Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, then followed: "If I understood the resolution as the Senator from Indiana does, I should certainly vote with him; but I do not so understand it. It is simply a resolution that a joint committee be raised to inquire into the condition of the States which formed the so-called Confederate States of America, and to report whether they or any of them are entitled to be represented in either House of Congress, with leave to report at any time by bill or otherwise. It is true, as the Senator says, that after having raised this committee, the Senate will not be likely to take action in regard to the admission of the Senators from any of these States until the committee shall have had a reasonable time at least to act and report; but it is very desirable that we should have joint action upon this subject. It would produce a very awkward and undesirable state of things if the House of Representatives were to admit members from one of the lately rebellious States, and the Senate were to refuse to receive Senators from the same State.

"We all know that the State organizations in certain States of the Union have been usurped and overthrown. This is a fact of which we must officially take notice. There was a time when the Senator from Indiana, as well as myself, would not have thought of receiving a Senator from the Legislature, or what purported to be the Legislature, of South Carolina. When the people of that State, by their Representatives, undertook to withdraw from the Union and set up an independent government in that State, in hostility to the Union, when the body acting as a Legislature there was avowedly acting against this Government, neither he nor I would have received Representatives from it. That was a usurpation which, by force of arms, we have put down. Now the question arises, Has a State government since been inaugurated there entitled to representation? Is not that a fair subject of inquiry? Ought we not to be satisfied upon that point? We do not make such an inquiry in reference to members that come from States which have never undertaken to deny their allegiance to the Government of the United States. Having once been admitted as States, they continue so until by some positive act they throw off their allegiance, and assume an attitude of hostility to the Government, and make war upon it; and while in that condition, I know we should all object that they, of course, could not be represented in the Congress of the United States. Now, is it not a proper subject for inquiry to ascertain whether they have assumed a position in harmony with the Government? and is it not proper that that inquiry should be made the subject of joint action?"

Mr. Guthrie, of Kentucky, wished to ask the friends of this resolution if it was contemplated that this committee should take evidence, and report that evidence to the two houses. "If," said he, "they are only to take what is open to every member of the Senate, the fact that the rebellion has been suppressed; the fact that the President of the United States has appointed officers to collect the taxes, and, in some instances, judges and other officers; that he has sent the post-office into all the States; that there have been found enough individuals loyal to the country to accept the offices; the fact that the President has issued his proclamation to all these States, appointing Provisional Governors; that they have all elected conventions; that the conventions have rescinded the ordinances of secession; that most of them have amended their constitutions and abolished slavery, and the Legislatures of some of them have passed the amendment to the Constitution on the subject of slavery—if they are only to take these facts, which are open and clear to us all, I can see no necessity for such a committee. My principal objection to the resolution is, that this committee can give us no information which we do not now possess, coupled with the fact that the loyal conservative men of the United States, North, South, East, and West, do most earnestly desire that we shall so act that there shall be no longer a doubt that we are the United States of America, in full accord and harmony with each other.

"I know it has been said that the President had no authority to do these things. I read the Constitution and the laws of this country differently. He is to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed;' he is to suppress insurrection and rebellion. The power is put in his hands, and I do not see why, when he marches into a rebel State, he has not authority to put down a rebel government and put up a government that is friendly to the United States, and in accordance with it. I do not see why he can not do that while the war goes on, and I do not see why he may not do it after the war is over. The people in those States lie at the mercy of the nation. I see no usurpation in what he has done, and if the work is well done, I, for one, am ready to accept it. Are we to send out a commission to see what the men whom he has appointed have done? It is said that they are not to be relied on; that they have been guilty of treason, and we will not trust them. I hope that no such ideas will prevail here. I think this will be a cold shock to the warm feelings of the nation for restoration, for equal privileges and equal rights. They were in insurrection. We have suppressed that insurrection. They are now States of the Union; and if they come here according to the laws of the States, they are entitled, in my judgment, to representation, and we have no right to refuse it. They are in a minority, and they would be in a minority even if they meant now what they felt when they raised their arms against the Government; but they do not, and of those whom they will send here to represent them, nineteen out of twenty will be just as loyal as any of us—even some of those who took up arms against us.

"I really hope to see some one move a modification of the test oath, so that those who have repented of their disloyalty may not be excluded, for I really believe that a great many of those who took up arms honestly and wished to carry out the doctrines of secession, and who have succumbed under the force of our arms and the great force of public opinion, can be trusted a great deal more than those who did not fight at all.

"To conclude, gentlemen, I see no great harm in this resolution except the procrastination that will result from it, and that will give us nothing but what we have before us."

The question being taken, the resolution, as amended, passed the Senate, thirty-three voting in the affirmative and eleven in the negative. The following are the names of those who voted for the resolution:

Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Chandler, Clark, Conness, Creswell, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Harris, Howard, Howe, Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Norton, Nye, Poland, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Wade, Willey, Williams, Wilson, and Yates.

The following Senators voted against the resolution:

Messrs. Buckalew, Cowan, Dixon, Doolittle, Guthrie, Hendricks, Johnson, Riddle, Saulsbury, Stockton, and Wright.

