[319] question was perplexed by considerations of politics and comity and the engagements already entered into by the government. I hesitated to take the responsibility of defeating it. I think you will like a recent Act of Congress declaring that our foreign ministers shall not wear any uniform “unless previously authorized by Congress.” Of course Congress will not authorize any; our ministers must appear in plain clothes, to the dismay of some who are afraid of being taken for “upper servants.”Again, May 27:—
Your reform discussions are a perpetual mystification. You seem to be splitting hairs instead of asserting principles. It cannot be that so important a question as whether a citizen shall have a voice in the government can depend on such narrow considerations and technicalities of property. Who but the learned can ever know how to define a “compound householder” ? It seems to me that the present success of Disraeli will drive you to place the suffrage on absolute principles, where I am sure it belongs. For a long time I was perplexed by the subtlety so often presented that the suffrage was a “privilege ” and not a “right,” and being a “privilege” it was subject to such limitations as the policy or good — will of the legislature chose to impose. The more I think of it, the more it seems to me an essential right, which government can only regulate and guard, but cannot abridge. All just government stands on “the consent of the governed.” Starting with this principle from our Declaration of Independence, I see no other conclusion than that every citizen having a proper residence must be a voter. If it be said that, then, the ignorant man has the same electoral weight as the intelligent, I reply: “No; each has the same vote; but the other exercises an influence over the result,—in other words, over other votes, in proportion to his intelligence.” In the vote itself all are equal. This is another instance of equality before the law. I cannot but think that you will be driven in England to discuss the question on higher grounds; parties will then arrange themselves anew. Until then there will be no response; nothing short of this will be hard pan. As our discussion has proceeded here, the hard pan has prevailed. In Massachusetts we have what is equivalent to a small rating; every voter, before his name can be registered, must pay a poll-tax, which is usually $1.50, or about six shillings. Thus far, our great change at the South promises well. Without the colored vote the white Unionists would have been left in the hands of the rebels; loyal governments could not be organized. The colored vote was a necessity; this I saw at the beginning, and insisted pertinaciously that it should be secured. It was on this ground, rather than principle, that I relied most; but the argument of principle was like a reinforcement. I do not know that I have mentioned to you how the requirements of universal suffrage in the new constitutions came to be readjusted in our reconstruction bill. The bill, as it came from the House, was simply a military bill. In the Senate several amendments were moved in the nature of conditions of restoration. I did not take much interest in then, as I preferred delay, and therefore was content with anything that secured this, believing that Congress must ultimately come to the true ground. In the confusion which ensued, a caucus of Republican senators was called. Then Mr. Sherman
