Page:Race distinctions in American Law (IA racedistinctions00stepiala).pdf/307

 the residents. In 1866, Congress established Negro suffrage in all the Territories of the United States.[28]

The second section of the Fourteenth Amendment, proposed June 16, 1866, and declared in force June 28, 1868, reads: "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State." The Amendment did not prohibit the denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race or color, but provided that, if such right was denied or abridged, the State must suffer the consequence of having its representation in Congress reduced. One feels safe in saying that the purpose of the National Government in adopting this section of the Fourteenth Amendment was to induce the States, particularly the Southern States, to extend suffrage to the Negro. With the possible exception of Minnesota, no State appears to have heeded the warning between 1868 and 1870.

One cannot say what would have been the result had