Five Senators were absent: Messrs. Cragin, Davis, Henderson, McDougall, and Nesmith.

On the day succeeding the adoption of the concurrent resolution by the Senate, the amendments of that body came before the House of Representatives. Mr. Thaddeus Stevens moved that the House concur in the amendments of the Senate. He said: "The Senate took what to them appeared to be the proper view of their prerogatives, and, though they did not seem to differ with us as to the main object, the mode of getting at it with them was essential, and they very properly put the resolution in the shape they considered right. They have changed the form of the resolution so as not to require the assent of the President; and they have also considered that each house should determine for itself as to the reference of papers, by its own action at the time. To this I see no objection, and, while moving to concur, I will say now, that when it is in order I shall move, or some other gentleman will move when his State is called, a resolution precisely similar, or very nearly similar, to the provision which the Senate has stricken out, only applicable to the House alone."

The House then concurred in the amendments of the Senate, so the resolution passed in the following form:

"Resolved, by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That a joint committee of fifteen members shall be appointed, nine of whom shall be members of the House, and six members of the Senate, who shall inquire into the condition of the States which formed the so-called Confederate States of America, and report whether they, or any of them, are entitled to be represented in either house of Congress, with leave to report at any time, by bill or otherwise."

A resolution subsequently passed the House, "That all papers offered relative to the representation of the late so-called Confederate States of America, shall be referred to the joint committee of fifteen without debate, and no members shall be admitted from either of said so-called States until Congress shall declare such States entitled to representation."

On the fourteenth of December the Speaker announced the names of the committee on the part of the House. They were: Thaddeus Stevens, Elihu B. Washburn, Justin S. Morrill, Henry Grider, John A. Bingham, Roscoe Conkling, George S. Boutwell, Henry T. Blow, and Andrew J. Rogers.

On the twenty-first of December the following gentlemen were announced as members of the committee on the part of the Senate: William Pitt Fessenden, James W. Grimes, Ira Harris, Jacob M. Howard, Reverdy Johnson, and George H. Williams.

Thus, before the adjournment of Congress for the holidays, the Joint Committee of Fifteen on Reconstruction had been appointed and empowered to proceed with investigations of the utmost importance to the country. Hated by the late insurgents of the South, who expected little leniency at its hands; opposed by politicians at the North, who viewed it as an obstacle in the way of their designs, and even misrepresented by the President himself, who stigmatized it as a "Central Directory," this committee went forward in the discharge of its important duties, without fear or favor, having a marked influence upon the doings of Congress and the destinies of the country.

Meanwhile other important measures were enlisting the attention of Congress, and were proceeding, by the slow but steady steps of parliamentary progress, to their final consummation.



CHAPTER IV.

SUFFRAGE IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

Duty of Congress to legislate for the District of Columbia — Suffrage Bill introduced into the House — Speech by Mr. Wilson — Mr. Boyer — Mr. Schofield — Mr. Kelley — Mr. Rogers — Mr. Farnsworth — Mr. Davis — Mr. Chanler — Mr. Bingham — Mr. Grinnell — Mr. Kasson — Mr. Julian — Mr. Thomas — Mr. Darling — Mr. Hale's amendment — Mr. Thayer — Mr. Van Horn — Mr. Clarke — Mr. Johnson — Mr. Boutwell.

Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the authority of Congress to legislate for States loyal or disloyal, or for Territories, there is entire unanimity as to the power and duty of Congress to enact laws for the District of Columbia. Here there is no countercurrent of "reserved rights" or "State sovereignty" opposed to the authority of Congress.

Congress being responsible for the legislation of the District of Columbia, we naturally look in that direction for an exhibition in miniature of the policy of the national legislature on 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 States were willing. So soon as the nation became anti-slavery, the "peculiar institution" could no longer exist in the District of Columbia, although it might still survive in other localities.

The General Government having become completely disenthralled from the dominion of slavery, and a wide-spread opinion prevailing at the North that all loyal men should enjoy the right of suffrage, the members of the Thirty-ninth Congress convened with a 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 elective franchise in the District of Columbia." In the House of Representatives, on the second day of the session, Mr. Kelley introduced "a bill extending the right of suffrage in the District of Columbia." This bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee.

In the House of Representatives, on the 18th of December, Mr. Wilson, chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, reported a bill extending the right of suffrage in the District of Columbia. The bill provided that from all laws and parts of laws prescribing the 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 account of color; also, that all acts of Congress, and all laws of the State of Maryland in force in the District of Columbia, and all ordinances of the cities of Washington and Georgetown inconsistent with the provisions of the bill, should be repealed and annulled.

This bill was made the special order for Wednesday the 10th of January.

