ELECTION OF SENATORS 
 BY THE PEOPLE 
 
 If United States Senators are elected By tlie people Instead 
 of By tlie legislatures tlie people sRould Be permitted to vote. 
 
 The constitutional metliod of electing senators lias worked 
 well for one hundred and twenty-two years. Why experiment? 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OP 
 
 HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 
 
 OF NEW YORK 
 
 IN THE 
 
 SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 1911 
 
 7G425—9543 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 1911 
 
$ % 4 . 9 . 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 HON.CHAUNCEYI.DBPEW. 
 
 The Senate having under consideration the joint resolution 
 (S. J. Res. 134) proposing an amendment to the Constitution 
 providing that Senators shall be elected by the people of the 
 several States— 
 
 Mr. DEPEW said: 
 
 Mr. President: The subject under discussion is a 
 joint resolution entitled “ Joint resolution proposing an 
 amendment to the Constitution providing that Senators 
 shall be elected by the people of the several States.” 
 
 Who are the people of the several States? The Con¬ 
 stitution leaves us in no doubt on this question. It be¬ 
 gins with the immortal declaration: 
 
 We, the people of the TJnitdd States, in order to form a more 
 perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, 
 provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, 
 and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, 
 do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States 
 of America. 
 
 The fourteenth article of the Constitution defines the 
 people by declaring that— 
 
 all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject 
 to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and 
 of the States wherein they reside. 
 
 The fifteenth, amendment declares that— 
 
 the rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be 
 denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on ac¬ 
 count of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. 
 
 The proposed amendment to the Constitution, as re¬ 
 ported from the Judiciary Committee and now before 
 the Senate, seems to me to be an effort under the guise 
 of popularizing the election of United States Senators 
 to permit under the Constitution the States to disfran- 
 
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3 
 
 J 
 
 - 
 
 
 <3t> 
 
 chise large classes of their electors. Instead of provid¬ 
 ing that Senators shall be elected by the people of the 
 several States, it virtually denies the people the right to 
 elect Senators by impairing the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 amendments to the Constitution, which were intended 
 to secure the elective franchise to all citizens of the 
 United States. If this be true, then we are paying a 
 tremendous price to secure a change in the present 
 methods of electing United States Senators. The Con¬ 
 stitution makes the following provision for the election 
 of Members of Congress: 
 
 The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Sena¬ 
 tors and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by 
 the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by 
 law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of 
 choosing Senators. 
 
 The proposed measure, as reported by the committee 
 and now before the Senate, repeals that portion of the 
 Constitution as to the election of Senators. 
 
 When the Democratic friends of the proposed amend¬ 
 ment are asked why they want this provision of our 
 Constitution, which has existed for a hundred and 
 twenty-two years, repealed, their answer is that under 
 it the right has been claimed for Congress to interfere 
 with the elective franchise in the several States. In 
 other words, under it Congress has endeavored to so 
 legislate, though that legislation has never been passed, 
 as to permit the negro to vote in the Southern States, 
 and that under it may be found, w T hen the question 
 comes before the Supreme Court of the United States, 
 authority to declare the laws, which in one form or 
 another disfranchise the negro vote in some of the 
 States, unconstitutional. But the proposed amendment 
 which declares— 
 
 The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requi¬ 
 site for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legis¬ 
 latures, 
 
 76425—9543 
 
 -a35898 
 
4 
 
 under the guise of giving power directly to the people, 
 permits by the authority of the Constitution unlimited 
 restrictions upon the people’s right to vote. 
 
 In several States negroes and some others are not 
 allowed to vote for members of the most numerous 
 branch of the legislature. With this amendment there 
 is no limit to which they can carry this exclusion. 
 
 Now, then, read the language of the proposed amend¬ 
 ment, namely: 
 
 The electors of each State shall have the qualifications requi¬ 
 site for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legis¬ 
 latures— 
 
 and then repeal section 4 of Article I of the Constitu¬ 
 tion, which reads as follows: 
 
 The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Sena¬ 
 tors and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the 
 legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law 
 make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choos¬ 
 ing Senators— 
 
 and all power over the election of Senators passes from 
 Congress and is remitted absolutely to the States. No 
 matter what restrictions the State may place upon suf¬ 
 frage, no matter what denials of the right of suffrage 
 may result from the action of the States, the Senate is 
 powerless. 
 
 During the eloquent and exhaustive speech of the 
 Senator from Maryland [Mr. Bayner] a colloquy oc¬ 
 curred between the Senator and the Senators from 
 Utah [Mr. Sutherland] and Nebraska [Mr. Brown], 
 The Senator from Maryland then strongly intimated 
 that unless in connection with the proposition to 
 change the mode of electing United States Senators 
 from the legislature to a popular vote there was coupled 
 a repeal of section 4 of Article I of the Constitution 
 the Southern States would reject the w T hole proposition. 
 As a further illuminating illustration, southern news¬ 
 papers which are sent me denounce the proposition of 
 the Senator from Utah as an effort to kill the resolu¬ 
 tion for the popular election of Senators by loading 
 
 70425—9543 
 
5 
 
 the proposition down with unnecessary amendments. 
 They do not state what this alleged unnecessary amend¬ 
 ment is. They do not inform their readers that the 
 amendment of the Senator from Utah is simply to take 
 out of the pending resolution for popular elections the 
 part whch repeals section 4 of Article I of the Consti¬ 
 tution. They simply denounce the proposition of the 
 Senator from Utah as an obstruction intended to pre¬ 
 vent the change in the method of electing United States 
 Senators from the legislature to the people. But the 
 whole trend of their comment is that unless the repeal 
 of this section of the Constitution which has existed for 
 122 years is coupled with the resolution for a popular 
 vote the Southern States do not care and will not have 
 the proposed amendment engrafted into the Constitu¬ 
 tion. In other words, we are informed that the under¬ 
 lying purpose of this movement is to take away from 
 Congress all power over disfranchisement by State laws 
 and remit to the States unlimited authority to limit 
 the suffrage. 
 
