Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs/Chapter 30

by George Sewall Boutwell

 

XXX

THE AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION

I HAD no part in the preparation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, nor any part in its passage through the House other than to give my vote in its favor. The Amendment resolution was passed by the Thirty-eighth Congress at its last session and by the aid of Democrats. The elections of 1864 had resulted in a two-thirds majority and it was therefore certain that the resolution would be agreed to by the next House. Hence there was less inducement for the Democrats to resist its passage by the Thirty-eighth Congress. A small number of Democrats favored the measure. English of Connecticut and Ganson of New York were of the number. There were others also whose names I do not recall. At the time of the contest a rumor was abroad that James M. Ashley, of Ohio, was engaged in making arrangements with certain Democrats to absent themselves from the House when the vote was taken. Several were absent—some were reported ill in health. Mr. Ashley was deeply interested in the passage of the resolution and it was believed that he made pledges which no one but the President could keep. Such was the exigency for the passage of the resolution that the means were not subjected to any rigid rule of ethics.

The Fourteenth Amendment had its origin in a joint committee of fifteen of which Mr. Fessenden of Maine was chairman. A record of its proceedings was kept which was printed recently by order of the Senate. From that report it appears that I proposed an amendment for conferring the right to vote upon the freedmen of the State of Tennessee. As far as I know that was the first time the proposition was made in connection with the proceedings of Congress. The committee did not concur in the proposition. Indeed the time had not come for decisive action in that direction. The motion was made in the committee the 19th day of February, 1866, when the admission of the State of Tennessee into the Union was under consideration. The motion was in these words: “Said State shall make no distinction in the exercise of the elective franchise on account of race or color.” The motion was lost by the following vote:

Yeas: Howard, Stevens, Washburne, Morrill, Boutwell.

Nays: Harris, Williams, Grider, Bingham, Conkling, Rogers.

Absent: Fessenden, Grimes, Johnson, Blow.

The 16th day of April Senator Stuart, of Nevada, came before the committee in support of a similar proposition that he had introduced in the Senate April 7.

In January, 1866, a bill was under discussion in the House of Representatives for the establishment of a government in the District of Columbia. Mr. Hale of New York moved amendments by which the right of suffrage by negroes would be limited to those who could read and write, to those who had performed service in the army or navy or who possessed property qualifications. The amendment was defeated. My views were thus stated in one of the very small number of my speeches that have had immediate influence upon an audience or an assembly:

“I am opposed to the instructions moved by the gentleman from New York, because I see in them no advantage to anybody, and I apprehend from their adoption much evil to the country. It should be borne in mind, that, when we emancipated the black people we not only relieved ourselves from the institution of slavery, we not only conferred upon them freedom, but we did more; we recognized their manhood, which, by the old Constitution and the general policy and usage of the country, had been, from the organization of the Government until the Emancipation Proclamation, denied to all of the enslaved colored people. As a consequence of the recognition of their manhood, certain results follow, in accordance with the principles of the Government; and they who believe in this Government are, by necessity, forced to accept those results as a consequence of the policy of emancipation which they have inaugurated, and for which they are responsible.

“But to say now, having given freedom to the blacks, that they shall not enjoy the essential rights and privileges of men, is to abandon the principle of the Proclamation of Emancipation, and tacitly to admit that the whole emancipation policy is erroneous.

* * * “What are the qualifications suggested? They are three. First and most attractive, service in the army or navy of the United States. I shall have occasion to say, if I discuss, as I hope to discuss, the nature and origin of the right of voting, that there is not the least possible connection between service in the army and navy and the exercise of the elective franchise,—none whatever. These men have performed service, and I am for dealing justly with them because they have performed service. But I am more anxious to deal justly by them because they are men. And when it is remembered, that, for months and almost for years after the opening of the rebellion, we refused to accept the services of colored persons in the armies of the country, it is with ill grace that we now decline to allow the vote of any man because he has not performed that service.

“The second is the property qualification. I hope it is not necessary in this day and this hour of the Republic to argue anywhere that a property qualification is not only unjust in itself, but that it is odious to the people of the country to a degree which cannot be expressed. Everywhere, I believe, for half a century, it has been repudiated by the people. Does anybody contemplate such a qualification to the elective franchise, in the case of black people or white?

