they had always exercised, and to which they were
attached. As the best, not the only method of surmounting
all difficulty, and as eminently just and proper in itself,
your committee comes to the conclusion that political power
should be possessed in all the States exactly in proportion
as the right of suffrage should be granted without
distinction of color or race. This, it was thought, would
leave the whole question with the people of each State,
holding out to all the advantages of increased political
power as an inducement to allow all to participate in its
exercise. Such a proposition would be in its nature gentle
and persuasive, and would tend, it was hoped, at no distant
day, to an equal participation of all, without distinction,
in all the rights and privileges of citizenship, thus
affording a full and adequate protection to all classes of
citizens, since we would have, through the ballot-box, the
power of self-protection.

"Holding these views, your committee prepared an amendment
to the Constitution to carry out this idea, and submitted
the same to Congress. Unfortunately, as we think, it did not
receive the necessary constitutional support in the Senate,
and, therefore, could not be proposed for adoption by the
States. The principle involved in that amendment is,
however, believed to be sound, and your committee have again
proposed it in another form, hoping that it may receive the
approbation of Congress."

The action of the people of the insurrectionary States, and their
responses to the President's appeals, as showing their degree of
preparation for immediate admission into Congress, was thus set forth
in the report:

"So far as the disposition of the people of the
insurrectionary States and the probability of their adopting
measures conforming to the changed condition of affairs can
be inferred, from the papers submitted by the President as
the basis of his action, the prospects are far from
encouraging. It appears quite clear that the anti-slavery
amendments, both to the State and Federal Constitutions,
were adopted with reluctance by the bodies which did adopt
them; and in some States they have been either passed by in
silence or rejected. The language of all the provisions and
ordinances of the States on the subject amo