 There are 300,000 colored voters in the State of New 
 York. I can conceive of nothing which would affect 
 them so deeply and arouse them so thoroughly as a 
 permanent constitutional disfranchisement of their 
 brethren by the votes of Republican Senators. I am 
 sure before the debate has ended, if this resolution is 
 adopted, the colored voters of Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, 
 New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania wdll 
 protest in so effective a way at the polls as to be felt 
 all over the country. 
 
 This resolution virtually repeals the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth amendments to the Constitution. It validates 
 by constitutional amendment laws under which citizens 
 of the United States, constituting in the aggregate more 
 than one-tenth of the electorate, are to be permanently 
 deprived of the right of suffrage. There is no pretense 
 that any conditions may arise in the future under 
 which these laws will be liberalized and the growing 
 
 76425—9543 
 
6 
 
 intelligence of the negro electors will be recognized. 
 These laws have their origin in a fear of the negro vote 
 in those States where it is equal to the white vote or 
 larger than the white vote. But they are urged or 
 passed for purely political purposes in States where 
 there is no possible fear of the dominance of the negro 
 vote. Maryland, with a small proportionate negro 
 vote, has tried several times within the last few years 
 to disfranchise the colored people within that State, 
 and the avowed purpose of the Democratic party in the 
 State of Maryland, which is not denied, is to continue 
 this effort until they have succeeded in disfranchising 
 this vote. The Democratic leaders of the State of 
 Oklahoma became alarmed at the enormous immigra¬ 
 tion coming in there from the Middle West, from the 
 great States of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa. 
 They have passed laws intended to prevent the negro 
 from voting so as to postpone as far as possible the 
 inevitable Republieanization of the State of Oklahoma 
 which w T ill result from this immigration. It is a cu¬ 
 rious commentary upon our forgetfulness of the results 
 of the war for the Union that we have grown indiffer¬ 
 ent to such an extent to these provisions which were 
 made the permanent results of that struggle by being 
 engrafted into the Constitution. It becomes a subject 
 of earnest study and of serious reflection whether if it 
 were a mistake to adopt the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 amendments at the close of the Civil War it is not a 
 greater mistake forty-five years afterwards when intel¬ 
 ligence and education have made such progress among 
 these people to so impair as to virtually repeal those 
 articles. 
 
 The title of this proposition is to allow the people to 
 vote. The purpose and object of the resolution is to 
 permanently prevent the people from voting in any 
 State where a dominant power or oligarchy wishes to 
 disfranchise a certain portion of the citizens of that 
 State. Now, I have sympathized with the conditions of 
 
 7G425—9543 
 
7 
 
 the people of the Southern States since the Civil War. 
 I have persistently and consistently opposed all the 
 drastic measures which have been presented to interfere 
 with their affairs. I was not in favor of the force bill. 
 I was not in favor of the bill which passed the House of 
 Representatives to enforce the provisions of the four¬ 
 teenth amendment for the reduction of membership in 
 the House of Representatives in proportion to the re¬ 
 duction of the Negro vote in several States. But when 
 it comes to deliberately voting to undo the results of the 
 Civil War, when it comes by constitutional amendment 
 to permanently taking from 10,000,000 people the re¬ 
 wards of education and intelligence, that reward being 
 in a free government the right to vote, I can not assent 
 to or be silent upon the proposition. 
 
 Six years ago this same question came up in the Com¬ 
 mittee on Privileges and Elections, of which I was a 
 member, and I then proposed this same amendment to 
 the resolution wdiich I have offered here and which 
 reads as follows: 
 
 Senate joint resolution 134. 
 
 Amendment intended to be proposed by Mr. Depew to tbe joint 
 resolution (S. J. lies. 134) proposing an amendment to tbe 
 Constitution providing that Senators shall be elected by the 
 people of the several States, viz: On page 2, lines 5, 6, 7, and 
 8, strike out the words “ The electors of each State shall have 
 the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous 
 branch of the State legislatures,” and in lieu thereof insert 
 the following: 
 
 “ The qualifications of male citizens entitled to vote for United 
 States Senators and Eepresentatives in Congress shall be uni¬ 
 form in all the States, and Congress shall have power to enforce 
 this article by appropriate legislation and to provide for the 
 registration of citizens entitled to vote, the conduct of such elec¬ 
 tions, and the certification of the result.” 
 