Mr. Wilson, of Iowa, whose duty it was, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to report the bill, opened the discussion by speaking as follows in favor of the measure:

"Can we excuse ourselves in continuing a limitation on the right of suffrage in the capital of the republic that has no justification in reason, justice, or in the principles on which we profess to have based our entire political system? Upon this question there seems to have been but little difference of opinion among the men who laid the foundation and built the superstructure of this Government. In those days no limitation was placed upon the enjoyment of the defensive rights of the citizen, including the right of suffrage, on account of the color of the skin, except in the State of South Carolina. All of the other States participating in the formation of the Government of the United States had some limitation, based on sex, or age, or property placed upon the right of suffrage; but none 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 and its ears stuffed with cotton. When these things succeeded the active justice, abounding mercy, and love of human rights of the earlier days, State after State fell into the dark line of South Carolinian oppression, and adopted her anti-republican limitation of the right of suffrage. A few States stood firm and kept their faith, and to-day, when compared with the bruised and peeled and oppression-cursed State of South Carolina, stand forth as shining examples of the great rewards that are poured upon the heads of the just. Massachusetts and South Carolina, the one true, the other false to the faith and ideas of the early life of the nation, should teach us how safe it is to do right, and how dangerous it is to do wrong; how much safer it is to do justice than it is to practice oppression.

"But, sir, not the States alone fell into this grievous error. The General Government took its stand upon the side of injustice, and apostatized from the true faith of the nation, by depriving a portion of its citizens of the political right of self-defense, the use of the ballot. What good has come to us from this apostasy? Take the history of the municipal government of this city, and what is there in its pages to make an American feel proud of the results of this departure from the principles 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 emancipation more roundly denounced; white troops harder to raise, and black ones more heartily despised; Union victories more coldly received, and reverses productive of less despondency, than right among that portion of the voting population and its adjuncts which control the local elections in this District? With what complaisance the social elements of this capital fostered the brood of traitors who rushed hence to the service of the rebellion in 1861! Are these fruits of our errors pleasing?

"I would not be vindictive, I would be just. I do not want to legislate against the white citizen for the purpose of advancing the interests of the colored citizen. It is best to guard against all such legislation. 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 us have no class legislation, no class privileges. Let our laws be just and uniform in their operation. This is the smooth sea upon which our ship of state may sail; all others are tempestuous and uncertain.

"And now, Mr. Speaker, who are the persons upon whom this bill will operate, if we shall place it upon the statute-book of the nation? They are citizens of the United States and residents of the District of Columbia. It is true that many of them have black faces, but that is God's work, and he is wiser than we. Some of them have faces marked by colors uncertain; that is not God's fault. Those who hate black men most intensely can tell more than all others about this mixture of colors. But, mixed or black, they are citizens of this republic, and they have been, and are to-day, true and loyal to their Government; and this is vastly more than many of their contemners can claim for themselves. In this District a white skin was not the badge of loyalty while a black skin was. No traitor breathed the 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 the first effective legislative blow fell upon slavery, declare that these suffering, patient, devoted friends of the republic shall have the power to protect their own rights by their own ballots? Is it because they are ignorant? Sir, we are estopped from that plea. It comes too late. We did not make this inquiry in regard to the white voter. It is only when we see a man with a dark skin that we think of ignorance. Let us not stand on this now in relation to this District. The fact itself is rapidly passing away, for there is no other part of the population of the District so diligent in the acquisition of knowledge as the colored portion. In spite of the difficulties placed in their pathway to knowledge by the white residents, the colored people, adults and children, are pressing steadily on.

"Taken as a class, they surely show themselves possessed of enough of the leaven of thrift, education, morality, and religion to render it safe for us to make the experiment of impartial suffrage here. Let us make the trial. A failure can work no great harm, for to us belongs the power to make any change which the future may show to be necessary. 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 be determined. That success will attend the experiment I do not doubt. Others believe the result will prove quite the reverse. Who is right and who wrong can be ascertained only by putting the two opinions to a practical test. The passage of this bill will furnish this test, and to that end I ask for it the favorable consideration of this house."

Mr. Boyer, of Pennsylvania, said: "The design of this bill is to inaugurate here, upon this most conspicuous stage, the first act of the new political drama which is intended to culminate in the complete political equality of the races and the establishment of negro suffrage throughout the States. Constitutional amendments with this view have been already introduced at both ends of the Capitol. The object 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 the nation of a colored population equal to one-sixth of all the inhabitants of the country, as the census reports will show. Four millions of the population so to be amalgamated have been just set free from a servitude, the debasing influences of which have many a time been vividly depicted in the anti-slavery speeches of the very men who are the most prominent champions of this new political gospel.

"The argument in favor of the American negro's right to vote must be measured by his capacity to understand and his ability to use such right for the promotion of the public good. And that is the very 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, and render their fusion in the same government incompatible with the general welfare. It is, as I conceive, upon these principles that we must settle the question whether this is a white man's government.

"The negro has no history of civilization. From the earliest ages of recorded time he has ever been a savage or a slave. He has populated with teeming millions the vast extent of a continent, but in no portion of it has he ever emerged from barbarism, and in no age or country has he ever established any other stable government than a despotism. But he is the most obedient and happy of slaves.

