Alfred H. Stone Collection
Volume: 12

24. Michael C. Kerr, Speech of Hon. Michael C. Kerr, of Indiana, against the Bill for the Ratification of the Constitution of Alabama. Delivered in the House of Representatives, March 28, 1868 (Washington, DC: Congressional Democratic Executive Committee, 1868). (16 p.)

Speech opposing the readmission of Alabama to the Union under its “Reconstruction Constitution.” The speaker believes that Alabama should be readmitted as a state under its ante-bellum constitution and objects to the process by which the new constitution was framed and ratified. “The State should be admitted at once to representation under her own constitution, not this mongrel and bastard instrument, because she was never out of the Union, never lost or forfeited her equal right with the other States to self-government, and is now simply the victim of superior brute force, not of lawful or constitutional punishment or control.”