History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States

legislate for the

roduced into the Ho

r - Mr. Schofield

worth - Mr. Davis

nell - Mr. Kasson

ng - Mr. Hale's am

- Mr. Clarke -

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for Territories, there is entire unanimity as to the power and duty of Congress to enact laws for the District of Colu

questions relating to the interests of the nation at large. If slavery flourished and the slave-market existed in the capital, it was because a majority of the people of the United State

sense of duty impelling them to begin the great work of political reform at the capital itself. Hence Mr. Wade, as we have seen, on the first day of the session, introduced "Senate bill Number One," designed, as its title declared, "to regulate the ele

qualification of electors for any office in the District of Columbia, the word "white" should be stricken out; also, that from and after the passage of the bill, no person should be disqualified from voting at any election held in the District of Columbia on acc

he special order for

nu

he Judiciary Committee, to report the bill, opened the d

ne of them so far forgot the spirit of our Constitution, the great words of the Declaration of Independence, or the genius of our institutions, as to inquire into the color of a citizen before allowing him the great defensive right of the ballot. It is true, that as the republic moved off in its grand course among the nations a change occurred in the minds and practices of the people of a majority of the States. The love of liberty, because of its own great self, and not because of its application to men of a particular color, lost its sensitive character and active vitality. The moral sense of the people became dormant through the malign influence of that tolerated enemy to all social and governmental virtue, human slavery. The public conscience slumbered, its eyes closed with dollars an

les of true democracy? Is there a worse governed city in all the republic? Where in all the country was there to be found such evidences of thriftless dependence as in this city before the cold breath of the North swept down here during the rebellion and imparted a little of 'Yankee' vigor to its business and population? Where within the bounds of professed fidelity to the Government was true loyalty at a lower ebb, and sympathy with the rebellion at higher flood; freedom more hated, and eman

slation. Let the laws which we pass here be of such pure republican character, that no person can tell from the reading of them what color is stamped upon the faces of the citizens of the United States. Let

e air of this capital wearing a black skin. Through all the gradations of traitors, from Wirz to Jeff. Davis, criminal eyes beamed from white faces. Through all phases of treason, from the bold stroke of Lee upon the battle-field to the unnatural sympathy of those who lived within this District, but hated the sight of their country's flag, runs the blood which courses only under a white surface. While white men were fleeing from this city to join their fortunes with the rebel cause, the returning wave brought black faces in their stead. White enemies went out, black friends came in. As true as truth itself were these poor men to the cause of this imperiled nation. Wherever we have trusted them, they have been true. Why will we not deal justly by them? Why shall we not, in this District, where

How can we tell whether success or failure shall be the fruit of a practical application of the principles upon which our institutions rest, unless we put them to a fair test? Give every man a fair chance to show how well he can discharge the duties of fully recognized citizenship. This is the way to solve the problem, and in no other way can it

ject of the leaders of this movement is no longer concealed; and if there is any thing in their action to admire, it is the candor, courage, and ability with which they press their cause. The agitation is to go on until the question has been settled by the country, and it may as well be met here upon the threshold. The monstrous proposition is nothing less than the absorption into the body politic of

matter in dispute. But the point does not turn simply upon the inferiority of the negro race; for differences without inferiority may unfit one race for political or social assimilation with another, a

ulated with teeming millions the vast extent of a continent, but in no portion of it has he ever emerged from barbarism, and in no

ered 49,005. But in Massachusetts, where they did then and do now vote, there were but 9,602. And in all New England, (except Connecticut, where they are not allowed to vote,) there were at the last census but 16,084. If the American negro, in his desire and capacity for self-government, bore any resemblance to the Caucasian, he would distinguish himself by emigration; and, spurning the soil which had enslaved his race, he would seek equality and independence in a more congenial clime. But the spirit of independence and hardy manhood which brought the Puritans to the shores of a New England wilderness he lacks. He will not even go to Massachusetts now, although, instead of a stormy ocean, his barrier is only an imaginary State line, and instead of a howling wilderness, he is invited to

