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214
Arkansas that the proposed Constitutional Amendment
was ever acted on by a Congress under and according to
the Constitution of the United States ; when nearly one third
of the States were refused representation in Congress :
This proposed Amendment was never submitted to the
President of the United States , for his sanction :
The great and enormous power sought to be conferred on
Congress , under that Amendment , which gives that body
Authority to enforce , by appropriate legislation the provision
of the first Article of such Amendment , in effect , takes
from the States , all control over all the people in their local
and their domestic concerns , and virtually abolishes the States.
The Second Section, in the minds of the Committee, is
an effort to force negro suffrage upon the States ; an is
intended or not , it leaves the power to bring this about by
the States consent or not , and the Committee are of opinion
that every State Legislature should shrink at once from ever
permitting by their voice the possibility of such a calamity.
The Third Section of the proposed Amendment is an debt
disfranchisement , which would embrace many of our best
and uisest(sp) citizens , for there are but few that have not at
times , or in some shape , taken an oath to support the Con-
stitution of the United States . The committee can not consent
thus to brand , by thousands , the people of the State who have
struggled in a cause dear to them , like Patriots, and who
have yielded to the fate of war as brave and magnanimous
people only can do :
In considering this Amendment , the Committee have been
struck by one feature of the first section in particular,
and to this they call the attention of the Senate “nor shall any
State deprive any person of life , liberty, or property without
the
Process of law” :
This is almost identical with the language con-
tained in the fifth Amendment to the Constitution. And
this Amendment was intended by our wise and good Congress
to operate on the States and on Congress , and if this be not
enough alreadyx surely no additional Amendment will do
any good . If the one now existing be disregarded, will not the
one be ignored? The Committee may not know what was intended
by this part of the Amendment , but as advised they want
not consent to engrafh(sp) upon the Constitution an Amendment
now forming a part of that instrument , in as strong and
apt language as this , and as broad as can be : The Committee
are unwilling to approve this Amendment because it
forces new and additional obligations and burdens on our
people, not contemplated at the surrender of the troops of the
Confederate States , and not contemplated or intended when the
General Amnesty was proclaimed on 29th May 1865 :
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