“And, next, reading and writing, or reading as a qualification, is demanded; and an appeal is made to the example of Massachusetts. I wish gentlemen who now appeal to Massachusetts would often appeal to her in other matters where I can more conscientiously approve her policy. But it is a different proposition in Massachusetts as a practical measure.

“When, ten years ago, this qualification was imposed upon the citizens of Massachusetts, it excluded no person who was then a voter. For two centuries, we have had in Massachusetts a system of public instruction, open to the children of the whole people without money and without price. Therefore all the people there had had opportunities for education. Why should the example of such a State be quoted to justify refusing suffrage to men who have been denied the privilege of education, and whom it has been a crime to teach?

* * * “The negro has everywhere the same right to vote as the white man, and I maintain still further, that, when you proceed one step from this line, you admit that your government is a failure. What is the essential quality of monarchical and aristocratic governments? Simply that by conventionalities by arrangements of conventions, some persons have been deprived of the right of voting. We have attempted to set up and maintain a government upon the doctrine of the equality of men, the universal right of all men, to participate in the government. In accordance with that theory, we must accept the ballot upon the principle of equality. It is enjoyed by the learned and the unlearned, the wise and the ignorant, the virtuous and the vicious.

“The great experiment is going on. If, before the war, any man in this country was disposed to undervalue a government thus conducted, he should have learned by this time the wisdom and the strength of a government which embraces and embodies the judgment and the will of the whole people. If the negroes of the South, four million strong, had been endowed with the elective franchise, and had united with the white people of that region in the work of rebellion, your armies would have been powerless to subdue that rebellion, and you would to-day have seen your territory limited by the Potomac and the Ohio.

* * * “We are to answer for our treatment of the colored people of this country; and it will prove in the end impracticable to secure to men of color civil rights, unless the persons who claim those rights are fortified by the political right of voting. With the right of voting, everything that a man ought to have or enjoy of civil rights comes to him. Without the right to vote he is secure in nothing. I cannot consent, after all the guards and safeguards which may be prepared for the defence of the colored men in the enjoyment of their rights,—I cannot consent that they shall be deprived of the right to protect themselves. One hundred and eighty-six thousand of them have been in the army of the United States. They have stood in the places of our sons and brothers and friends. Many of them have fallen in defence of the country. They have earned the right to share in the government; and, if you deny them the elective franchise, I know not how they are to be protected. Otherwise you furnish the protection which is given to the lamb when he is commended to the wolf.”

“There is an ancient history that a sparrow pursued by a hawk took refuge in the chief Assembly of Athens, in the bosom of a member of that illustrious body, and that the senator in anger hurled it violently from him. It fell to the ground dead; and such was the horror and indignation of that ancient but not Christianized body,—men living in the light of nature, of reason,—that they immediately expelled the brutal Areopagite from his seat, and from the association of humane legislators.

“What will be said of us, not by Christian, but by heathen nations even, if, after accepting the blood and sacrifices of these men, we hurl them from us, and allow them to become the victims of those who have tyrannized over them for centuries? I know of no crime that exceeds this; I know of none that is its parallel; and, if this country is true to itself, it will rise in the majesty of its strength, and maintain a policy, here and everywhere, by which the right of the colored people shall be secure through their own power,—in peace, the ballot; in war, the bayonet.

“It is a maxim of another language, which we may well apply to ourselves, that, where the voting-register ends, the military roster of rebellion begins; and, if you leave these four million people to the care and custody of the men who have inaugurated and carried on this rebellion, then you treasure up, for untold years, the elements of social and civil war, which must not only desolate and paraylze the South, but shake this government to its very foundation.”