"Of all men, the negroes themselves are best contented with their situation. They are not the prime movers in the agitations which concern them. An examination of the tables of the last census will demonstrate that they do not attach much importance to political rights. It will be found that the free people of color are most numerous in some of those States which accord them the fewest political privileges; and in those States which have granted them the right of suffrage they seem to see but few attractions. In Maryland there were, in 1860, 83,942 free people of color; in Pennsylvania, 56,949; in Ohio, 36,673. In neither of those States were they voters. In the State of New York, where they could not vote except under a property qualification, which excluded the most of them, they numbered 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 a land resounding with the myriad voices of the industrial arts, and instead of painted savages with uplifted tomahawks, he has reason to expect a crowd of male and female philanthropists, with beaming faces and outstretched hands, to welcome him and call him brother. There will he find lecturers to prove his equality, and statesmen to claim him as an associate ruler in the land. If he cares for these things, or is fit for them, why does he linger outside upon the very borders of his political Eden? Why does he not enter into it—avoiding Connecticut in his route—and take possession? The fact is, that the fine political theories set up in his behalf are not in accordance with the natural instinct of the negro, which, in this particular, is truer than the philosophy of his white advisers.

"They are but superficial thinkers who imagine that the organic differences of races can be obliterated by the education of the schools. The qualities of races are perpetuated by descent, and are the result of historical influences reaching far back 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 substance. He might indeed, with infinite pains, give it the form, but he could not impart to it the strength and adhesion of particles required to enable it to brave the elements, and the temple it was made to support would soon crumble into ruin."

Mr. Schofield, of Pennsylvania, said: "The cheapest elevator and best moralizer for an oppressed and degraded class is to inspire them with self-respect, with the belief in the possibility of their elevation. Bestow the elective franchise upon the colored population of this District, and you awaken the hope and ambition of the whole race throughout the country. Hitherto punishment has 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 not exist here that are urged on behalf of some of the States. No constitutional question intervenes. Here, at least, Congress is supreme. The law can be passed, and if it is found to be bad, a majority can repeal it. The colored race is too small in numbers here to endanger the supremacy of the white people, but large and loyal enough to counteract to some extent disloyal proclivities.

"Both the precept and practice of our fathers refute the allegation that this is exclusively a white man's government. If we can not now consent to so slight a 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 that new and monstrous doctrine, that the five millions of our colored population, and their posterity forever, have no rights that a white man is bound to respect.

"Who pronounces this crushing sentence? The political South. And what is this South? The Southern master and his Northern minion. Have these people wronged the South? Have they filled it with violence, outrage, and murder? No, sir; they are remarkably gentle, patient, and respectful. Have they despoiled its wealth or diminished its grandeur? No, sir; their unpaid toil has made the material South. They removed the forests, cleared the fields, built the dwellings, churches, colleges, cities, highways, railroads, and canals. Why, then, does the South hate and persecute these people? Because it has wronged them. Injustice always hates its victim. They are forced to look 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 bravest champions hail from the geographical South. The North, that did not fear the slave power in its prime, in the day of its political strength and patronage, when it commanded alike the nation and the mob, and for the same cruel purpose, will not be intimidated by its expiring maledictions around this capital. The North must pass this bill to vindicate its sincerity and its courage. The slave power has already learned that the North is terrible in war, and forgiving and gentle in peace; let its crushed and mangled victims learn from the passage of this bill, that the justice of the North, unlimited by lines of latitude, unlimited by color or race, slumbereth not."

Mr. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, followed: "In preparing to begin the work of reconstructing the grandest of human governments, shattered for a time by treason, and in endeavoring to ascertain what we should do, and how and when it should be done, I have consulted no popular impulse. Groping my 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 can make no suggestion for the improvement of the primary principles or general structure of our Government, and I would heal its wounds so carefully that it should descend to posterity unstained and unmarred as it came, under the guidance of Providence, from the hands of those who fashioned it.



"For whom do we ask this legislation? In 1860, according to the census, there were fourteen thousand three hundred and sixteen colored people in this District, and we ask this legislation for the male adults of that number. Are they in rags and filth and degradation? The tax-books of the District will tell you that they pay taxes on $1,250,000 worth of real estate, held within the limits of this District. On one block, on which they pay taxes on fifty odd thousand dollars, there are but two colored freeholders who have not bought themselves out of slavery. One of them has bought as many as eight persons beside himself—a wife and seven children. Coming to freedom in manhood, mortgaged for a thousand or fifteen hundred 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 contributions, eked out by contributions from the generous people of the North; and every dollar of their million and a quarter dollars of real estate and personal property is taxed for schools to educate the children of the white people of the District, the fathers of many of those children having been absent during the war fighting for the Confederacy and against our constitutional flag. Who shall reproach them with being poor and ignorant while Congress, which has exclusive jurisdiction over the District, has, till last year, robbed them day by day, and barred the door of the public school against them? Such reproach does not lie in the white man's mouth; at any rate, no member of the Democratic party ought to utter it."

