under these most striking circumstances.

All the prejudice born

of the rivalry of his personal and party ambitions was forgotten. Benton forgot even himself, he almost forgot that he had a soul to save or that he had a suffering body bleeding to death. His bodily pangs at the moment of dissolution seemed to be lost in the thoughts fixed sadly on the ruin portending the grand commonwealth to which he gave a homage that was almost worship. He was like a soldier battling earnestly for the cause that tasked all his powers. He does not feel the bullet that carries his life's blood away in its flight. He remembered that his efforts combined with those of his great party-antagonist had once contributed to save the Union and he was unwilling to lay down his head in the peace of death until he tried to repel another similar but more appalling danger.

It was Woolsey's praise that he was the founder of Oxford University.

So excellent in art and still so rising

That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue."

It is a larger merit in our Democratic statesman that he aided in the noble system of public schools in our city and he was, as I am informed, the first secretary of its board. I have often heard him say that he had mistaken his vocation - that he would have accomplished more as a schoolmaster than he had done that he would have trained many to greatness. It is certain that this was genuine feeling, for he found time amid labors which would have overwhelmed almost any other man, to become the successful instructor of his own children.

I trust that I may not be thought to tread on ground too holy in alluding to the gentle care, the touching solicitude with which he guarded the last feeble pulses of life in her who was the pride and glory of his young ambition, the sweet ornament of his mature fame, and best love of his ripened age. These are the complete qualities which enables us to know him as he was:

"Lofty and sour to those who loved him not,

But to those men who sought him, sweet as summer."

ON THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT

(In the United States Senate, February 15th, 1871)

The Senate having under consideration the joint resolution of the legislature of Indiana withdrawing its assent to the ratification of the fifteenth article of amendment to the Constitution—

Mr. President:·
:-

I

DID not intend to take part in this discussion, and I shall be very brief in the expression of my views now, and endeavor not to trespass too long on the indulgence of the Senate. The Senator from Indiana [Mr. Morton], with his usual ability, which marks him as the leader of the administration party on this floor,-there being many of the old leaders of the Republicans who cannot be claimed for the administration,- has opened the discussion of questions which I regard as of paramount importance to the country. These are the questions involved in the reconstruction acts of Congress. Other questions which attract much attention and employ some of the best minds of our country do not, in my opinion, deserve the prominence which has been given them at this juncture. I do not undervalue the great advantages to the people of low taxes and a sound system of finance; but these are only incidents to the great question beyond, as to the government itself. We might have free trade and a good financial system under a despotism; but a Federal Union of free States, coequal in political rights, with a general government of limited and clearly defined powers, is the opposite of despotism. The two cannot exist together.

Have we a Federal Union on the constitutional basis? Are the States equal in political rights? Is the central government acting within constitutional limitations? What is this whole system. of reconstruction, as it is called; this exclusion of States from their inherent and guaranteed rights? Taxation without representation, their fundamental laws set aside, the popular will suppressed, the right of suffrage taken from the States by a usurping fragment of Congress, the Federal Constitution itself changed in its character by the same usurping fragment, and, in defiance of the known and expressed will of the people, the government is literally, practically subverted, and the paramount issue now is to bring back the central government to its legitimate powers, and the restoration of the States to their reserved and undoubted

517 rights, instead of expending argument and effort on minor questions of expediency, touching the affairs of finance and free trade, questions which will become great and important when we shall have succeeded in rescuing the government itself from the perils which threaten its existence. Democrats may honestly differ on these minor matters, and so may radicals. But on the subject of a consolidated empire or a federal union there can be no division among those who prefer the one or the other system.

If the central government can make and unmake States at pleasure; can reconstruct them, displace the duly elected authori ties chosen by the people, and put others in their places by edicts to be executed by the military arm, then we are under a consolidated government without limitation of power. Such has been, and is, the action of Congress and of the administration of General Grant.

The Senator from Indiana fitly represents the administration in the bold, open, and outspoken expression of contempt for representative government. Sir, during the last summer the news was brought to us that the Senator had been appointed to a high mission abroad, the mission to England. It was very gratifying to me. Knowing well his ability and courage, and confiding in his patriotism upon questions pending between his own and a foreign country, I believed our affairs at the English court would be conducted by the honorable Senator with ability, courage, and decorum, and that the honor of the country would be safe in his hands.

