But those who prepare constitutions are never those who adopt them, and
consequently the views of those who frame them have little or no bearing
upon their interpretation. The question for consideration here is, what
the people, who, through their representatives in the legislatures,
adopted the amendments, understood, or must be presumed to have
understood, from their language. They must be presumed to have known
that the "privileges and immunities" of citizens which were secured to
them by the first section beyond the power of abridgment by the States,
gave them the right to exercise the elective franchise, and they
certainly cannot be presumed to have understood that the second section,
which was also _designed to be restrictive_ upon the States, would be
held to confer by implication a power upon them, which the first section
in the most express terms prohibited.
It has been, and may be again asserted, that the position which I have
taken in regard to the second section is inadmissible, because it
renders the section nugatory. That is, as I hold, an entire mistake. The
leading object of the second section was the readjustment of the
representation of the States in Congress, rendered necessary by the
abolition of chattel slavery [_not of political slavery_], effected by
the thirteenth amendment.
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