into the generations of the past. An educated negro is a negro still. The cunning of the chisel of a Canova could not make an enduring Corinthian column out of a block of anthracite; not because of its color, but on account of the structure of its

s been the only incentive to sobriety and industry furnished these people by American law. They were kept too low to feel disgrace, and reward was inconsistent with the theory of 'service owed.' Let us try now the persuasive power of wages and protection. If colored suffrage is still considered an experiment, this District is a good place in which to try it. The same objections do no

recognition, as proposed by this bill, of the great underlying theory of our Government, as declared and practiced by our fathers, we are thrown back upon tha

k to the North for justice. And what is the North? Not the latitude of frosts; not New England and the States that border on the lakes, the Mississippi, and the Pacific. The geographical is lost in the political meaning of the word. The North, in a political sense, means justice, liberty, and union, and in the order in which I have named them. Jefferson defined this 'North' when he wrote 'all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' This North has no geographical boundaries. It embraces the friends of freedom in every quarter of this great republic. Many of its bra

way through the murky political atmosphere that has prevailed for more than thirty years, I have seated myself at the feet of the fathers of our country, that I might, as far as my suggestions would go, make them in accordance with the principles of those who constructed our Government. I ca

William D. Kelley,

sylv

ed dollars as his own price, he has earned and carried to the Southern robber thousands of dollars, the price extorted for his wife and children, and is now a freeholder in this District. They have twenty-one churches, which they own, and which they maintain at an annual cost of over twenty thousand dollars. Their communing members number over forty-three hundred. In their twenty-two Sunday-schools they gather on each Sabbath over three thousand American children of African descent. They maintain, sir, to the infamous disgrace of the American Congress and people, thirty-three day schools, eight of which are maintained exclusively by contributions from colored citizens of the District; the remainder by their contrib

country, from the time that the first reins of party strife were drawn over the land, was any political party ever known to advocate the doctrine now advocated by a portion of the party on the other side of this House, except within the last year, and during the heat and strife of battle in the land. The wisdom of ages for more than five

e is no right so grand. It lies at the very foundation of this Government; and when you introduce into the social system of this country the right of the African race to compete at the ballot-box with the intelligent white citizens of this country, you are disturbing and embittering the who

s, preserving that principle which declares that the sovereignty is in the white people of the country, for whose benefit this Government was established. I am not ready to believe that those men who have laid down their lives in the battles of the late revolution, who came from their homes like the torrents that sweep over the

titutions of this country, that each State has the right to control its own domestic policy according to its own judgment exclusively. I ask the gentlemen on the other side of the house to allow the people of the Distr

s the ice of the river Delaware. It was the principle which struck a successful blow against despotism, and planted liberty upon this continent. It was the principle that our fathers claim

l-important question. Although we may have a legal yet we have no moral right, according to the immutable principles of justice, and according to the declaration of Holy Writ, that we should do unto others as we would they should do

e man? Did not we tax the black man as well as the white man? Does he not contribute his money as well as his blood for the protection and defense of the Government? O, yes; and now, when the black man comes hobbling home upon his crutches and his wooden limbs, maimed f

'Is he a man?' The test should be that of manhood, not that of color, or races, or class. Is he endowed with conscience and reason?

oter should be able to read the Constitution and to write his name; another, that he should be acquainted with the history of the United States; another will demand a still higher degree of education and intelligence, until you will establish an aristocracy of wisdom, which is one of the worst kinds of aristocracy. Sir, th

r cradles and consigned them to helpless slavery. The shackles are now knocked from their limbs, and they emerge from the house of bondage and stand forth as men. Let us now take the

roubles during the progress of the war. But it has been said that the ground-swell of the ocean after the storm is often more dangerous to the mariner than the tempest itself; and I am inclined to think that this is true in reference to the present posture of our national affairs. The storm has apparently subsided; but, sir, if we fail to do our duty now as a nation-and that duty is so simple that a child can understand it; no elaborate argument need enforce it, as no sophistry can conc