It was impossible in 1866 to go farther than the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. That amendment was prepared in form by Senators Conkling and Williams and myself. We were a select committee on Tennessee. The propositions were not ours, but we gave form to the amendment. The part relating to “privileges and immunities” came from Mr. Bingham of Ohio. Its euphony and indefiniteness of meaning were a charm to him. When the measure came before the Senate Mr. Sumner opposed its passage and alleged that we proposed to barter the right of the negroes to vote for diminished representation on the part of the old slave States in the House and in the electoral colleges; while in truth the loss of representation was imposed as a penalty upon any State that should deprive any class of its adult male citizens of the right to vote. Upon this allegation of Mr. Sumner the resolution was defeated in the Senate. There were then in that body a number of Republicans from the old slave States and over them Mr. Sumner had large influence. The defeat of the amendment was followed by bitter criticisms by the Republican press and by Republicans. These criticisms affected Mr. Sumner deeply and he then devoted himself to the preparation of an amendment which he could approve. While he was engaged in that work I called upon him and he read seventeen drafts of a proposition not one of which was entirely satisfactory to himself, and not one of which would have been accepted by Congress or the country. The difficulty was in the situation. Upon the return of the seceded States their representation would be increased nearly forty votes in the House and in the electoral colleges while the voting force would remain in the white population. The injustice of such a condition was apparent, and there were only two possible remedies. One was to extend the franchise to the blacks. The country—the loyal States—were not then ready for the measure. The alternative was to cut off the representation from States that denied the elective franchise to any class of adult male citizens. Finally Mr. Sumner was compelled to accept the alternative. Some change of phraseology was made, and Mr. Sumner gave a reluctant vote for the resolution.

Aside from the debates on the constitutional amendments there were serious differences among Republicans in regard to the exercise of the right of suffrage by the negroes.

Previous to the year 1868 there was a majority of Republicans who would have imposed a qualification, some of service in the army or navy, some of property and some of education. It was with great difficulty that the scheme of limitation was resisted in regard to the District of Columbia. As to the Democrats they could always be counted upon to aid in any measure which tended to keep the negroes in a subordinate condition. This of the majority—there was always a minority, usually a small one, who were ready to aid in the elevation of the negro when his emancipation had been accomplished. I do not recall the name of one man who favored emancipation as a policy and adhered to the Democratic Party. When a man reached the conclusion that the negroes should be free, he could not do otherwise than join the Republican Party. At the time of the admission of Tennessee, July, 1866, there were only twelve men in the House of Representatives who insisted upon securing to the negro the right to vote. A larger number favored the scheme, but they yielded to the claim of that State to be admitted without conditions. At that time the power of the President was not impaired seriously, and his wishes were heeded by many. There was also an understanding that the State would concede the right upon terms not unreasonable.

Next to the restoration of the Union and the abolition of slavery the recognition of universal suffrage is the most important result of the war. It has its evils but they are incidental, and their influence is limited to times and places, while the advantages are universal and enduring. Universal suffrage is security for universal education. It is security against chronic hostility to the Government and security against the manifestation of a revolutionary spirit among the people. They realize that with frequent elections, the evils of administration may be corrected speedily. By a similar though slower process the fundamental law may be changed. Hence it is that in this country until recently there was no difference of opinion as to the wisdom of the system of government under which we are living. The existing diversity of opinion will soon disappear. If suffrage were limited there would be a body of discontented people ready to seize upon any pretext that promised a change. In the present condition of our system the only danger is due to the forcible or fraudulent withholding of the right from those who are entitled to enjoy it. This condition of things must soon end. The safety of a state is yet further secured by frequent elections. The project to extend the Presidential term is full of danger. If the term were six or ten years the presence of an offensive or dangerous man in the office would provoke a revolution, or cause disturbances only less disastrous to business and to social and domestic comfort. In the little republic of Hayti there have been not less than seventeen revolutions in the hundred years of its existence and they were due in a large degree to the fact that the Presidential term is seven years.

The various propositions submitted to the House of Representatives for securing the right to vote to all the male adult citizens of the United States were referred to the Judiciary Committee of which I was a member. Among them was one submitted by myself. In the committee they were referred to a sub-committee consisting of myself, Mr. Churchill of New York, and Mr. Eldridge of Wisconsin. Mr. Eldridge as a Democrat was opposed to the measure, and he took no interest in preparing the form of an amendment. Churchill and myself were fellow-boarders and we prepared and agreed to an amendment in substance that which was adopted finally and which in form was almost the same. When I reported the amendment to the committee not one word was said either in criticism or commendation, nor was there a call for a second reading. After a moment’s delay Mr. Wilson, the chairman, said:—“If there is no objection Mr. Boutwell will report the amendment to the House.” There was no objection and at the earliest opportunity I made the report—that is, I reported the resolution for amending the Constitution. Mr. Wilson made a speech which I have not since read, but which made an impression upon my mind that he was opposed to the measure, or at least had doubts about the wisdom of urging the amendment upon Congress and the country.

