We have the testimony of members of the Cabinet that the question of suffrage was several times discussed, and that Lincoln and Mr. Chase differed as to constitutional authority and limitations in that matter. Mr. Chase held that Congress had the right and power to enact such laws for the government of the people of the States lately in rebellion as might be deemed expedient to the public safety, including the bestowal of suffrage upon the negroes; but Lincoln held that the latter right rested exclusively with the States. In his amnesty proclamation of December 8, 1863, he said that any provision by which the States shall provide for the education and for the welfare of "the laboring landless and homeless class will not be objected to by the national Executive;" and Mr. Usher, his Secretary of the Interior, says, "From all that could be gathered by those who observed his conduct in those times, it seemed his hope that the people in the insurgent States, upon exercising authority under the Constitution and laws of the United States, would find it necessary to make suitable provision, not only for the education of the freedmen, but also for their acquisition of property and security in its possession, and to secure that would find it necessary and expedient to bestow suffrage upon them, in some degree at least." Mr. Hugh McCulloch, who succeeded Mr. Chase as Secretary of the Treasury, says, "There is nothing in his record to indicate that he would have favored the immediate and full enfranchisement of those who, having been always in servitude, were unfit for an intelligent and independent use of the ballot. In the plan for the rehabilitation of the South which he and his Cabinet had partially agreed upon, and which Mr. Johnson and the same Cabinet endeavored to perfect and carry out, no provision was made for negro suffrage. This question was purposely left open for further consideration and for Congressional action, under such amendments of the Constitution as the changed condition of the country might render necessary. From some of his incidental expressions, and from his well-known opinions upon the subject of suffrage and the States' right to regulate it, my opinion is that he would have been disposed to let that question remain as it was before the war; with, however, such amendments of the Constitution as would have prevented any but those who were permitted to vote in Federal elections from being included in the enumeration for representatives in Congress, thus inducing the recent Slave States, for the purpose of increasing their Congressional influence and power, to give the ballot to black men as well as white." IX A MASTER IN DIPLOMACY