I will go farther and say, that I recognize
the right of franchise as being intrinsically a natural right. I do
not believe that society is authorized to impose any limitations
upon it that do not spring out of the necessities of the social
state itself. Sir, I have been shocked, in the course of this
debate, to hear Senators declare this right only a conventional and
political arrangement, a privilege yielded to you and me and
others; not a right in any sense, only a concession! Mr. President,
I do not hold my liberties by any such tenure. On the contrary, I
believe that whenever you establish that doctrine, whenever you
crystalize that idea in the public mind of this country, you ring
the death-knell of American liberties."
Charles Sumner, in his brave protests against the fourteenth and
fifteenth amendments, insisted that, so soon as by the thirteenth
amendment the slaves became free men, the original powers of the United
States Constitution guaranteed to them equal rights--the right to vote
and to be voted for. In closing one of his great speeches he said:
"I do not hesitate to say that when the slaves of our country
became 'citizens' they took their place in the body politic as a
component part of the 'people,' entitled to equal rights, and under
the protection of these two guardian principles: First--That all
just governments stand on the consent of the governed; and second,
that taxation without representation is tyranny; and these rights
it is the duty of Congress to guarantee as essential to the idea of
a Republic.
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