 This amendment simply says that if the people are to 
 vote for the election of United States Senators, then all 
 the people recognized as citizens under the Constitution 
 of the United States shall be permitted to vote. At that 
 time this proposition of mine was incorporated into 
 
 76425—^543 
 
8 
 
 the general resolution, and had the unanimous vote of 
 every Republican member of the committee, even of 
 those who were in favor of changing the method of 
 electing United States Senators from the legislature to 
 the people. When it was adopted the resolution was 
 defeated by the unanimous vote of the Democratic 
 members of the committee. But when I offered it in 
 our Committee on the Judiciary it commanded only one 
 vote beside my own. 
 
 I desire to call attention to this phase of the subject 
 and to challenge discussion. I wonder if there has been 
 upon this proposition contained in the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth amendments to the Constitution such a change 
 in public sentiment as would be indicated by a unani¬ 
 mous vote six years ago and by an overwhelming ma¬ 
 jority the other way to-day. 
 
 The Constitution of the United States went into 
 operation on the first Wednesday in March, 1789, and 
 on the 1st day of March, 1911, it will have been in force 
 for 122 years. The language of eulogy has been ex¬ 
 hausted in its praise. The greatest intellects among 
 the statesmen of other countries have given it com¬ 
 mendation beyond any other instrument which ever 
 came from the hands of man. The United States has 
 grown from a fringe of settlements along the Atlantic 
 coast to its present imperial position among the nations 
 of the world in liberty, opportunity, population, and 
 power under this Constitution practically unchanged. 
 With these 122 years of achievement to its credit only 
 an imperious necessity can justify any change. That 
 imperious necessity should have behind it the practically 
 unanimous and determined voice of the American 
 people. 
 
 Every Senator knows that the votes which have been 
 cast in the several States for this measure have been so 
 given in obedience to supposed party expediency and 
 without general discussion. This movement has re¬ 
 ceived more impetus from the advocacy of Mr. Bryan 
 
 76425—9543 
 
9 
 
 than from any other cause during the half century 
 since the war. And yet, when Mr. Bryan, with the 
 responsibilities of office upon him as a Member of Con¬ 
 gress, proposed his idea of an amendment to the Con¬ 
 stitution for this purpose in 1894, he left it for each 
 State to decide whether it would elect United States 
 Senators by the old method or the new. All the States 
 -which framed the Constitution and all those that can 
 reckon a quarter of a century to their lives, in selecting 
 men who have shed the greatest honor upon their re¬ 
 spective Commonwealths, have invariably named them 
 from the membership of the United States Senate. No 
 method of electing Senators could add to that glorious 
 list. It has been said that governors of States furnish 
 an example to the contrary, but it is the history of gov¬ 
 ernors that they are in for a short time. They rarely 
 succeed themselves, and if they do, only once. I do not 
 know that there is on record a single instance of a gov¬ 
 ernor who has been ten years in the service of his State. 
 Every Senator know r s that the value of a member of 
 this body, if he is fit to be a member of it, increases 
 with the years. Every Senator also knows that in 
 popular elections, taking the governor as an example, 
 covering the whole State, the second term would be the 
 limit of the senatorial life of anyone, no matter how 
 distinguished. Our Websters, our Clays, our Cal¬ 
 houns, with all their genius for public life and popular 
 leadership, owed their influence upon the policies of 
 parties and the legislation of the Republic to long ex¬ 
 perience in the Senate. The results of the primary 
 laws have demonstrated that the United States Senator 
 who comes here under the new system would in a vast 
 majority of cases be the choice of a plurality, and, 
 therefore, *a minority candidate. In States where one 
 party is sufficiently in the ascendant to make an elec¬ 
 tion certain, candidates would be as numerous as the 
 ambitions of the citizens, and the successful one on the 
 plurality might represent only a tenth of the electorate. 
 
 7G425—0543 
 
10 
 
 The favorite of the great cities would always prevent 
 the success of a candidate from the country. In many 
 States, where party discipline and organization have 
 been submerged by the primary, races or religions com¬ 
 bine and by their united force, as against the scattered 
 results of the general electorate, secure the necessary 
 plurality for one of their race or religion. There is not 
 the slightest pretense that during the long life of our 
 Government a Senator has ever been placed in this 
 body because of race or religion. I do not share in 
 this distrust of the legislatures. Our several Common¬ 
 wealths have wisely legislated for the interest of the 
 family, of property, of liberty. I do not assent to the 
 proposition that representative government has the dis¬ 
 trust of the people. 
 
 The Athenian Assembly was the ideal of popular 
 government. I stood once upon the rocky platform 
 from which Demosthenes addressed the voters of 
 Athens. There were 300,000 slaves and 10,000 citizens. 
 Those 10,000 easily gathered upon the plain in front of 
 the orator. He won from his audience the approval 
 of the measures which he proposed against his an¬ 
 tagonists because of his eloquence and his ability to 
 fire the popular imagination, stir the popular enthusi¬ 
 asm, and, through them, influence for the moment popu¬ 
 lar judgment. By holding up the raw head and 
 bloody bones of Philip of Macedon he swept away all 
 opposition, while Philip of Macedon had no purpose 
 such as Demosthenes charged. We all know the ap¬ 
 peals which can move a popular audience. A war 
 speech and the bloody shirt had their influence for 
 twenty-five years after Appomattox. When the new 
 generation of voters came upon the stage these appeals 
 meant nothing to them, and the campaign orators had 
 to write new speeches upon new issues or else retire 
 from the platform, as many of them did, because they 
 could not comprehend the new issues. For twenty-five 
 years more the operation of the railroads was an effec- 
 
