ideals--without courage to enforce them, without conscience to change
them, the United States presents the spectacle of a Nation drifting
aimlessly, so far as this vital, National problem is concerned, upon the
sea of irresolution, toward the maelstrom of anarchy.

The right of Congress, under the Fourteenth Amendment, to reduce Southern
representation can hardly be disputed. But Congress has a simpler and more
direct method to accomplish the same end. It is the sole judge of the
qualifications of its own members, and the sole judge of whether any
member presenting his credentials has met those qualifications. It can
refuse to seat any member who comes from a district where voters have been
disfranchised: it can judge for itself whether this has been done, and
there is no appeal from its decision.

If, when it has passed a law, any Court shall refuse to obey its behests,
it can impeach the judges. If any president refuse to lend the executive
arm of the government to the enforcement of the law, it can impeach the
president. No such extreme measures are likely to be necessary for the
enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments--and the
Thirteenth, which is also threatened--but they are mentioned as showing
that Congress is supreme; and Congress proceeds, the House directly, the
Senate indirectly, from the people and is governed by public opinion. If
the reduction of Southern representation were to be regarded in the light
of a bargain by which the Fifteenth Amendment was surrendered, then it
might prove fatal to liberty. If it be inflicted as a punishment and a
warning, to be followed by more drastic measures if not sufficient, it
would serve a useful purpose. The Fifteenth Amendment declares that the
right to vote _shall not_ be denied or abridged on account of color; and
any measure adopted by Congress should look to that end. Only as the power
to injure the Negro in Congress is reduced thereby, would a reduction of