The debate was continued on the day following. Mr. Rogers, of New Jersey, having obtained the floor, addressed the House for two hours. He said: "I hold that there never has been, in the legislation of the United States, a bill which involved so momentous consequences as that now under consideration, because nowhere in the history of this 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 thousand years, and the most enlightened governments that ever existed upon the face of the earth, have handed down to us that grand principle that all governments of a civilized character have been and were intended especially for the benefit of white men and white women, and not for those who belong to the negro, Indian, or mulatto race.

"It is the high prerogative which the political system of this country has given to the masses, rich and poor, to exercise the right of suffrage and declare, according to the honest convictions of their hearts, who shall be the officers to rule over them. There is no privilege so high, there 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 whole social system; you rend the bonds of a common political faith; you break up commercial intercourse and the free interchanges of trade, and you degrade the people of this country before the eyes of the envious monarchs of Europe, and fill our history with a record of degradation and shame.

"Why, then, should we attempt at this time to inflict the system of negro suffrage upon those who happen to be so unfortunate as to reside in the District of Columbia? This city bears the name of George Washington, the father of our country; and as it was founded by him, so I wish to hand it down to those who shall come after us, 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 their native hills and mountains, those men who gathered round the sacred precincts of the tomb of Washington to uphold and perpetuate our proud heritage of liberty, intended to inflict upon the people of this District, or of this land, the monstrous doctrine of political equality of the negro race with the white at the ballot-box.

"No such dogma as this was ever announced by the Republican party in their platforms. When that party met at Chicago, in 1860, they took pains to enunciate the great principle of self-government which underlies the institutions 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 District of Columbia to exercise the same great right of self-government, to determine by their votes at the ballot-box whether they desire to inaugurate a system of political equality with the colored people of the District.

"Self-government was the great principle which impelled our fathers to protest against the powers of King George. That was the principle which led the brave army of George Washington across 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 claimed the Parliament of England had no right to invade, and drove the colonies into rebellion, because laws were passed without their consent by a Parliament in which they were unrepresented.

"I am here to-day to plead for the white people of this District, upon the same grounds taken by our fathers to the English Parliament, in favor of self-government and the right of the people of the District to be heard upon this all-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 unto us, to inflict upon the people of this District this fiendish doctrine of political equality with a race that God Almighty never intended should stand upon an equal footing with the white man and woman in social or civil life."

Mr. Farnsworth, of Illinois, replied: "He [Mr. Rogers] says this is a white man's Government. 'A white man's Government!' Why, sir, did not the Congress of the United States pass a law for enrolling into the service of the United States the black man as well as the white 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 for life, bleeding, crushed, wounded, is he to be told by the people who called him into the service of the Government, 'This is a white man's Government; you have nothing to do with it?' Shame! I say, eternal shame upon such a doctrine, and upon the men who advocate it!

"What should be the test as to the right to exercise the elective franchise? I contend that the only question to be asked should be, '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? Is he an immortal being? If these questions are answered in the affirmative, he has the same right to protection that we all enjoy.

"I am in favor, Mr. Speaker, of making suffrage equal and universal. I believe that greater wisdom is concentrated in the decisions of the ballot-box when all citizens of a certain age vote than when only a part vote. If you apply a test founded on education or intelligence, where will you stop? One man will say that the voter 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, the men who formed this Government, who believed in the rights of human nature, and designed the Government to protect them, believed, I think, as I do, that when suffrage is made universal, you concentrate in the ballot-box a larger amount of wisdom than when you exclude a portion of the citizens from the right of suffrage.

"I grant, sir, that many of the colored men whom I would enfranchise are poor and ignorant, but we have made them so. We have oppressed them by our laws. We have stolen them from their 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 next grand step, a step which must commend itself to our judgment and consciences. Let us clothe these men with the rights of freemen, and give them the power to protect their rights.

"Sir, as I have already remarked, we have passed through a fiery ordeal. There are but few homes within our land that are not made desolate by the loss of a son or a father. The widow and the orphan meet us wherever we turn. The maimed and crippled soldiers of the republic are every-where seen. Many fair fields have become cemeteries, where molder the remains of the noble men who have laid down their lives in defense of our Government. We thought that we had attained the crisis of our troubles 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 conceal it; it is simply to give to one man the same rights that we give to another—if we fail now in this our plain duty as a nation, then the ship of state is in more peril from this ground-swell on which we are riding than it was during the fierce tempest of war. I trust that this Congress will have the firmness and wisdom to guide the old ship safely into the haven of peace and security. This we can do by fixing our eyes upon the guiding star of our fathers—the equal rights of all men."

The discussion was resumed on the following day, January 12, by Mr. Davis, of New York: "Republican government can never rest safely, it can never rest peacefully, upon any foundation save that of the intelligence and virtue of 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 to all considerations which should surround and guard the foundations of the republic, I am sure that we would do dishonor to their memory by conferring the franchise upon men unfitted to receive it and unworthy to exercise it.

"I am perfectly aware that in many States we have given the elective franchise to the white man who is debased and ignorant. I regret it, because I think that intelligence ought always, either 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 have money in his purse, but that he should have in his head a cultivated brain, the ability to read the Constitution of his country, and intelligence to understand his rights as a citizen.