its subjects. No government, republican in form, was ever prosperous where its people were ignorant and debased. And in this Government, where our fathers paid so much attention to intelligence, to the cultivation of virtue, and

ither as to the black or the white man, to be made a test of suffrage. And I glory in the principles that have been established by Massachusetts, which prescribes, not that a man should h

ernment, wherever he may be found on the face of God's earth; that he has a right to demand that the shield of this Government shall be held over him, and that its powers shall be exerted on his behalf to the same extent as if he were the proudest grandee of the land. But, sir, citizen

nd development. That is the history of the world. Development upon all great subjects is slow. The development of the globe itself has required countless ages before it was prepared for the introduction of man upon it. And take the progr

and in the depths of the heavens, rendering them invisible to mankind. He made man study those secrets, those mysteries, in order that his genius might be cultivated, h

; changes adapted to the advance of society are made; experiments are tried, based upon reason and upon ju

irely the political status of so great a number of the citizens of this D

ew York, then add

-shoe arch of the main gateway. They are the three types of strength, speed, and secresy, the boast of a now fallen Saracen race, sons of that sea of sand, the desert, who carried the glory of Islam to furthest Gades. In an evil hour of civil strife and bitter hatred of faction, the Alhambra was bet

s and their posterity. To-day we are assembled in the Alhambra of America; here is our citadel; here our courts of highest resort; around these halls cluster the proudest associations of the American people; they seem almost sacred in their eyes. No hostile foot of foreign foe or domestic traitor has trodden them in triumph. Above it floats the flag, the em

by yielding the entrance to this great citadel of our nation, surrender the mastery of his race over the Representatives of th

d even they led by white officers, while millions of white soldiers held the field in victory by their own strength and valor. Deny it if ye dare! Sir, I know that this is a

his floor, who, in the hour of party spite, betrayed the dominion of their race h

ffered in hospitals and in the field as well as he. More than this, the white soldier fought to liberate the slave, and did do it. The white soldier did more: he fought to preserve institutions and rights endeared to him by every hallowed association; to overthrow the rebellion of his brother against their Commonwealth and glorious Union; to preserve the sovereignty of the people against the conspiracy of a slave aristocracy, if you will; to maintain the fabric o

aw can throw around him, but there is a majesty which 'hedges in a king

e, themselves must

chieve greatness, and some ha

t. They have neither literature, arts, nor arms, as a race. They have never, during all the changes of dynasties or revolution of States, risen higher than to be the helpers of the contending parties. They have had the same opportunity as the Indian to secure their i

doubt, received the political support of the gentleman himself for the Presidency, and who, then at the head of an American army within the Commonwealth of Virginia, issued his proclamation, as general in command of the army, notifying the insurgents in arms against the Constitution that, if their slaves rose in revolt for their libe

. Domingo. I would only say, with regard to this question of race, that I assert there is no record of the black race having proved its capacity for self-government as a race; that they have never struck a blow for freedom, and maintained their freedom and independence as individuals when free. I appeal to history, and to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Bingham], and I speak as a student of history, and the representative of a race whose prou

very important for me to take notice of. But inasmuch as the gentleman has seen fit, in his response to what I said, to refer to the testimony of history, I will bear witness now, by the authority of history, that this very race of which he speaks i

n this? I ask the question because he says he does not like me to go outside of the

surrection in St. Domingo, I say, stands without a parallel in the history of any race now

r.-"That i

nly are entitled to their liberty who strike the blow for and maintain their liberty? They did strike the blow in Hayti, and did maintain their liberty there. They struck such a blow for liberty there as no other race of men under like circumstances ever before struck, now represented by any organized community upon this planet; and that the gentleman conceded. And yet this sort of argument is

oes; and this fact proves what I assert-that they are a race to be kept under. No race capable of achieving its liberty by its own efforts, would have listened for one moment to the paper threats of all the generals in the world. The negroes listened to McClellan, and they shrank behind

