to prevent resurgent rebellion, requisite to protect the freedmen, and necessary to ensure continued Radical control of the government. This ardor cooled as it ran into northern racial prejudice. At that time, only six StatesMaine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York permitted Negroes to vote, and New York imposed special property and residency requirements on Negro voters. [8] In referenda late that year, enfranchising proposals were roundly beaten in Connecticut, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Territory of Colorado, and the District of Columbia. Gillette, supra, n. 3, at 25-26. Such popular rebuffs led the Radicals to pull in their horns and hope for a protracted process of reconstruction during which the North could be educated to the advisability of Negro suffrage, at least for the South. In the meantime, of course, it would be essential to bar southern representation in Congress lest a combination of southerners and Democrats obtain control of the government and frustrate Radical goals. The problem of congressional representation was acute. With the freeing of the slaves, the Three-Fifths Compromise ceased to have any effect. While predictions of the precise effect of the change varied with the person doing the calculating, the consensus was that the South would be entitled to at least 15 new members of Congress, and, of course, a like number of new presidential electors. The Radicals had other rallying cries which they kept before the public in the summer of 1865, but one author gives this description of the mood as Congress convened: [9] Of all the movements influencing the Fourteenth Amendment which developed prior to the first session of the Thirty-ninth Congress, that for Negro suffrage was the most outstanding. The volume of private and public comment indicates that it was viewed as an issue of prime importance. The cry for a changed basis of representation was, in reality, subsidiary to this, and was meant by Radicals to secure in another way what Negro suffrage might accomplish for them: removal of the danger of Democratic dominance as a consequence of Southern restoration. The danger of possible repudiation of the national obligations, and assumption of the rebel debt, was invariably presented to show the need for Negro suffrage or a new basis of representation. Sentiment for disqualification of ex-Confederates, though a natural growth, well suited such purposes. The movement to guarantee civil rights, sponsored originally by the more conservative Republicans, received emphasis from Radicals only when state elections indicated that suffrage would not serve as a party platform. When Congress met, the Radicals, led by Thaddeus Stevens, were successful in obtaining agreement for a Joint Committee on Reconstruction, composed of 15 members, to inquire into the condition of the States which formed the so-called confederate States of America, and report whether they, or any of them, are entitled to be represented in either House of Congress . . . . Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 30, 46 (1865) (hereafter Globe). All papers relating to representation of the Southern States were to be referred to the Committee of Fifteen without debate. The result, which many had not foreseen, was to assert congressional control over Reconstruction and at the same time to put the congressional power in the hands of a largely Radical secret committee. The Joint Committee began work with the beginning of 1866, and in due course reported a joint resolution, H. R. 51, to amend the Constitution. The proposal would have based representation and direct taxes on population, with a proviso that whenever the elective 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 representation. Globe 351. The result, if the Southern States did not provide for Negro suffrage, would be a decrease in southern representation in Congress and the electoral college by some 24 seats from their pre-war position instead of an increase of 15. The House, although somewhat balky, approved the measure after lengthy debate. Globe 538. The Senate proved more intractable. An odd combination of Democrats, moderate Republicans, and extreme Radicals combined to defeat the measure, with the Radicals basing their opposition largely on the fear that the proviso would be read to authorize racial voter qualifications and thus prevent Congress from enfranchising the freedmen under powers assertedly granted by other clauses of the Constitution. See, e. g., Globe 673-687 (Sen. Sumner). At about this same time the Civil Rights Bill and the Second Freedmen's Bureau Bill were being debated. Both bills provided a list of rights secured, not including voting. [10] Senator Trumbull, who reported the Civil Rights Bill on behalf of the Senate Judiciary Committee, stated: I do not want to bring up the question of negro suffrage in the bill. Globe 606. His House counterpart exhibited the same reluctance. Globe 1162 (Cong. Wilson of Iowa). Despite considerable uncertainty as to the constitutionality of the measures, both ultimately passed. In the midst of the Senate debates on the basis of representation, President Johnson vetoed the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, primarily on constitutional grounds. This veto, which was narrowly sustained, was followed shortly by the President's bitter attack on Radical Reconstruction in his Washington's Birthday speech. These two actions, which were followed a month later by the veto of the Civil Rights Bill, removed any lingering hopes among the Radicals that Johnson would support them in a thoroughgoing plan of reconstruction. By the same token they increased the Radicals' need for an articulated plan of their own to be put before the country in the upcoming elections as an alternative to the course the President was taking. The second major product of the Reconstruction Committee, before the resolution which became the Fourteenth Amendment, was a proposal to add an equal rights provision to the Constitution. This measure, H. R. 63, which foreshadowed § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, read as follows: The Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper to secure to the citizens of each State all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States, and to all persons in the several States equal protection in the rights of life, liberty, and property. Globe 1034. It was reported by Congressman Bingham of Ohio, who later opposed the Civil Rights Bill because he believed it unconstitutional. Globe 1292-1293. The amendment immediately ran into serious opposition in the House and the subject was dropped. [11] Such was the background of the Fourteenth Amendment. Congress, at loggerheads with the President over Reconstruction, had not come up with a plan of its own after six months of deliberations; both friends and foes prodded it to develop an alternative. The Reconstruction Committee had been unable to produce anything which could even get through Congress, much less obtain the adherence of three-fourths of the States. The Radicals, committed to Negro suffrage, were confronted with widespread public opposition to that goal and the necessity for a reconstruction plan that could do service as a party platform in the elections that fall. The language of the Fourteenth Amendment must be read with awareness that it was designed in response to this situation.