em vote it down. It will not be five years from
to-day before this body will vote for it. You cannot get along without
it. You may adopt the other proposition, but the States will not
accept it. The Northern States in my judgement will not accept it,
because they will misapprehend the meaning of it." When the vote was
reached ten senators, including Mr. Henderson, sustained his
proposition in favor of negro suffrage. The resolution of the
Reconstruction Committee, after several attempts to modify it, came
to a vote,--_yeas_ 25, _nays_ 22. Two-thirds being required the
amendment was defeated. A reconsideration was made for the purpose
of resuming the discussion, but the resolution was never taken up
again, having become merged in a new proposition.

Pending the consideration of the Constitutional amendment so long
before Congress, the Reconstruction Committee reported, and both
Houses of Congress agreed to adopt, a resolution declaring that "No
senator or representative shall be admitted into either branch of
Congress from any of said States until Congress shall have declared
such State entitled to representation." It was the pressure of the
State of Tennessee for admission which brought about this declaration.
Her condition was regarded as peculiar, and her senators and
representatives were seeking admission to their appropriate bodies,
claiming exemption from the general requirements of the
Reconstruction policy, because they had, without the aid of Congress,
established a loyal State government. This was regarded as totally
inexpedient, and the committee reported the resolution, as they
declared, "in order to close agitation upon a question which seems
likely to disturb the action of the Government, as well as to quiet
the uncertainty which is agitating the minds of the people of the
eleven States which have been declared to be in insurrection." The
objection to this course was, that in a certain degree it involved the
renunciation on the part of both Senate and House of their right to
be the exclusive judge of the qualification of members of their
respective bodies. Mr. Stevens was the author of the resolution and it
really included, as its essential basis, the view which he had so
strenuously insisted upon, that the insurrectionary States must be
treated by Congress, in all that related to their restoration to the
Union, as if they were new States seeking admission for the first time.
Instead of each Ho