 76425—9543 
 
11 
 
 tive rallying cry. But legislation has been perfected 
 for the control of the railroads by providing penalties 
 for abuse and conferring such absolute power upon the 
 Interstate Commerce Commission and the Commerce 
 Court that the Government is the paramount member 
 of the directorate of every railroad in the United States, 
 and that has ceased to be the rallying cry. Next, it was 
 the corporations. Again, legislation has largely cured 
 corporate evils. The Sherman antitrust law, strength¬ 
 ened by the decisions of the courts, and the corporation- 
 tax law, exposing every secret of every corporation to 
 the Government and through the Government to the 
 people, furnish power on the one hand to the Govern¬ 
 ment and that publicity on the other which makes cor¬ 
 porate iniquities exceedingly difficult and punishment 
 swift and sure. 
 
 Now a Chautauqua audience can be raised to frenzied 
 heights of rage by picturing to them that they are the 
 slaves of the interests. The interests are vague, but 
 the more shadowy, like the ghost, the more terrible. 
 Of course the Athenian example is impossible with 
 100,000,000 people, but the whole theory of demo¬ 
 cratic government in its evolution in Europe and in 
 America is to escape on the one side from the arbitrary 
 power of the autocrat, backed up by control of the 
 army, the navy, the treasury, and taxes, and, on the 
 other hand, to devise processes by which the passions of 
 the hour shall not crystallize into legislation without 
 plenty of time for deliberation and calm judgment. 
 In a sense every form of representative government 
 may be called distrust of the people. Wherever a meas¬ 
 ure must take its chances first with the Lower House 
 and then with the Upper House and then again in 
 running the gauntlet must escape the club of the veto 
 of the Executive every step is distrust of popular gov¬ 
 ernment. But it is a false idea to say that such dis¬ 
 trust means lack of confidence in the people or means 
 defying the popular will. It is simply that where the 
 
 76425—9543 
 
12 
 
 great mass of the population are engaged in industrial 
 pursuits, which absorb their minds and time, they must 
 necessarily select from among their own number those 
 whom they think best fitted for the tasks upon whom 
 they devolve, as President or as Senator or as Repre¬ 
 sentative or as governor or as member of the legisla¬ 
 ture, the perfection of measures and the enactment of 
 laws which are for the best interests of the people. 
 
 I have received many letters since I introduced my 
 amendment indicating the trend of popular thought, 
 and many editorials not proper to be read in the Senate. 
 Some of them go to an extreme which ought to please 
 that eloquent advocate of popular government, the dis¬ 
 tinguished Senator from Oregon [Mr. Bourne], and 
 his recently organized salvation army. [Laughter.] 
 They say, “Abolish the Senate. It is no further of 
 any use. It was all very well when there were no rail¬ 
 roads, no telegraphs, and no telephones, or morning 
 and evening papers, to have a Senate to hold in check 
 the House until the people could be heard from; but 
 now, with all these means of instantaneous and intel¬ 
 ligent information, the people are informed every day, 
 can reach their immediate Representatives every hour, 
 and they need no protection by a conservative and 
 critical body elected for a longer term and with se¬ 
 curer hold of office.” Others say, “ In amending the 
 Constitution, so amend it that no representative of the 
 interests can be a Senator.” They define the interests 
 as every man who, in his personal business or in any 
 employment he may have, is interested in legislation. 
 They bar out everyone who, directly or indirectly, may 
 be affected by the tariff. They bar out all who are 
 counsel for those who may be affected by the tariff. 
 They bar out all stockholders, bondholders, and counsel 
 of corporations. They bar out labor unions. They 
 reduce the opportunities for choice by this process of 
 elimination until, if they ultimately succeed, the United 
 States Senate will be composed entirely of undertakers, 
 
 764?^—0543 
 
13 
 
 whose profits are in the increasing number of those who 
 die, [Laughter.] 
 
 There is a vast amount of humbug about this talk of 
 the interests. I have been a conspicuous victim of it. 
 I have been most of my life in the railway service, and 
 also active in public affairs. I am proud of the fact 
 that while president of the then greatest railroad in the 
 country my State unanimously presented me for Presi¬ 
 dent of the United States in the national convention. 
 I decided never to sever nor deny my business associa¬ 
 tions. It is an insult to the 2,000,000 men who are in 
 the railway service for one of them to admit directly or 
 indirectly that it is impossible for a railway man to 
 serve the public as well as a farmer, or a manufacturer, 
 or a lawyer, or a merchant, or a doctor, or a minister, 
 or a mechanic. I have found no difficulty in serving in 
 the Senate under the administrations of President 
 McKinley, President Roosevelt, and President Taft in 
 supporting, by voice and vote, every administration 
 measure of President McKinley, President Roosevelt, 
 and President Taft, As a matter of fact, the railway 
 man in the public service is uncommonly anxious to 
 prove that the interests of his constituents, the people, 
 are his paramount duty. But we all know that it has 
 never been considered any discredit for a Member of 
 Congress who is either a manufacturer, a miner, a 
 farmer, or an importing merchant to actively labor for 
 such modifications of a tariff bill as may be in the in¬ 
 terests of the business or occupation to which he be¬ 
 longs, or a labor member to work for labor legislation. 
 
