On the record
The peculiar feature of this amendment was that if any portion of the people should be excluded by reason of race or color, every individual of that race or color would be excluded from the basis of apportionment.
Source
gutenberg.orgJames Blaine: “The peculiar feature of this amendment was that if any portion of the people should be excluded by reason of race or…”
Editor's note · Context
Blaine described a key aspect of the proposed amendment that would exclude entire races from representation if any individual was excluded due to race or color.
Share
More from James Blaine
Is any portion of the people bound to contribute their money or their blood to carry on a contest like that?
All these provisions are made to protect the States, not to authorize an attack by one part of the country upon another; to preserve the peace, and not to plunge them into civil war.
Without the exercise of those functions which belong exclusively to the civil service, the laws cannot be executed in any event, no matter what may be the physical strength which the Government has at its command.
And if Congress shall break up the present Union by unconstitutionally putting strife and enmity and armed hostility between different sections of the country, instead of the domestic tranquility which the Constitution was meant to insure…
Other voices in this conversation