"I have never been one of those who believed that the black man had 'no rights that the white man was bound to respect.' I believe that the black man in this country is entitled to citizenship, and, by virtue of that citizenship, is entitled to protection, to the full power of this Government, 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, citizenship is one thing, and the right of suffrage is another and a different thing; and in circumstances such as exist around us, I am unwilling that general, universal, unrestricted suffrage should be granted to the black men of this District, as is proposed by the bill under consideration.

"This whole subject is within the power of Congress, and if we grant restricted privilege to-day, we can extend the exercise of that privilege to-morrow. Public sentiment on this, as on a great many subjects, is a matter of slow growth and 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 progress of the human race through the historic age—kingdoms and empires, systems of social polity, systems of religion, systems of science, have been of no rapid growth, but long centuries intervened between their origin and their overthrow.

"The Creator placed man on earth, not for the perfection of the individual, but the race; and therefore he locked up the mysteries of his power in the bosom of the earth 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, his views enlarged, his intellect matured, so that he might gradually rise in the scale of being, and finally attain the full perfection for which his Creator designed him.

"Thus governments, political systems, and political rights have been the subjects of study and improvement; changes adapted to the advance of society are made; experiments are tried, based upon reason and upon judgment, and those are safest which in their gradual introduction avoid unnecessary violence and convulsion.

"I submit, sir, whether it be wise for us now so suddenly to alter so entirely the political status of so great a number of the citizens of this District, in conferring upon them indiscriminately the right of franchise."

Mr. Chanler, of New York, then addressed the House:

"If, sir, it should ever be your good fortune to visit romantic old Spain, and to enter the fortress and palace of Alhambra, the fairest monument of Moorish grandeur and skill, as this Capitol is the pride of American architecture, you may see cut in stone a hand holding a key, surmounting the horse-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 betrayed to Spain, 'to feed fat an ancient grudge' between political chiefs. The stronghold of the race, with the palace, the sacred courts of justice, and all the rare works of art—the gardens of unrivaled splendor—all that was their own of majesty, strength, and beauty, became the trophies of another.

"The legend of the Saracen exile tells the story of penitence and shame; and to the last moment of his sad life he sighs in the sultry desert for the fair home of his ancestors, the gorgeous Alhambra. We, too, are descended from a race of conquerors, who crossed the ocean to establish the glory of civil and religious liberty, and secure freedom to themselves 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 emblem of our Union. That Union is the emblem of the triumphs of the white race. That race rules by the ballot. Shall we surrender the ballot, the emblem of our sovereignty; the flag, the emblem of our Union; the Union, the emblem of our national glory, that they may become the badges of our weakness and the trophies of another race? Never, sir! never, never!

"Shall the white laborer bow his free, independent, and honored brow to the level of the negro just set free from slavery, and, by yielding the entrance to this great citadel of our nation, surrender the mastery of his race over the Representatives of the people, the Senate, and Supreme Court of this Union? Then, sir, the white workingman's sovereignty would begin to cease to be.

"Then the most democratic majesty of American liberty would be humbled in the little dust which was lately raised by a brief campaign of two hundred thousand negro troops, and 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 white man's Government, and I believe the white workingman has the manhood which shall preserve it to his latest posterity, pure and strong, in 'justice tempered with mercy.'

"There may be a legend hereafter telling of the exile of Representatives now on this floor, who, in the hour of party spite, betrayed the dominion of their race here, and the stronghold of their people's liberty, to a servile and foreign race."

Near the close of Mr. Chanler's remarks, his time having been extended by courtesy of the House, a forensic passage at arms occurred between that gentleman and Mr. Bingham, of Ohio. Mr. Chanler had said: "I deny that any obligation rests against this Government to do any thing more for the negro than has already been done. 'On what meats doth this Caesar feed that he has grown so great?' The white soldier did as much work as he, fought as well, died as bravely, suffered 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 of the Government built by their fathers for them and their race in every country of kindred men who, downtrodden and disenfranchised, look to this country as a sure refuge. The white soldier fought as a volunteer, as a responsible, free, and resolute citizen, knowing for what he fought, and generously letting the slave share with him the honor, and bestowing on him more than his share of the profits of the white man's victory over his equal and the negro's master.

"We are willing that the negro should have every protection which the law can throw around him, but there is a majesty which 'hedges in a king.' That he ought not to have until he shows himself 'every inch a king.'

"'Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.'

"'Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.'

"We are opposed to thrusting honor on the negro. He is to-day, as a race, as dependent on the power and skill of the white race for protection as when he was first brought from Africa. Not one act of theirs has proved the capacity of the black race for self-government. 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 independence of the white race, but have never systematically even attempted it on this continent, although they have been educated with equal care, and in the same schools as the white man. Their race has been subject to the white man, and has submitted to the yoke."

