e
colored people shall be secure through their own power,--in peace,
the ballot; in war, the bayonet.

"It is a maxim of another language, which we may well apply to
ourselves, that, where the voting-register ends, the military roster of
rebellion begins; and, if you leave these four million people to the
care and custody of the men who have inaugurated and carried on this
rebellion, then you treasure up, for untold years, the elements of
social and civil war, which must not only desolate and paralyze the
South, but shake this government to its very foundation."

It was impossible in 1866 to go farther than the provisions of the
Fourteenth Amendment. That amendment was prepared in form by Senators
Conkling and Williams and myself. We were a select committee on
Tennessee. The propositions were not ours, but we gave form to the
amendment. The part relating to "privileges and immunities" came from
Mr. Bingham of Ohio. Its euphony and indefiniteness of meaning were
a charm to him. When the measure came before the Senate Mr. Sumner
opposed its passage and alleged that we proposed to barter the right
of the negroes to vote for diminished representation on the part of
the old slave States in the House and in the electoral college; while
in truth the loss of representation was imposed as a penalty upon any
State that should deprive any class of its adult male citizens of the
right to vote. Upon this allegation of Mr. Sumner the resolution was
defeated in the Senate. There were then in that body a number of
Republicans from the old slave States and over them Mr. Sumner had
large influence. The defeat of the amendment was followed by bitter
criticisms by the Republican press and by Republicans. These
criticisms affected Mr. Sumner deeply and he then devoted himself to
the preparation of an amendment which he could approve. While he was
engaged in that work I called upon him and he read seventeen drafts of
a proposition not one of which was entirely satisfactory to himself,
and not one of which would have been accepted by Congress or the
country. The difficulty was in the situation. Upon the return of the
seceded States their representation would be increased nearly forty
votes in the House and in the electoral colleges while the voting force
would remain in the white population. The injustice of such a
condition was apparent, and there were only two possible remedies.
One was to extend the franchise to the black