... 1866), for adoption. It declared that no State should make or enforce any law abridging the "privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States," or deprive any person of "life, liberty or property without due process of law," or deny to any person "the equal protection of the laws." The Republicans saw that by the freeing of the blacks they had actually increased the political strength of the Southern States, because the threefifths rule would no longer apply, but all the negroes would be counted in determining the representative population. Some were desirous of giving the negroes the suffrage immediately by National act. Others hesitated. All, however, desired to prevent the Southern States from reaping this political advantage from emancipation, unless they allowed the blacks to vote. It was therefore decided that if the negroes were not given the suffrage by a State voluntarily, they should not be counted in determining the basis of representation. For these reasons the second section of the Fourteenth Amendment was added. Such was the Fourteenth Amendment, by far the greatest change made in the Constitution, since its adoption. There was some difficulty, as we shall see, in securing its ratification, the Southern States refusing to accept it; two years passed before it was finally ratified (1868), but we may notice at this time how it modified the Constitution when once it became a part of the fundamental law. Before this amendment was passed the subject of suffrage was solely a State affair, as long as the State had a "republican form of government." So, too, the State had complete control over its citizens and could be as tyrannical as it saw fit, provided that it did not interfere with the relations between a person and the National Government or violate the few express prohibitions in the National Constitution. By this amendment the nation intervened to protect the citizens of the State against unjust legislation or action of a State. Thus it will be seen the situation had entirely altered from what it was in 1788-90. Then it was thought necessary to shield the citizen from the possible tyranny of the National Government, and to this end the first ten amendments were adopted. In 1869 the Fifteenth Amendment was submitted to the States for adoption. It declared: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, colour, or previous condition of servitude." Secretary Fish announced, March 30, 1870, that it had "become valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the Constitution of the United States." The acceptance of the Fifteenth Amendment as part of the fundamental law of the nation did not do away with the troubles and distress that grew out of the rebellion. The corruption of the carpet-bag governments, built on negro suffrage, was proof enough that slavery had been a poor schoolmaster for freedom. ANDREW C. MCLAUGHLIN, History of the American Nation. 463–483. ᎻᎪᎡᎢ (1899) So far as the existence of slavery went, the Thirteenth Amendment, declared to be in force in December, 1865, was a constitutional guarantee which superseded the revocable abolition acts of the States reconstructed during that year; and it took out of the list of conditions which might be imposed upon the States an acknowledgment of the freedom of the former slaves; it superseded also the special conditions of the amnesty proclamations of Lincoln and Johnson. There still remained a necessity for statutes or constitutional amendments to define the judicial and other civil rights of the negro. . . During 1865 both the legal and the economic status of the negroes were confused and unsatisfactory. As soon as it became evident that Johnson had no interest in negro suffrage, and was willing to reinstate by his pardoning power a large proportion of those who had been concerned in the rebellion, Chase [Salmon P. Chase] found himself separated from the President, who no longer invited an expression of his opinion. At the same time his friends in the South assured him that, without protection from the United States, the Union men would be completely overborne and the freedman in danger. Chase's sympathy now began to turn towards the congressional plan. This was a legislative reversal of whatever was left of the Dred Scott decision. . . The act was certain to arouse the opposition of the South, and was itself liable to repeal. It seemed therefore desirable to put its provisions into a constitutional amendment, which would forever protect the rights of the negroes and which at the same time would take out of the hands of the President the restoration of former rebels to their political status. . . . The Southern States duly paid the price of their readmission by ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment, and from 1868 they were gradually allowed to reoccupy seats in Congress. As might have been expected, so soon as the Southern States were again admitted to seats in Congress there was a tendency in the South to put an end by violence to negro suffrage; hence Congress passed a statute, the so-called Civil Rights Bill, under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, to protect the negroes. ALBERT BUSHNELL HART, Salmon Portland Chase. 335, 381. CHAPTER XXIV LIBERTY IN UNITED STATES COLONIES AND SUGGESTIONS THESE documents contain suggestions as to the prospective policy of government in the newly acquired territorial possessions of Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippine Islands. The critical comment which follows must of necessity become in a few years a part of the contemporary exposition. It needs an historical perspective, which the future alone can give, for the proper discussion of these documents. But, as the making of history is as important a study as the chronicles of the past, the student should look at present issues with keen interest. He must appreciate that to-day's events belong to a succession of conditions in a general movement of progress; from whatever political point of view he approaches the subject he will find these historical conditions the same. Out of the vast amount of oratory and writing for and against the present policy of the administration, a few masters of constitutional history have been chosen to give expression in criticism. DOCUMENTS Extracts from President McKinley's Annual Message, Dec. 5, 1898 mediate peace in Cuba and its disappointing re- stop the war and check the hopeless sacrifice of life, even though that resort involved "hostile constraint upon both the parties to the contest, as well to enforce a truce as to guide the eventual settlement." The grounds justifying that step were the interests of humanity, the duty to protect the life and property of our citizens in Cuba, the right to check injury to our commerce and people through the devastation of the island, and, most important, the need of removing at once and forever the constant menace and the burdens entailed upon our Government by the uncertainties and perils of the situation caused by the unendurable disturbance in Cuba. I said: "The long trial has proved that the object for which Spain has waged the war cannot be attained. The fire of insurrection may flame or may smoulder with varying seasons, but it has not been and it is plain that it cannot be extinguished by present methods. The only hope of relief and repose from a condition which can no longer be endured is the enforced pacification of Cuba. In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, in behalf of endangered American interests which give us the right and the duty to speak and to act, the war in Cuba must stop." In view of all this the Congress was asked to By the authorize and empower the President to take Message of April 11, measures to secure a full and final termination of 1898. hostilities between Spain and the people of Cuba and to secure in the island the establishment of a stable government, capable of maintaining order and observing its international obligations, insuring peace and tranquillity and the security of its citizens as well as our own, and for the accomplishment of those ends to use the military and naval forces of the United States as might be necessary, with added authority to continue generous relief to the starving people of Cuba. The response of the Congress, after nine days of |