Mr. Bingham.—"I understood the gentleman to say, that the colored race had failed to strike for their rights during the late rebellion. I wish to remind the gentleman of the fact, which ought to bring a blush to the cheek of every American citizen, that at the beginning of this great struggle, a distinguished general, who, I have no 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 liberty, he, Major-General McClellan, by the whole force of the army at his command, would crush them with an iron hand. Yet the gentleman gets up here to-day, after a record of that sort, to cast censure upon this people because they did not strike for their liberties against the combined armies of the republic and the armies of treason!"

Mr. Chanler.—"My honorable friend from Ohio may have made a good point against General McClellan, but he has made none against me. I admit that they have made successful insurrections, but my argument was not to the effect that the negro race was not capable of the bloodiest deeds. I avoided entering into that question. I asserted that they had made successful insurrection; that they had held the white race under their heel in Hayti and St. 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 proudest boast is that their capacity for self-government is the only charter of their liberty. I assail no race; I assail no man. I have taken the greatest pains to prove that the inalienable rights of the black man are as sacred to me as those inalienable rights I have received from my God. If the gentleman misunderstood me, I hope he will accept this explanation. If I have not met his question, I will now yield the floor to him to continue."

Mr. Bingham.—"And I continue thus far, that the gentleman's speech certainly has relation to the rights of the black man within the Republic of the United States. What he may say of their history outside of the jurisdiction of this country, it is not 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 is the only race now existing upon this planet that ever hewed their way out of the prison-house of chattel slavery to the sunlight of personal liberty by their own unaided arm. So much for that part of the gentleman's argument as relates to history."

Mr. Chanler.—"Does the gentleman allude now to what has been done in other lands than this? I ask the question because he says he does not like me to go outside of the jurisdiction of this country, and I therefore ask him not to go too far into Africa."

Mr. Bingham.—"I am not in Africa. I refer to what the gentleman referred to himself. The insurrection in St. Domingo, I say, stands without a parallel in the history of any race now living on this earth, and I challenge the gentleman to refute that statement from history."

Mr. Chanler.—"That is admitted."

Mr. Bingham.—"That is admitted. Then I want to know, with a fact like that conceded, what sort of logic, what sort of force, what sort of reason, what sort of justice is there in the remark of the gentleman made here in a deliberative assembly touching the question of the personal enfranchisement of the black race, when he says in the statement here, right in the face of that fact, that they only 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 to be adduced here as reason why these people in the District of Columbia should not receive the consideration of this House, and be protected in their rights as men. If the gentleman's remark is not adduced for that purpose, then it is altogether foreign to our inquiry. If the gentleman can assign any other reason for the introduction of any such argument as that, I should like to hear him."

Mr. Chanler.—"I merely wish to say, in reply to the gentleman, that I have read history a little further back. I remember when the British fleet and the British army held out a similar threat to the white race of this country. The proclamation of General McClellan did keep down the negroes; 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 the bush. They are bushmen in Africa. They are a dependent race, unwilling—I assert it from the record of history—unwilling to assert their independence at the risk of their lives. By their own efforts they never have attained, and I firmly believe they never will attain, their liberty."

Mr. Bingham replied: "I desire to say to the gentleman from New York, when he talks of being a 'student of history,' that before the tribunal of history the facts are not against me nor against the colored race. I beg leave to say to the gentleman that these people have borne themselves as bravely, as well, and, I may add, as wisely during the great contest just closed, as any people to whom he can point, situated in like circumstances, at any period of the world's history. They were in chains when the rebellion broke out. They constituted but one-sixth of the whole body of the people. By the terms of the Constitution of the United States, if they lifted a hand in the assertion of their right to freedom, they were liable that moment to be crushed by 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 generations, rose as one man to stand by this republic, the last hope of oppressed humanity upon the earth, until they numbered one hundred and seventy-five thousand arrayed in arms under your banners, doing firmly, unshrinkingly, and defiantly their full share in securing the final victory of our arms. I have said this much in defense of men who had the manhood, in the hour of the nation's trial, to strike for the flag and the unity of the republic in the tempest of the great conflict, and to stand, where brave men only could stand, on the field of poised battle, where the earthquake and the fire led the charge. Sir, I am not mistaken; and the record of history to which I have referred does not, as the gentleman affirms it does, make against me."

Mr. Grinnell, of Iowa, in reply to Mr. Chanler, said: "He [Mr. Chanler] proceeds to say that they are now, as a class, dependent as when they 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 into a sentence the quintessence, the high-wines, and sublimation of an untruth, he could not have more concentrated his language into a libel.

"What is the fact, sir? It is perfectly notorious that these four million slaves have not only taken care of themselves amid all the ingenious impediments which tyrants could impose, but they have borne upon their stalwart shoulders 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 have achieved the world's wonder—coming out from the tortures of slavery, from the prison-house, untainted with dishonor or crime, and out of the war free, noble, brave, and more worthy of their friends, always true to the flag.