y the combined power of the Republic, called out, in pursuance of the very letter of the Constitution, 'to suppress insurrection.' Yet, notwithstanding the fact that their whole living generation and the generations before them, running back two centuries, had been enslaved and brutalized, reduced to the sad and miserable condition of chattels, which, for want of a better name, we call a 'slave'-an article of merchandise, a thing of trade, with no acknowledged rights in the present, and denied even the hope of a heritage in the great hereafter-yet, sir, the moment that the word 'Liberty' ran along your ranks, the moment that the word 'Emancipation' was emblazoned upon your banners, those men who, with their ancestors, had been enslaved through five

were brought from their native wilds in Africa. Sir, I believe if the gentleman were master of all languages, if he were to attempt to put i

houlders their masters, millions of people, for a century. Why, sir, it seemed as impossible for a man to swim the Atlantic with Mount Atlas upon his back, or make harmonious base to the thunders of heaven. But these men hav

tles of sham Democracy have in this House drawn pictures of the ignorance and degradation of the people of color in the District of Columbia. Had the subjects of their wanton defamation had a Representative here, there would have been a different coloring to

paying taxes on more than one and a quarter million dollars' worth of real property. Thirty per cent. of their number were slaves; but the census does not show

hree thousand and more of their number went into the Union army, nearly one thousand of whom, as soldiers, fell by disease and battle in the

hails his coming as the harbinger of freedom.' Not one, but many, of our generals have proclaimed that the negro has gained by the bayonet the ballot. Admiral Du Pont made mention of the negro pilot Small, who brought

nt race in all Democratic districts. Seven-tenths of a class, without the inducement of commissions as lieutenants, captains, colonels, commissaries, or quartermasters, braving the hate and vengeance of rebels, rushing into the deadly imminent breach in the darkest hour of our struggle! Where is the parallel to this? They had no flag; it was a mockery. There was no pledge of political franchise. Does history cite us to a country where so large a per cent. of the populati

t to those who owed us so little, yet have aided us so faithfully and well. My conscience approves it as a humane act to

ned the sea, and left them outcasts in the 'land of the free,' preferring white treason to sable loyalty. I rather vote deat

number of negro troops in the war. Gentlemen have declared here so broadly that we were indebted to them for our victories as to actually convey the impression that they won

the preservation of the Union of the States. They fought with us to accomplish the maintenance of the integrity of the country, which carried with it the liberty of their own race; and what would have been said of the negroes if they had not, under such circumstances, come forward and united with us? While I yield to the negro troops the credit of having exhibited bravery and manhood when put to the test, I do not

ntroduce at once three-quarters of a million or a million of voters, the great mass of whom are ignorant and unable to tell when the ballot they vote is right side up, then I protest against such an alarming infusion of ignorance into the ball

s no stake in the country; and unless they are required to be intelligent, and qualified to understand something about our institutions and our laws, and the questions which are submitted to the people from time to time, you say then to them, 'No matter whether or not you make progress in civilization or education, you shall have all the rights of citizenship,' and in that way you take away from them all special motive to education and

substantially the same as those required in the State of Massachusetts. And let me say that, taking the State of Massachusetts as an example of the result of general i

erity almost unknown in the history of the world, that State stands before us to-day in all her dignity, strength, wealth, intelligence, and virtue. And if we, by adopting similar principles in oth

g the fact that the question of negro suffrage in Iowa had been squarely before the people of that State in

d in this country, and we are able to appeal to facts. Negroes had the right to vote in all the Colonies save one, under the Articles of Confederation. They voted, I believe, generally, on the question of adopting the Constitution of the United States. They have voted ever since in New York and the New England States, save Connecticut, in which the practice was discontinued in 1818. They voted in New Jersey till

