Significant manuscript DS, one page, 8 x 12.5, 1869. Order form document for the "Speech of the Honorable C. Sumner of Mass., subject Constitutional Amendment Delivered in the United States Senate, February 5th, 1869, to be printed," signed below by 22 members of the 40th United States Congress, all adding the number of copies desired. Signers are: Charles Sumner, Jacob M. Howard, Alexander McDonald, Adonijah Welch, Thomas W. Osborn, Benjamin F. Butler, William Pitt Kellogg, Frederick A. Sawyer, Oliver P. Morton, John M. Thayer, William M. Stewart, Joseph C. Abbott, Willard Warner, George E. Spencer, Benjamin F. Rice, Henry B. Anthony, George H. Williams, Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, Alexander G. Cattell, Edwin D. Morgan, Zachariah Chandler, and Charles D. Drake. In very good condition, with top and bottom edges folded, scattered soiling, and some small tears and losses to the edges. Encapsulated in a PSA/DNA authentication holder.
On February 5th, Sumner delivered a speech to the Senate on the 'powers of Congress to prohibit inequality, caste and oligarchy of the skin.' On February 26th, Congress approved an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's 'race, color, or previous condition of servitude,' and submitted it to the state legislatures for ratification. The amendment was later ratified on February 3, 1870, becoming the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
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