The resolution passed the House as it was reported by the committee. When it was taken up in the Senate Mr. Sumner, who was opposed to the resolution, assailed it with an amendment that would have been fatal if his lead had been followed by the two Houses. He proposed to insert after the words “to vote” the words “or hold office.” At that time he was a recognized leader upon all matters relating to the negro race, and his standing with that race was such that the Republican senators from the slave States were obedient to his wishes. His amendment was adopted by the Senate. In presence of the fact that Mr. Sumner was opposed to any amendment of the Constitution upon the subject and that he proposed to rely upon a statute, it is difficult to explain his conduct upon any other theory than that he intended to defeat the measure either in Congress or in the States. He had claimed when the Fourteenth Amendment was pending that a joint resolution would furnish an adequate remedy and protection. His proposition was in these words: “There shall be no oligarchy, aristocracy, caste or monopoly invested with peculiar privileges and powers and there shall be no denial of rights, civil or political on account of color or race anywhere within the limits of the United States or the jurisdiction thereof: but all persons therein shall be equal before the law, whether in the court room or at the ballot-box. And this statute made in pursuance of the Constitution shall be the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any State notwithstanding.” This resolution is a sad impeachment of Mr. Sumner’s quality as a lawyer and it is an equally sad impeachment of his sense or of his integrity as a man that he was willing to risk the rights of five million persons upon a statute whose language was rhetorical and indefinite, a statute which might be repealed and which was quite certain to be pronounced unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Upon the return of the resolution and amendment to the House, my own position was an embarrassing one. I was counted as a radical and in favor of securing to the negro race every right to which the white race was entitled. My opposition to the Senate amendment seemed to place me in a light inconsistent with my former professions. However, I met the difficulty by an argument in which I maintained that the right to vote carried with it the right to hold office. That in the United States there were only a few exceptions, and those were exceptions under the Constitution.

Finally, the House, by a reduced vote refused to concur with the amendment of the Senate. It was at this crisis that Wendell Phillips wrote an article in the Anti-Slavery Standard over his own name in which he said in substance and in words, that the House proposition was adequate and that it ought to be accepted by the Senate. His name and opinion settled the controversy. The Southern Republicans deserted Mr. Sumner feeling that the opinion of Phillips was a sufficient shield. A slight change of phraseology was made and the proposition of the House became the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

I wrote a letter of acknowledgment to Mr. Phillips in the opinion that he had saved the amendment. At that time the prejudice against negroes for office was very strong in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and in varying degrees the prejudice extended over the whole North.

The enjoyment of the right to vote has not been fully secured to the negro race, but no one has appeared to deny his right to hold office. Indeed, the Democratic Party as well as the Republican Party has placed him in office, both by election and appointment. Thus has experience shown the folly of Mr. Sumner’s amendment.

That Mr. Sumner should have been willing to risk the rights of the whole negro race upon a statute whose constitutionality would have been questioned upon good ground, and which might have been repealed, is a marvel which no one not acquainted with Mr. Sumner can comprehend. First of all, though he was learned, he was not a lawyer. He was unpractical in the affairs of government to a degree that is incomprehensible even to those who knew him. He was in the Senate twenty-three years and the only mark that he left upon the statutes is an amendment to the law relating to naturalization by which Mongolians are excluded from citizenship. The object of his amendment was to save negroes from the exclusive features of the statute which was designed to apply only to the Chinese. His amendment made plain what the committee had designed to secure. He was a great figure in the war against slavery and as a great figure in that war he should ever remain.