bread out of the mouths of their own children! I believe it turns out, after all, that these outraged people even then did not rise up against the local government; but the white ruffians of the island, goaded on by their own unchecked rapacity, and availing themselves of the infernal pretext of a black insurrection, perpetrated deeds of rapine and vengeance that find no parallel anywhere, save in the acts of their natural allies, the late slave-breeding rebels, against our flag. Sir, is there no warning here against the policy of leaving our freedmen to the tender mercies of their old masters? Are the white rebels of this District any better than the Jamaica villains to whom I have referred? The late report of General Schurz gives evidence of some important facts which will doubtless apply here. The mass of the white people in the South, he says, are totally destitute of any national feeling. The same bigoted sectionalism that swayed them prior to the war is almost universal. Nor have they an

n the war, and exclude those who have proved themselves the true friends of the country, would be utterly suicidal and atrociously unjust. Negro suffrage in the districts lately in revolt is thus a present political necessity, dictated by the selfishness of the white loyalist as well as his sense of justice. But in our Western States, in which the negro population is relatively small, and the prevailing sentiment of their white people is loyal, no such emergency exists. Society will not be endangered by the temporary postponement of the right of negro suffrage till public opinion shall render it practicable, and leaving the question of suffrage in the loyal States to be decided by them on its merits. If Indiana had gone out of her proper place in the Union, and her loyal population had been found too weak to force her back into it without negro bullets and bayonets, and if, after thus

oyal States, who coolly stood by and encouraged their friends in the South in their work of national rapine and murder, and while they were ever ready to go joyfully into the service of the devil, were too cowardly to wear his uniform and carry his weapons in open day. But Congress in this District has the power to punish by ballot, and there will be a beautiful, poetic justice in the exercise of this power. Sir, let it be applied. The rebels here will recoil from it with horror. Some of the worst of them, sooner than submit to black suffrage, will doubtless leave the District, and thus render it an unspeakable service. To be voted down and governed by Yankee and negro ballots will seem to them an intolerable grievance, and this is among the excellent reasons why I am in favor of it. If neither hanging nor exile can be extemporized for the entertainment of our domestic rebels, let us require them at least to make their bed on negro ballots during the remainder of their unworthy lives. Of course they will not relish it, but that will be their own peculiar concern. Their darling institution must be charged with all the consequences of the war. They sowed the wind, and, if required, must reap the whirlwind. Retribution follows wrong-doing, and this law must work out its results. Rebels and their sympathizers, I am sure, will fare as well under negro suffrage as they deserve, and I desire to leave them, as f

ry and present position of their State upon the subject of negro suffrage, Mr. Thomas, of Maryland, addressed the H

th none of the exalted ideas of what that privilege means, and with but a faint conception of the true position he now occupies, the negro is not the proper subject to have conferred upon him this right. I believe if it is given to him, that in localities where his is the majority vote, parties will spring up, each one bidding higher than the other for his ballot, and that in the end the negro-voting elemen

endent on him for his living and support. And you will find, when it is too late, that the Southern planter will maintain the same political influence over t

ay, without any preparation, what, to do well and safely, will require years of patience on the part of the freedmen, and earnest, honest exertions to elevate, improve, and educate on our part. Let us look at this question as statesmen, not as partisans. Let us not suppose that the parties of to-day will have a perpetual existence

antees shall be given. Let us wait until the great problem the African is now working out has been finished, and we find that he thoroughly comprehends and will not abuse what he has got, before we attempt to confer other privileges, which, when once granted, can never be taken from him. Sir, let it not be forgo

the debate was resume

who re

own people, had we not better give our attention to matters of great national interest which so urgently demand speedy action on our part? Let us pass laws for the education of the people of this District, and fit them ultimately to receive the elective franchise; or, if any thing is required to satisfy the intense desire, manifested by some gentlemen of this House, to bestow the franch

t, before we confer upon them the political right of suffrage, as contemplated by the bill now under consideration, we should seek to elevate their social condition, and lift them up from the depths of degradation and ignorance in which many of them are left by the receding waves of the sea of rebellion. There are many strong objections to conferr