 There is one view of this proposed change in the 
 Constitution which has not received the attention it 
 deserves. It is said that legislatures are more easily 
 influenced by money consideration than popular elec¬ 
 tions. It is well known that in the primary contests 
 for United States Senator, which are the equivalent of 
 a popular election, there have been expended sums of 
 money so vast that they are beyond anything ever 
 
 76425—9543 
 
14 
 
 charged or dreamed of in legislatures. The record of 
 the State legislatures in the election of Senators for 
 122 years is singularly clear of malign influences. But 
 the critical situation is that which would be created in 
 cases of contested elections. As it is now the Senate, 
 in judging of the qualifications of its members, has a 
 very plain and simple duty. The doings of a repre¬ 
 sentative body of limited numbers are easily inquired 
 into and the Senate committee always has the assistance 
 of committees of the legislature, of grand juries, and 
 of prosecuting attorneys. But in a State-wide election 
 for United States Senator the happenings at every 
 polling place would become a matter of charges and of 
 investigation. We all know that the taking of testi¬ 
 mony in those contests generally occupies a session and 
 sometimes the whole term of the member. There are 
 4,668 election districts in the State of New York and 
 a proportionate number in every other State, accord¬ 
 ing to population. It is no exaggeration to say that in 
 many of these election districts there is always a large 
 expenditure of money in the purchase of votes. The 
 scandals of Adams County, Ohio, now under investiga¬ 
 tion, where 2,000 of the 5,000 voters have already been 
 convicted, is of course a rare case of the corrupt use of 
 money. But the Ohio papers of both parties say that 
 while not in so large a degree, yet to a certain degree, 
 such conditions exist not in whole counties, but in city 
 wards and county precincts scattered through the 
 State. If the election of a United States Senator had 
 been according to the new proposition, the Committee 
 on Privileges and Elections would be instructed to 
 investigate these charges, if not before, yet immediately 
 upon, the taking of his seat by the new Senator, Atlee 
 Pomerene. There have been over 400 contested-elec¬ 
 tion cases in the House of Representatives. Four- 
 fifths of them have been notoriously decided by par¬ 
 tisan considerations. In every case, if there is a shadow 
 of a doubt, the doubt is in favor of the contestant who 
 
 76425—9543 
 
15 
 
 belongs to the majority. If the Senate was close, as 
 the times indicate it will be within an early period, the 
 majority would have committees probing into every 
 election district in States which had elected a Senator 
 who would help in turning the minority of this body 
 into a majority against its sitting members. The con¬ 
 test would be interminable, the situation deplorable, 
 and the decision, whatever it might be, partisan, or 
 at least so charged and generally believed. 
 
 The doctrine has been advanced here by all those who 
 have expressed an opinion in opposition to the Senator 
 from Illinois retaining his seat that where there is any 
 bribery proven the seat of the Senator must be vacated. 
 Under that doctrine the record of Adams County 
 would only have to be presented to the Senate and the 
 new Senator from Ohio would not be permitted to take 
 his seat. The whole matter would be remitted back to 
 the State of Ohio for another popular election, with 
 possibly a repetition of the first result. 
 
 We all know, and we are all proud of the fact, that 
 the lobby has disappeared from Washington. When 
 I was here during the Civil War the hotels were filled 
 with lobbyists, and scandals charged against individual 
 Senators and Members of the House were so current 
 as to be common and excite no comment. The same 
 was true for a decade at least following the Civil War. 
 But to-day there is no breath of suspicion against the 
 vote by which the great measures of the last twenty 
 years, affecting as they have in the most vital way the 
 wealth, the productive power, the capital, and the labor 
 of the country, have been enacted into law. 
 
 Two sets of States, though having entirely different 
 interests, are cordially united in pressing this legisla¬ 
 tion. They are the new States, with small populations 
 compared with the older ones, and what were formely 
 known as the slave States of the Union. This is the 
 only measure on which is unfortunately revived the 
 u solid South.” I warn each of them that they are pry- 
 76425—9543 
 
16 
 
 ing off the lid from Pandora’s box. They are letting 
 loose the devils to pursue them with increasing aggres¬ 
 siveness, force, and strength during the coming years. 
 Among a people who regard with such extreme rever¬ 
 ence, and I might say awe, their Constitution, as do the 
 people of the United States, sentiment is a tremendous 
 factor in the preservation of existing conditions. 
 Change existing conditions and sentiment is buried by 
 the overwhelming force of interest. The goal of all 
 ambitious States has always been power. In the for¬ 
 mation of the Republic and the compromises which 
 brought about the Federal Union, power was surren¬ 
 dered by the more populous States to the less populous 
 in representation in the Senate, and surrendered also 
 to the slave-holding States in representation in the 
 House of Representatives. But we propose deliberately 
 to raise this Frankenstein and send him upon his resist¬ 
 less way. 
 
