There is such absolute justice and fair dealing in this proposition, that no reply which deserves to be called an argument has ever been made to it.

The original provision in the Constitution by which three-fifths of the slaves were enumerated in the basis of representation, agreed to originally as a compromise in connection with the subject of direct taxation, had lost its relevancy by reason of emancipation as decreed in the Thirteenth Amendment.

The question now before Congress was therefore a new one.

It affected the rights of States and the equality of citizens.

To concede four and a half millions of negroes to the basis of Southern representation, and at the same time to confine the suffrage to the whites, was not merely a harsh injustice to the colored race, but it was an insulting discrimination against Northern white men.