But, sir, an election took place during the autumn, in the State of Indiana, and the Democratic party succeeded in electing a majority of the legislature of that State. The Senator at once renounced the mission which he had so recently accepted, and assigned as his reason that he would not have his State send a Senator here in his place to represent the political sentiments of the people of Indiana.

Mr. Morton-Misrepresent?

Mr. Blair-We need not quarrel about that. I shall not use so harsh a term toward him as to say he misrepresents the State of Indiana. He may, and doubtless does, believe that he represents the people of the State, but if there was a Senator to be chosen by the legislature just elected no one doubts that a Democrat would be chosen; and this fact would furnish the best evidence of the political sentiment of the people.

If the distinguished Senator had gone abroad upon the mission to which he was appointed, he would have learned in the royal court to which he was accredited a greater deference for the popular will than he seems to have attained in the party to which he belongs at home. He would have discovered there, in monarchical England, that no minister or public servant can hold office against the popular sentiment; but the Senator holds his place, although the people of his State have condemned him in the only form and manner in which public sentiment is ascertained in our country. He openly avows, moreover, that he continues so to hold it to prevent the election of one who more nearly represents the opinions of that body whose duty it is to select a Senator in his place.

The Senator has gone somewhat into the history of the Fifteenth Amendment, the rightful adoption of which is controverted by his State in the concurrent resolutions passed by the legislature of Indiana, and which are now under consideration by the Senate. I shall also refer to some historical matters pertain

ing to that measure. I remember very well that the Congress which proposed that amendment to the States failed to do so until after the presidential election, and that their nominating convention, which sat in Chicago, held out the promise to the people that no such amendment should be proposed, declaring in emphatic terms that, while they claimed the right to regulate the suffrage by Congress in the States lately in revolt, the States that had not been in rebellion should have, and of right ought to have, the power to regulate suffrage for themselves. This was a trick to avoid an issue which would have been fatal to them in the presidential election. But when, after the election, the party to which the Senator belongs had secured another lease of power, they then proposed to the States this amendment, refusing and voting down a proposition made, I think, in both houses of Congress, certainly in one of the houses, that the amendment should be submitted to legislatures of the States, elected after the amendment was submitted by Congress to the States for ratification. This was promptly refused. They did not intend that the people should have anything to do with framing their own organic law. This measure, the Senator declares, had become "a political necessity" for his party, and could not be trusted to the people.

What further? The two Senators who sat here from my own State, neither of whom sit here now, voted for this amendment

after the people of Missouri, in the election immediately preceding, had voted down negro suffrage by thirty thousand majority, and the legislature, elected by that very vote, ratified the amendment, in defiance of this overwhelming expression of public sentiment.

A similar state of facts occurred in Kansas, where, in the election preceding, negro suffrage had been defeated by fifteen thousand majority. In the State of Ohio the majority against negro suffrage was fifty thousand, and yet her Republican Senators and Representatives, and her Republican legislature, promptly disregarded the public will by proposing and ratifying this amendment. In the State of Michigan the people refused to give suffrage to the negroes by a majority of thirty-four thousand. Her Senators and Representatives were equally regardless of the wishes of their people, and hastened to fasten upon them an organic law for which they had proclaimed their detestation. I could go on and enumerate many more of the Northern States in which the people had expressed their will with equal emphasis, and were treated with equal contempt by their Republican Senators and Representatives. Among the number were the States of New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey; and, indeed, I think that none of the Northern States can be excepted, not one!

Now, sir, I do not know a single northern State outside of New England in which the people, whenever the question has been submitted to them, have not rejected the proposition to allow negro suffrage; and yet these gentlemen hurried the matter through without a constitutional quorum in the State of the Senator from Indiana; and in my State, after the people had condemned it by thirty thousand majority six months previous, the radical legislature adopted one-half of it on a telegram, not waiting to receive an official and authentic copy, such was their haste to show contempt for the popular will of the State.

Then the question is raised by the State of Indiana in these resolutions in reference to the ratification of Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, and Georgia, without the ratification of which States the amendment was not adopted. If adopted at all, we have seen that it was adopted against the remonstrance of all the people of the North, and simply by coercion in the States of the South; and yet that amendment is now to be considered as one of those sacred things upon which no man must lay his hands. Because the perfidious representatives of the people have betrayed their