 In the debates in that marvelous convention which 
 framed the Constitution—those wise men, who were 
 actuated by only one motive, and that the formation of 
 an indestructible union of sovereign States into an 
 all-powerful republic—two things were unanimously 
 agreed to, one that each State in its sovereign capac¬ 
 ity should have equal representation of its sovereignty 
 by two ambassadors called Senators in the Federal Sen¬ 
 ate, and the other that the corporate representation of 
 the State—the legislature—should elect these two am¬ 
 bassadors. They thus preserved on the one hand the 
 equal sovereignty of all the States, large and small, 
 through equal representation in this branch of the 
 Federal Government, and on the other, to prevent grow¬ 
 ing populations in some States from endeavoring to 
 disturb the equality of representation in the upper 
 House, they selected State legislatures as the medium 
 through which the voice of the State should be ex¬ 
 pressed. This process has impressed with equal won¬ 
 der and admiration De Tocqueville, Gladstone, and 
 
 76425—9543 
 
17 
 
 Bryce, the three greatest writers upon the Constitution 
 of the United States. In fact, when French statesmen 
 were framing the machinery for the third Republic of 
 France they decided that one of the best means of 
 avoiding the rocks upon which the other two had been 
 wrecked was to have a senate elected upon lines similar 
 to those which exist in our Constitution. They had 
 no States, but they created artificial States. They di¬ 
 vided France into senatorial districts, combining in 
 each district a number of districts which were repre¬ 
 sented in the popular chamber. They fixed a long term 
 for their senators. In the senate district, when a va¬ 
 cancy occurs, the members of the lower house from 
 that district, the mayors of the cities and of the vil¬ 
 lages, meet in convention and elect a senator. French 
 statesmen of to-day with whom I have talked claim 
 that many a time in the nearly forty years of the exist¬ 
 ence of the present Republic, this check by such a senate 
 upon the turbulent passions of the hour of the lower 
 house has given the people time to think and saved the 
 Republic from ruin. 
 
 Now, as to the Southern States and their anxiety to 
 preserve their present exclusive election laws: The 
 average number of voters required to elect a Member of 
 Congress in the State of New York is 38,408. The 
 average number in the whole United States is 31,196. 
 The average number of voters for Congressman in the 
 nine States of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, 
 Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and 
 Virginia is 8,266. In Mississippi 3,000 elect a Congress¬ 
 man; in South Carolina, 4,341; in Georgia, 5,072; and 
 in Arkansas, 5,886. Now, then, thirty-eight States of 
 the American Union have a population of 45,780,297, 
 while ten States have a population of 45,860,900; and 
 yet these ten States have twenty Senators and the thirty- 
 eight States, with practically the same population, have 
 seventy-six. The four contiguous States of Idaho, 
 Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming have a population of 
 
 7G425- -9543——3 
 
18 
 
 926,785. The four States of New York, Pennsylvania, 
 Illinois, and Ohio have a population of 27,184,437. 
 On a popular basis of representation by the people these 
 four States of Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming 
 have four Members of the House of Representatives, 
 while on the same basis the States of New York, Penn¬ 
 sylvania, Illinois, and Ohio have 115 Members of the 
 House of Representatives. But in the United States 
 Senate this 927,000 of population of these four States 
 have eight Senators, while the 27,184,000 of the other 
 four States have also eight Senators. 
 
 Mr. BACON. Mr. President- 
 
 The VICE PRESIDENT. Will the Senator from 
 New York yield to the Senator from Georgia? 
 
 Mr. DEPEW. Certainly. 
 
 Mr. BACON. I do not desire to interrupt the Sena¬ 
 tor’s argument, but at the same time I do not desire the 
 Record shall go abroad without, in a certain sense, an 
 issue upon one statement made by the Senator, not di¬ 
 rectly but by implication, in regard to the number of 
 votes cast in the South in the election of Representa¬ 
 tives. The implication is that the vote is a representa¬ 
 tion of the population or of those who are the legal 
 voters or of those who participate- in the selection of 
 Representatives. 
 
 Mr. DEPEW. Of those who are permitted to vote. 
 
 Mr. BACON. I will say something about that a 
 little later. Of those who are the legal voters in the 
 State, the implication is that there is a representation. 
 The fact is that in those States where there is such a 
 small vote cast at the regular election the true election 
 is the primary election. I will state, by way of illus¬ 
 tration, that in a primary election in my State where 
 there will be between two and three hundred thousand 
 votes cast in the primary election there will be fifty or 
 sixty or seventy thousand votes cast at the regular elec¬ 
 tion, the election provided by law. The reason for that 
 is simply that there is but one political party in the 
 
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19 
 
 State, the other party not even making nominations, 
 so that when the contest between individuals who com¬ 
 pete for the nomination has been decided the election 
 in November at the date prescribed by law is one in 
 which there is no contest, and consequently no induce¬ 
 ment for people to go to the polls. 
 
 Now as to the question as to who are permitted to 
 vote I will state to the Senator as to my State, and I 
 presume it is true as to other States equally, that no 
 man is denied the right to vote who has the qualifica- • 
 tions under the law to vote; that there is no obstruction 
 whatever to any man’s voting who has the right to vote; 
 and the question of his right to vote is one which is to 
 be settled by the courts and not by the suggestions 
 which the Senator makes now 1 in a side remark as to 
 who are permitted to vote, implying that those are not 
 permitted to vote who are entitled to vote. 
 