e great gift of liberty which has been bestowed upon them; teach them to know that to labor is for their best interests; teach them to learn and lead virtuous and industrious lives, in order to make themselves res

l, and that there is a proposition before this House, which seems to be received with very general favor, to create a commission for the government of this city; and, in order to give an

had proposed amendments to the bill. These amendments were now

right of suffrage in the District of Columbia to all persons coming within either of the following classes, irrespective of c

read the Constit

at

assessed for and p

perty within

honorably discharged from the military

er provisions excluding from the right of suffrage those who have borne arms against th

o advocate them as I best can. I am ready and willing to yield my own preferences in matters of detail to their better judgment. More than that, I shall not follow the example that has been set by some on this side of the House who oppose my amendment, and who claim to be the peculiar friends of negro suffrage, by proclaiming that I will adhere to the doctrine of qualified suffrage, and will join our political enemies, the Democrats, in voting down every thing else. No, si

s set up, will be regarded by the present and future generations of men who are to inhabit this continent with pride and satisfaction, or deplored as one of the gravest errors in the history of legislation. The bill

which you have listened, and what is left is but the old revolting argument in favor of slavery, and a selfish appeal to prejudice and ignorance. It is insisted that a majority of the white voters of the District are opposed to the contemplated law, that they have recently given a public expression of their opinion against it, and that for that reason it would be un

and generous purpose by the handful of voters who temporarily encamp under the shadow of the Capitol? It may be that the determination of a question of so much importance as this belongs rather to the people of the United States, through their Representatives in Congress assembled, than to the present qualified voters of this District. Sir, the field of inquiry is much wider than the District of Columbia, and the problem to be solved one in which not they alone are interested. When

y are not to be changed because a majority of the voters who reside here do not desire that change? Will any man say that the voices of these seven thousand voters are to outweigh the voices of all the constituencies of the Un

these belong to slavery; they are her natural offspring and allies, and the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Chanler,] who consumed so much time in demonstrating the comparative inferiority of the black race, answered his own argument when he reminded us that the Constitution recognized the negro only as a slave, and gave us the strongest reason why we should now begin to recognize him as a freeman. Sir, I do not doubt that the negro race is inferior to our own. That is not the question. You do not advance an inch in the argument after you have proved that premise of your case. You must show that they are not only inferior, but that they are so ignorant and degraded that they can not be safely intrusted with the smallest conceivable part of political power and responsibility, and that this is the case not on the plantations of Alabama and Mississippi, but here in the District of Columbia. Nay, you must not only prove that this is the general character of this population here, but that this condition is so universal and unexceptional that you can not allow them to take this first step in freedom, although it may be hedged about with qualifications and conditions; for which of you who have opposed this measure on the ground of race has proposed to give the benefit of it to such as may be found worthy? Not one of you. And this shows that your objection is founded really on a prejudice, although it as

ereditary enemy, a mine beneath instead of a buttress to the edifice which you are endeavoring to repair? Sir, I do not hesitate to say that, in my opinion, it were better to follow where conscience and justice point, leaving results to a higher Power, tha

sented, preferred it as modified by Mr. Hale's amendments. In his speech he c

d my colleague and friend, [Mr. Chanler,] who represents, with myself, in part, the Empire State, carry us back to the days and scenes before the war, when slavery ruled supreme, not only throughout the land, by and through its hold upon power, which the people in an evil hour had given it, but here in these halls of legislation, where liberty and its high and noble ends ought to have been secured by just and equal laws, and the great and paramount object of our system of government carried out and fully developed. They seem to forget that liberty and good government have been on trial during these five years last past of war and blood, and that they have succeeded in the mighty struggle. They forget that Providence, in a thousand ways, during this fierce conflict, has given us evidence of his favor, and led us ou

