The Proposed Amendments to the Constitution of the United States During the First Century of Its History

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1897 Excerpt: ...SUFFRAGE OF THE CHINESE. When the suffrage amendment passed by the House was under discussion by the Senate, February 3,1869, Mr. Corbett of Oregon submitted the following addition: But Chinamen not born in the United States and Indians not taxed should not be deemed or made citizens.i The amendment was, however, rejected by the Senate on the 9th of the month. Within a month after the submission to the States of the suffrage amendments, Mr. Johnson, of California, moved in the House that the rules be suspended to enable him to submit the following resolution:2 Resolved, That in passing the resolution for the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States the House never intended that Chinese or Mongolians should become voters. The House, however, refused to suspend the rules by a vote of 42 yeas to 106 nays. 134. WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE. The first attempts to amend the Constitution so that the right of suffrage should be extended to women were made when the reconstruction amendments were before Congress. Upon the 23d of January, 1866, Mr. Brooks of New York, after presenting a petition from several thousand woman suffragists, gave notice of his intention to introduce an amendment to the resolution then pending,3 by inserting the word sex after the word color, so that this portion of the amendment should read: That whenever the elective franchise shall be denied or abridged in any State on account of race or color or sex, all persons therein of such race or color or sex shall be excluded from the basis of representation.4 In each of the following years, until the early seventies, one or more amendments were proposed, the terms of which involved the extension of the franchise to women.5 Two of...