Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume Two).djvu/53

Rh “There is an ancient history that a sparrow pursued by a hawk took refuge in the chief Assembly of Athens, in the bosom of a member of that illustrious body, and that the senator in anger hurled it violently from him. It fell to the ground dead; and such was the horror and indignation of that ancient but not Christianized body,—men living in the light of nature, of reason,—that they immediately expelled the brutal Areopagite from his seat, and from the association of humane legislators.

“What will be said of us, not by Christian, but by heathen nations even, if, after accepting the blood and sacrifices of these men, we hurl them from us, and allow them to become the victims of those who have tyrannized over them for centuries? I know of no crime that exceeds this; I know of none that is its parallel; and, if this country is true to itself, it will rise in the majesty of its strength, and maintain a policy, here and everywhere, by which the right of the colored people shall be secure through their own power,—in peace, the ballot; in war, the bayonet.

“It is a maxim of another language, which we may well apply to ourselves, that, where the voting-register ends, the military roster of rebellion begins; and, if you leave these four million people to the care and cus t ody of the men who have inaugurated and carried on this rebellion, then you treasure up, for untold years, the elements of social and civil war, which must not only desolate and paraylze the South, but shake this government to its very foundation.”

It was impossible in 1866 to go farther than the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. That amendment was prepared in form by Senators Conkling and Williams and myself. We were a select committee on Tennessee. The propositions were not ours, but we gave form to the amendment. The part relating to “privileges and immunities” came from