not serve even as a truce between the President and Congress. It was found impracticable to secure repression and the contest went forward with constantly accelerating speed. The first question on the subject of Reconstruction which engaged the attention of Congress, was the re-adjustment of the basis of representation; and for a time it absorbed all others. The first proposition to amend the Constitution in this respect had been made by Mr. Stevens on the 5th of December, providing "that representatives shall be apportioned among the States which may be within the Union according to their respective legal voters, and for this purpose none shall be named as legal voters who are not either natural born citizens of the United States or naturalized foreigners." During the month of December the question of representation was discussed, partly in public debate, but more in conference among members; and the plan of placing the basis upon legal voters, at first warmly urged, was quickly abandoned as its probable results were scrutinized. When Congress convened after the holidays, on Friday the 5th of January, Mr. Spalding of Ohio, in a speech already referred to, proposed an amendment to the Constitution in regard to representation in Congress, directing that "people of color shall not be counted with the population in making up the ratio of representation, except it be in States where they are permitted to exercise the elective franchise," and this was probably the earliest foreshadowing of the real change in the basis of representation that was made by the Fourteenth Amendment.