There can be no question that the President was entirely correct in this contention. The Fifteenth Amendment was as yet no part of the Constitution. It had not even been proposed by Congress to the "States." It is very questionable whether a majority in Congress could have been found, at that time, in favor of making such a proposition, much less the required extraordinary majority of two-thirds. And until the Fifteenth Amendment had been ratified as a part of the Constitution of the United States, Congress had no power to exact such a concession, or anything like it, from any "State" as the price of the admission of representatives from it to the Houses of the National Legislature. And even since the Fifteenth Amendment has become a part of the Constitution, the Government of the United States cannot prohibit such changes in a "State" constitution, unless the deprivation of suffrage is made on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The President also called attention to the fact that no way was provided in the bills whereby the "States" should signify their acceptance of this "fundamental condition" of admission to representation in Congress, and that no penalty was prescribed for a violation of the condition. Did Congress mean that, in case of any violation of its "fundamental condition," it would throw the "State" back under martial law, and proceed to reconstruct anew? That was a question which might well be asked in view of what Congress had already done; and it was a question which was not calculated to allay uneasiness in the minds of the people in the Southern communities.