“That no State or Territory of the United States shall, by any constitution, law, or other regulation whatever, heretofore in force or hereafter to be adopted, make, or enforce, or in any manner recognize, any distinction between citizens of the United States, or of any State or Territory, on account of race or color or previous condition of slavery; and that hereafter all citizens, without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of slavery, shall be protected in the full and equal enjoyment and exercise of all their civil and political rights, including the right of suffrage.” This was rejected,--Yeas 7, Nays 38. Mr. Davis, of Kentucky, then moved to amend the proposition of the House of Representatives by inserting after the word “legislatures” the words “next hereafter to be chosen in each State.” The motion was rejected,--Yeas 12, Nays 31. Mr. Sumner then moved to strike out the proviso in the House proposition, as amended on the motion of Mr. Clark, and in lieu thereof insert,-- “And the elective franchise shall not be denied or abridged in any State on account of race or color.” In moving this Constitutional Amendment, Mr. Sumner remarked that it was “a direct, positive proposition, slightly different from that [Mr. HENDERSON’S] on which the Senate had voted.” It was rejected,--Yeas 8, Nays 38. Mr. Sumner then moved to add at the end of the House proposition the words, “And they shall be exempt from taxation of all kinds.” Before the vote he remarked:-- “It is proposed, by a solemn provision of the Constitution, to declare that certain persons shall not be included in the basis of representation. I think, in justice to them, they should not be taxed. You ought not to repeat in the Constitution the tyranny of taxation without representation. In so many words, you are about to despoil fellow-citizens of representation, and I say, that, not to be inconsistent with your own institutions and with the principles upon which your government is founded, you must exempt them from taxation.” The amendment was rejected. The question then came on the passage of the House proposition, when the vote stood,-- YEAS,--Messrs. Anthony, Chandler, Clark, Conness, Cragin, Creswell, Fessenden, Foster, Grimes, Harris, Howe, Kirkwood, Lane of Indiana, McDougall, Morgan, Morrill, Nye, Poland, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Trumbull, Wade, Williams, and Wilson. NAYS,--Messrs. Brown, Buckalew, Cowan, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Guthrie, Henderson, Hendricks, Johnson, Lane of Kansas, Nesmith, Norton, Pomeroy, Riddle, Saulsbury, Stewart, Stockton, Sumner, Van Winkle, Willey, and Yates. ABSENT,--Messrs. Foot, Howard, and Wright.