 I do not desire to enter into that discussion now, and 
 I did not rise for that purpose. The only purpose I 
 had was that in the very interesting speech of the Sen¬ 
 ator, and the very strong speech, the suggestion made 
 by him as to the number of those who vote in those 
 States might not go out as being even by implication 
 a statement of the fact that they are a representation 
 of those who, in fact, take part in the choosing of 
 Representatives. They are but a very small part of 
 those who, in fact, determine the question who shall be 
 the Representatives in Congress. 
 
 Mr. DEPEW. Mr. President, not desiring any fur¬ 
 ther interruption until I have completed my speech, I 
 will simply say in response to the Senator from Georgia 
 that what I was really referring to is the fact of the 
 disproportionate number of voters in proportion to the 
 population in the Southern States and in the Northern 
 States. In many of the Southern States so many elec¬ 
 tors are disfranchised that it takes twenty-seven voters 
 in New York to equal one voter in a Southern State. 
 When an investigation is made it will be found that the 
 
 76425—9543 
 
20 
 
 same is true of the primary, that because of the large 
 number disfranchised the vote does not correspond to 
 the population, as it does in other States where these 
 restrictive laws do not exist. 
 
 Now, as to the qualifications or disqualifications, un¬ 
 doubtedly nobody votes in those States except those 
 who are qualified by the State laws. But who are dis¬ 
 qualified ? We all know the grandfather clause, which 
 is still in existence in many of the States. But there 
 are others. For instance, there is the educational clause. 
 
 Mr. BACON. Found also in Massachusetts. 
 
 Mr. BAILEY. It ought to be found in all of them. 
 
 Mr. DEPEW. But in its application very different 
 in Massachusetts. In that State the voter is asked 
 to demonstrate his power to read and write, but in the 
 States where the Negro is disfranchised the educational 
 clause is used by the canvassing officers to apply tests 
 which few citizens could meet. A very interesting story 
 was told me, and sometimes an illustration shows the 
 situation better than an argument. This story was told 
 me by a friend of mine, a southerner, a Yale man, and 
 therefore entitled to belief on all questions. He said 
 that at a precinct in his county a negro preacher came 
 up to vote. The canvassing officer said, “ You know 
 under our law you have to read and write.” “Well,” 
 he said, “ I w T as educated at Howard University and 
 at the Howard Theological School; I can read and 
 write.” “ Do you understand the Constitution of the 
 United States? That is another requisite.” “Well,” 
 said the clergyman, “I know it by heart, and think I 
 understand it.” “Well,” said the canvasser, “under 
 the Constitution of the United States you must get out 
 a writ of habeas corpus before you can be permitted 
 to cast a vote, and do you know what a habeas corpus 
 is?” The minister answered, “No, Mr. Canvasser; I 
 do not know what a habeas corpus is, but I do know 
 that a negro can not vote in the State of Mississippi.” 
 [Laughter.] 
 
 76425—9543 
 
21 
 
 Parties are always seeking paramount issues. The 
 great leader of the Democratic Party made this ques¬ 
 tion of changing the method of the election of United 
 States Senators, as he thought, a paramount issue. It 
 failed to materialize as he imagined it would, because 
 there was no popular response, and there is none to¬ 
 day. But the glaring inequality exhibited by the fig¬ 
 ures which I present are a firm foundation for a para¬ 
 mount issue. The resistless cry from the stump and 
 from the press will be, “ Less than a million of people 
 shall not be permitted to neutralize and possibly de¬ 
 feat the wishes of over 27,000,000 citizens. This is a 
 government of the people, by the people, and for the 
 people, and here is a small oligarchy blocking the 
 progress and defeating the wishes of an overwhelming 
 majority. We have paved the way for this reform. It 
 took us, the people, 122 years to get rid of the fetish 
 of the sacredness of the Constitution. Now we have 
 buried that bugaboo, and the people, having come into 
 their own in part, must regain the whole of the power 
 to which they are entitled.” What are our friends who 
 are so gayly and hilariously pushing this proposition 
 going to answer before indignant multitudes to this 
 natural sequence ? The next slogan for popular appeal 
 will be “ Mend the Senate or end it.” 
 
 I remember before the Civil War and before the aboli¬ 
 tion of slavery was advocated by any except a mere 
 handful of abolitionists that one of the issues hotly de¬ 
 bated and earnestly pressed was to take away from the 
 slave States the representation to which they were enti¬ 
 tled in Congress because of their slaves. This agitation 
 made no headway whatever, and was met invariably by 
 the sentimental answer of the people that this part of 
 the Constitution was agreed to by the fathers, and they 
 would not go back on them. Every intelligent student 
 of the present rapid trend toward popular government 
 must see what would happen when this sentimental bar 
 