The Fifteenth Amendment saved the country from a series of calamities that might have been more disastrous even than the Civil War. The South might, under the Fourteenth Amendment, grant to the negroes the right to vote but upon conditions wholly impracticable and thus have secured their full representation in Congress at the same time that the voting power was retained in the hands of the white race. Or they might have denied to the negro race the right to vote and submitted to a loss of representation. Such a policy would have given the whole country over to contention and possibly in the end, to civil war. The discontented and oppressed negroes, increasing in numbers and wealth, would have demanded their rights ultimately, even by the threat of force, or by the use of force they would have secured their rights. In the North there would have been a large body of the people, only less than the whole body, who would have sympathized with the negroes and who, in an exigency would have rendered them material aid. The Dorr War in Rhode Island and the struggles in Kansas, are instances of the danger of attempting to found society or to maintain social order upon an unjust or an unequal system for the distribution of political power. It is true that at this time (1901) the operation of the Fifteenth Amendment has been defeated and consequently the governments of States and the Government of the United States have become usurpations, in that they have been in the hands of a minority of men. Nevertheless the influence of the amendment is felt by all, and the time is not distant when it will be accepted by all. Thus our Government will be made to rest upon the wisest and safest foundation yet devised by man: The Equality of Men in the States, and the Equality of States in the Union.

Mr. Sumner opposed the amendment and he declined to vote upon the passage of the resolution. Wendell Phillips saved it in the Senate. General Grant, more than anyone else secured its ratification by the people. I append a copy of my letter to Mr. Phillips:

Washington, March 13, 1870. 

My dear Sir:—
This letter will recall to your mind the circumstance that when the Fifteenth Amendment was suspended between the two houses you published an editorial in the Standard in favor of the House proposition. Can you send me that article? It may not be known to you that that article saved the amendment. A little of the secret history was this. Various propositions were offered in the House—among them one of my own—and all were referred to the Judiciary Committee.

In the Judiciary Committee, upon my motion the various resolutions for amending the Constitution in that particular were referred to a sub-committee consisting of myself, Churchill of New York and Eldridge of Wisconsin. Churchill and myself were living at the same house and conferred together several times. Eldridge took no interest in the matter and never joined us—perhaps was not invited. After an examination of all the plans I wrote that proposed amendment which was passed by the House and is in substance and almost in language the amendment as adopted.

With the concurrence of Mr. Churchill I reported it to the committee and without one word of criticism and as far as I could judge without any particular consideration I was directed to report it to the House. In the House it encountered considerable opposition and Mr. Wilson, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, made a speech which was a great surprise to me, though directed chiefly to the bill which I had also reported by direction of the Judiciary Committee giving at once the right of suffrage to negroes in all national elections and for members of the Legislature. This I thought necessary to secure the passage of the amendment through the State Legislatures. However, the resolution was finally passed by the House. In the Senate it met with great opposition because it omitted to secure in terms the right to hold office. This point had been raised in the House where I had successfully met the proposition by the statement and an argument in support of the statement that the right to vote as a matter of fact and in law carries with it the right to hold office. In the Senate, Mr. Sumner, supported by all the Southern Republicans and a part of the Northern Republicans succeeded in substituting a new resolution securing in terms the right to hold office. Upon the return of the Resolution to the House I was obliged to take what appeared a conservative position and resist the proposition to concur with the Senate upon the ground that the change was unnecessary and that its adoption threatened the loss of the measure in doubtful States as Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia and others. The House adhered to its position, yet with such weakness of purpose on the part of many who sustained me, as indicated that they would not withstand another assault. The struggle was then renewed in the Senate and with every indication that the Senate would insist upon its amendment. It was then that your article appeared. Its influence was immediate and potential. Men thought that if you the extremest radical could accept the House proposition they might safely do the same. Had the Senate adhered one of two things would have happened, either the House would have seceded or the amendment would have failed.

Had the House concurred I fear that we should have failed to carry several States which have since ratified it.

Upon reflection I think as at the time I thought that your voice saved the Fifteenth Amendment.

I am very truly,

Geo. S. Boutwell. 

Wendell Phillips, Esq.
Boston.

P. S. This letter is not for the public use in so far as names are mentioned, and of course, not for publication.

G.S.B. 

The article of Mr. Phillips became so important in its influence upon the final action of the Senate that I reproduce it in justice to Mr. Phillips and as a further record of an historical event.

“We see the action of the Senate touching the Constitutional Amendment with great anxiety. The House had passed a simple measure, one covering all the ground that people are ready to occupy. It answered completely the lesson of the war. Its simplicity gave it all the chance that exists for any form of amendment being ratified.