race, remarked as follows: "This cry of poverty and ignorance is not new. I remember that those who first followed the Son of man, the Savior of the world, were not the learned rabbis, not the enlightened scholar, not the rich man or the pious Pharisee. They were the poor and needy, the peasant and the fisherman. I remember, also, that the more learned the slaveholder, the greater the rebel. I remember that no black sk

ere republican government. That which wrongs one man, in the end recoils on the many. Sir, if we accept, as the Republican party of the Union, our true position and our duty, we shall nobly win. If we are false and recreant, we shall miserably fail. Let us h

on: Hon. Si

the German, the Irishman, and the poor and oppressed of every race, who come to our shores to escape the oppression of despotic governments, and to seek the protection of a Government the true theory of which reposes in every citizen a portion of its sovereign power. Against this attempt to deny or abridge in any way the

s of pampered and arrogant ruffianism at home, and the worse than ruffian spirit of the Administrations of Pierce and Buchanan, and the Democratic traitors who at that time constituted a majority of this House, and were engaged in preparing the nation for its harvest of blood. We must go back to the spirit and purposes of the founders of our Government. We must accept the grand logic of the mighty revolution from which we are now emerging. We must repudiate, now and forever, these assaults up

will be hailed by the friends of freedom every-where as a return to a policy of national justice too long delayed. In behalf of the State I have the honor to represent, and upon whose soil this contest for a larger liberty and a nobler nationality was first submitted to the arbitrament of arms, I hail this measure with feelings of satisfaction

at they shall have republican governments. How are the poor people of this District to have a republican form of government if gentlemen who have come to this city, perhaps for the first time in their lives, undertake to control them as absolutely and arbitrarily as Louis N

negro suffrage upon the people here. Gentlemen whose States have repudiated the idea of giving the elective franchise to negroes, come here and are willing to give the suffrage to negroes here, as if they intended to make this little District of Columbia a sort of negro Eden; as if they intended to say to the negroes of Virginia and Maryland and Delaware, 'You have no right to vote in these States, but if you will go to Washington you can vote there.' I imagine I can see them swarming up from different sections of the country to this city and inquiring where the polls are. Agents, men and wo

d of. The present age have no right to terminate it. It is ours to enjoy and admin

d Constitution and the general policy and usage of the country, had been, from the organization of the Government until the Emancipation Proclamation, denied to all of the enslaved colored people. As a consequence of the recognition of their manhood, certain resul

ial rights and privileges of men, is to abandon the principle of the proclamation o

s intrusted with exclusive jurisdiction in this District, to confer upon the men of this District, without distinction of race or color, the rights and privileges of men. And, therefore, there can be nothing premature in this measure, and I can not see how any one who supports the Emancipation Proclamation, which is a recognition of the manhood of the whole colored people of this country, can hesitate as to his duty; and while I make no suggestion as to the duty of other men, I have

ion in Massachusetts as a practical measure. When, ten years ago, this qualification was imposed upon the people of Massachusetts, it excluded no person who was then a voter. For two centuries we have had in Massachusetts a system of public instruction open to the children of the whole people wit

t the right to vote, he is secure in nothing. I can not consent, after all the guards and safeguards which may be prepared for the defense of the colored men in the enjoyment of their rights-I can not consent that they shall be deprived of the right to protect themselves. One hundred and eighty-six thousand of them have been in the army of the United St

hat the senator in anger hurled it violently from him. It fell to the ground dead, and such was the horror and indignation of that ancient but not Christianized bo

those who have tyrannized over them for centuries? I know of no crime that exceeds this; I know of none that is its parallel; and if this country is true to itself, it will rise in the maje

d if you leave these four million people to the care and custody of the men who have inaugurated and carried on this rebellion, then you treasure up for

on to amend having been rejected, a vote was taken on the bill as reported by the committee. The bi

ve approval, and not supposing that a vote of two-thirds could be secured for its passa

ct of negro suffrage in the District of Columbia was kept in abeyance for a time, it was hoped that the President's approval might meanwhile be secured to certain great measures for protecting the helpless and maintaining the civil rights of cit