er,--would apply
with equal force and equal equity to woman as to man; but I notice that
the Honorable Senator carefully and skillfully evaded that part of the
proposition. If a necessary connection between taxation and
representation applies to the individuals in a State, and that is the
application which the Honorable Senator made of it,--an application
never made by our ancestors, but applied by them to communities and
not to individuals,--I should like him to tell me why, according to
his own argument, every female that is taxed should not be allowed to
have the right of suffrage."

"There are," said Mr. Fessenden, "but two propositions to be considered
in the pending amendment; one is whether you will base representation
on voters, and the other is the proposition which is before the Senate.
I suppose the proposition to base representation upon actual voters
would commend itself to the Honorable Senator from Massachusetts. I
believe I have in my desk a proposition he made to amend the
Constitution (laid before the Senate so early in the session that the
bell which called us together had hardly struck its note before it was
laid upon the table), in which he proposed that representation in the
United States should be based on voters. Let me ask him if that does
not leave in the hands of the States the same power that exists there
now, and has existed heretofore? What is the difference? How does the
Honorable Senator find the pending proposition so objectionable, and
the one he offered so suitable to accomplish the purpose which he
desires to accomplish? The two propositions, in respect to the point
upon which the gentleman has made his speech, are identical in effect."

The Constitutional amendment was debated earnestly until the 9th of
March. One of the boldest and most notable speeches was made by Mr.
Henderson of Missouri, who surprised the Senate by taking a more
radical ground than the Reconstruction Committee. He moved the
following as a substitute for the committee's proposition to amend
the Constitution: "_No State, in prescribing the qualifications
requisite for electors therein, shall discriminate against any person
on account of color or race._" Mr. Henderson, though representing a
State lately slave-holding, was in advance of the majority of his
associates from the free States; but he defended his amendment with
great ability. He said, "I am aware that the Senate will vote it
down now. Let th