“Why was it not left in that shape? Leaving out of sight the manifest risk of attempting too much, the very fact of the little time left before the session closes, was warning enough to clutch at anything satisfactory and to run no risk of possible disagreement between the Houses. We wait further knowledge before indulging any conjectures as to the motive for this strange course of the Senate; before even suspecting that it grew out of any concealed hate toward the whole measure and was indeed a trick to defeat it. Whoever, in either House, gratifies some personal whim to the extent of defeating or even postponing this measure will incur the gravest responsibility. We exhort every man who professes himself a friend of liberty to drop all undue attachment to any form of words and to co-operate, heartily, earnestly, with the great body of the members in carrying through as promptly as possible, any form which includes the substance of a constitutional protection to the votes and right to office of the colored race. That is the work of the hour. That is the lesson the war has burned in on the brain and conscience of the Nation.

“To include with this, ‘Nationality, education creed,’ etc., is utter lack of common sense. Such a total forgetfulness of the commonest political prudence as makes it hard to credit the good intentions of the proposers.

“Our disappointment is the greater because we had reason to believe that the Senators who have this matter in charge, would be the last men to forget themselves at such a crisis. They have been timidly ‘practical,’ ludicrously tied up to precedents, when, in times past we have urged them to some act which seemed likely to jeopard party. Then Sir Oracle was never more sententious, more full of ‘wise saws and modern instances,’ than they. The inch they were willing to move ahead was hardly visible to the naked eye. How they lectured us on the ‘too fast’ and ‘too far’ policy! Now in an emergency which calls for the most delicate handling, they tear up not one admitted abuse, but include in the grasp half a dozen obstinate prejudices, which no logic of events has loosened. For the first time in our lives we beseech them to be a little more politicians—and a little less reformers—as those functions are usually understood.”

Under the date of March 18, 1869, I received from Mr. Phillips a letter in acknowledgment of my letter of thanks and commendation, in these words:

“Dear Sir:—
“Thank you for the intimation in your letter. I am glad if any words of mine helped get rid of the too prompt action at that time. I think it was of the greatest importance to act at once.”

The public mind seems to be misled in regard to the scope and legal value of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The amendments were in the nature of grants of power to the National Government, and in a corresponding degree they were limitations of the powers of the States, but the grants of power to the nation were also subject to limitations. Until the ratification of the amendments the States had full power to extend the right of suffrage, or to restrict its enjoyment with the freedom that they possessed when the Treaty of Peace of 1783 had been signed, and when the Constitution had not been framed and ratified.

All limitations of the right of suffrage by male inhabitants of twenty-one years of age, must fall under the control of the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments.

If in any State the right to vote shall be “denied or abridged on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude,” the statutes may be annulled by a decision of the Supreme Court. Neither the people of the United States in their political sovereignty, nor the political branch of the Government in its representative capacity can exert any direct influence upon the decision of the questions that may arise. The questions that may arise will be judicial questions, and they will fall under the decision of the judicial tribunals. Hence there has never been a time when it was the duty or when it was in the power or within the scope of the duty of the executive branch of the National Government to take official notice of the legislation in some of the former slave States, which is designed manifestly, to limit the voting power of the negro population in those States.

If such legislation does not fall under the Fifteenth Amendment it will be subject to the penalty imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment,—a proportionate loss of representative power in the House of Representatives and in the Electoral Colleges.

As one of the three remaining members of the Committee on the Judiciary, and as one of the three remaining members of the Committee on Reconstruction, I wish to say, without any reservation whatever, that the amendments are accomplishing and are destined to accomplish all that was expected by the committees that were charged with the duty of providing for the protection of the rights of the freedmen.

They were relieved from the disparaging distinctions that came into existence with the system of slavery. They were placed upon an equality with other citizens and in the forms of law all discriminations affecting unfavorably the right of suffrage must apply equally to all citizens. The injustice and unwisdom of the restrictive legislation in which the Southern States are indulging, are subjects of concern for the whole country, but the negro populations have no ground for the complaint that their rights have been neglected by the General Government.

This, however, is true: The negro population, in common with all others, has ground for just and continuing complaint against the legislation of Congress by which a portion of the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands have been denationalized on account of race or color, or on account of a condition of mental or physical inferiority.

The process of reasoning by which the legislation of the States of the South is condemned, by those who uphold the legislation in regard to Hawaii involves a question in political ethics which for the moment I am not able to answer in a manner satisfactory to myself.