50 and not a regime of oppression ; it needs a transformation and not a restoration ; it needs progress and not revenge. Is it resigned, moreover, to lose a great part of its representatives in Congress ? According to your Constitution, Mr. President, the number of representatives of each state is regulated in proportion to its free population, increased by three fifths of the remainder. This “remainder” is nothing else than the slaves. There are no more slaves, consequently there is no longer any “ remainder.” The only means which the South possesses of preserving and even increasing the number of its representatives is to increase its free population. As to enumerating, either as the 11 free population” or “ the remainder,” a race absolutely excluded from the right of suffrage, no one assuredly will think of it. The South, which no longer has slaves, must decide to have citizens. This, moreover, Mr. President, is a new reason, a peremptory reason, a constitutional reason, for not admitting the South to Congress before terminating the negro question. The supplementary representation of the South should be either increased or abolished ; in any case, it cannot remain as it is, and the deputations which appear at the doors of Congress will find themselves necessarily in contradiction with the terms of the Constitution. Let us add, that the point in question is not one of those ordinary and foreseen variations, the regulation of which can be postponed till the period of the decennial census, but a sudden and exceptional change, effected by the abolition of slavery, and the political consequences of which demand a decision not less prompt and exceptional. XIV. * It will perhaps be objected, that the negro question cannot be ended, since some of the Northern states even yet shut out the negroes from political life. Did we not see the other- day, with a sorrow mingled with surprise, Connecticut herself set an example which we scarcely expected to behold from
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