George Sewall Boutwell

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”