 76425—0543 
 
22 
 
 of the States being represented by two Senators instead 
 of by the people in the United States Senate is thrown 
 down. The initiative, the referendum, and the recall 
 are but symptoms of the times. That the people will 
 have their way, because they, and they alone, are the 
 Government, is the underlying spirit of our institutions, 
 of our newest State Constitutions, and of our progres¬ 
 sive laws. Skillful agitation seizes upon every pretext 
 and eagerly grasps and enlarges every opportunity for 
 appeal to the passions in an advancement of its pur¬ 
 poses. The next cry will necessarily be, “ Why not elect 
 the Supreme Court of the United States by popular vote? 
 Why not elect the Federal judiciary everywhere by 
 popular vote?” Unless we admit that the fathers made, 
 a mistake, and a grave one, in throwing these restric¬ 
 tions upon the immediate expression of the passion of 
 the hour into legislation or decision, there is no legiti¬ 
 mate answer to such a proposition. A constitutional 
 convention can abrogate the promise of equality of the 
 States in the Senate in the present Constitution. Let 
 the wave rise high enough and thirty millions of people 
 will not consent to have their will thwarted and their 
 laws enacted by five millions. In the jealousies of the 
 colonies, large and small, it was easy to make this com¬ 
 promise, because for the formation of the Republic it 
 was necessary to have all the colonies in as sovereign 
 States. Rut we have demonstrated by the most gigan¬ 
 tic, the most bloody, and the most costly war of history 
 that no State can go out of the Union, and the effort on 
 the part of these sparsely populated States to resist by 
 force their taking their share in legislation in the upper 
 House as they do in the lower House—in proportion to 
 their population—would be treated with scorn and con¬ 
 tempt. Majorities are never sentimental and, when 
 they believe they are right, never merciful. “ The 
 power is ours by nature and by right, and we will come 
 into our own,” will be the cry of the majorities in the 
 future, and there is no logical answer to the claim. 
 
 76425—9543 
 
23 
 
 I have spoken thus earnestly from profound con¬ 
 viction. Certainly no Senator can be freer from self¬ 
 ish motives than I am. This legislation can affect my 
 career in the future neither one way nor the other. I 
 have the profoundest reverence, which no language can 
 adequately express, for this wonderful Constitution of 
 the United States. My twelve years’ service in this body 
 has increased the life-long admiration I had for it, and 
 to that admiration from this long association with its 
 members has come the tenderest affection. I do not 
 object to changes, even revolutionary changes, when 
 the reasons for them are adequate and when the trans¬ 
 parent evils from action are not greater than the 
 prophesied good. 
 
 The Senators who have been reelected and the new 
 ones who have been chosen by the legislatures of their 
 several States this year are selections which could not 
 be improved upon by any new method. Of our present 
 Members Massachusetts returns here one of the most 
 brilliant and able statesmen who ever represented that 
 Commonwealth, Mr. Lodge; Maryland gives us back 
 that great lawyer and resourceful debater, Senator 
 Rayner ; Minnesota returns one of our hardest working 
 and most valuable Members, Senator Clapp; North 
 Dakota honors itself and strengthens the Senate by giv¬ 
 ing back to us one who has rendered his State and 
 country such distinguished service, Senator McCum- 
 ber; Pennsylvania returns to us a journalist and a busi¬ 
 ness man who has proved a most useful Senator, Sena¬ 
 tor Oliver ; Texas continues in her service, and that of 
 the Republic, a Senator who has been so long the Demo¬ 
 cratic leader upon the floor, Senator Culberson ; Utah 
 continues in the Senate one of the ablest constitutional 
 lawyers in this body, Senator Sutherland; Vermont 
 strengthens the ranks of the practical business men who 
 are needed in legislation for a business country like the 
 United States, Senator Page; while Wisconsin sends a 
 statesman who has repeatedly proved by popular and 
 
 76425—9543 
 
24 
 
 primary elections that he is the choice of his Common¬ 
 wealth. While he and I would seldom agree upon pub¬ 
 lic questions, yet there is bo abler representative of the 
 views and policies entertained by him and large num¬ 
 bers of others than Senator La Follette. The same is 
 true of the new Members. We have from California, 
 Judge Works; from Connecticut, ex-Gov. McLean; 
 from Indiana, ex-candidate for Vice President on the 
 Democratic ticket, Mr. Kern; from Maine, that bril¬ 
 liant lawyer, Charles F. Johnson; from Michigan, a 
 statesman tried in the House of Representatives, Mr. 
 Townsend; from Mississippi, the brilliant leader in 
 the House for many years of the Democratic Party, 
 John Sharp Williams; from Missouri, James A. 
 Reed; from Nebraska, Gilbert M. Hitchcock; from 
 North Dakota, Asle J. Gronna; from Ohio, Lieut. 
 Gov. Atlee Pomerene; from Washington, Miles 
 Poindexter ; and from Rhode Island, Henry F. 
 Lippitt. 
 
 Mr. President, there is a list of Senators selected to 
 serve for the next six years in this body by the legis¬ 
 latures of their States, and no one will assert that if the 
 elections had been of choice by State conventions or 
 directly by the people they would have been either 
 better or abler. 
 
 Most of the so-called radical legislation of the past 
 ten years has been really conservative legislation. It 
 has been the correction of admitted evils, the enacting 
 into law of measures for things unknown by previous 
 generations but vital for the present and the future in 
 the development of the country. But here in this prop¬ 
 osition we are called upon to disregard the overwhelm¬ 
 ing lessons of the past and enter upon an untried ex¬ 
 periment, to adopt a theory which opens the door for 
 innumerable possibilities of danger to the sovereignty 
 of the States and wise conservatism in the administra¬ 
 tion of government. 
 
 76425—9543 
 
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