"Mr. Speaker, it was in fable that a man pointed a lion to the picture which represented the king of the forest prostrate, with a man's foot on his neck, and asked what he thought of that. The reply was, 'Lions have no painters.' For days the unblushing apostles 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 the picture, and I would gladly leave their defense to the Representatives of classes who have by hundreds darkened these galleries with their sable countenances, waiting for days to hear the decisive vote which announces that their freedom is not a mockery.

"Who are they to whom this bill proposes to give suffrage? They are twenty thousand people, owning twenty-one churches, maintaining thirty-three day schools, and 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 that there is a Democratic congressional district in the Union where a larger proportion of its population are found attendant at the churches or in the schools.

"They did not follow the example of their pale-faced neighbors, to the number of thousands, crossing the line to join in the rebellion; but three 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 room of those who wept on Northern soil for rebel defeats, and now decry the manhood and withhold just rights from our true national defenders.

"In the South they were our friends. In the language of an official dispatch of Secretary Seward to Minister Adams, 'Every-where the American general receives his most useful and reliable information from the negro, who 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 out the steamer Planter, mounting a rifled and siege gun, from Charleston, as a prize to us, under the very guns of the enemy. He brought us the first trophy from Fort Sumter, and information more valuable than the prize.

"The celebrated charge of the negro brigade at the conflict at Port Hudson has passed into history. The position of the colored people in the State of Iowa reflects lasting honor on their loyalty, and our brave white soldiers would not have me withhold the facts. In the State there were between nine hundred and a thousand people of their class subject to military duty. Of that number more than seven hundred entered the army. They put to blush the patriotism of the dominant 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 population went forth for the national defense? It was not under the Caesars; and Harold, in the defense of Britain, left behind him a larger per cent. of the stalwart and the strong. They were more eager to maintain the national honor than the zealots to rescue Jerusalem from the profanation of infidels. Not Frank or Hun, nor Huguenot or Roundhead, or mountaineer, Hungarian, or Pole, exceeded their sacrifices made when tardily accepted. And this is the race now asking our favor.

"Mr. Speaker, it will be one of the most joyful occasions of my life to give expression to my gratitude by voting a ballot to those who owed us so little, yet have aided us so faithfully and well. My conscience approves it as a humane act to the millions who for centuries have groaned under a terrible realization that on the side of the oppressor there is power.

"My purpose is not to leave that heritage of shame to my children, that I forgot those whose blood fed our rivers and crimsoned the sea, and left them outcasts in the 'land of the free,' preferring white treason to sable loyalty. I rather vote death the penalty for the chief traitor, all honor and reward for our soldiery, and a ballot, safety, and justice for the poor."

On the 15th of January the discussion was continued by Mr. Kasson, of Iowa, who said: "Much has been said in this debate about the gallantry of the negro troops, and about the 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 nearly all the victories accomplished by the armies of the United States, and that to them are we indebted for the salvation of our country and our triumph over the rebellion.

"I do not agree with them in the extent of their praise, nor the grounds upon which it has been placed. One gentleman, I think it was the gentleman from Pennsylvania, speaks of our debt to the negroes, because they have fought our battles for us. This is a falsification of the condition of the negroes, and of the history of the country in this particular. Those negroes fought for their liberty, which was involved in 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 yield to them the exclusive or chief credit of having won the victory for the Government of my country in preserving this Union. Let us not, under false assertions of fact, send out to the country and the world from this floor the declaration that the white race of this country are wanting in the gallantry, the devotion, and the patriotism which ultimately secured for our armies triumph, and for our nation perpetuity.

"Unless intelligence exists in this country, unless schools are supported and education diffused throughout the country, our institutions are not safe, and either anarchy or despotism will be the result; and when you propose substantially to introduce 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 ballot-box, into that sacred palladium, as we have always called it, of the liberties of our country. Let us introduce them by fit degrees. Let them come in as fast as they are fit, and their numbers will not shock the character of our institutions.

"I turn for a single moment to call attention to the philanthropy of the proposition. If you introduce all without regard to qualification, without their being able to read or write, and thus to understand the questions on which they are to decide, what would be the effect? You will take away from them the strongest incentive to learn to read or write. As a race, it is not accustomed to position and property; it has no homesteads, it has 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 improvement. On the contrary, if the ability to read and write and understand the ballot is made the qualification on the part of these people to exercise the right of voting, the remaining portion will see that color is not exclusion. They would all aspire to the qualification itself as preliminary to the act. You can submit no motive to that race so powerful for the purpose of developing in them the education and intelligence required.

"I say, therefore, on whatever grounds you put it, whether you regard the safety of our institutions or the light of philanthropy, you should insist on qualifications 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 intelligence and qualified suffrage, and a careful guardianship of the ballot-box, I know of no more illustrious example in this or any other country of its importance.

"With a credit that surpasses that of the United States, with a history that is surpassed by no State in the Union, with wealth that is almost fabulous in proportion to its population, with a prosperity 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 other States, can secure such results, we certainly have an inducement to consider well how far this condition is to be attributed to her diffused education, and to the provisions of her constitution."

At the close of Mr. Kasson's speech, a colloquy occurred between him and his colleague, Mr. Price, eliciting the fact that the question of negro suffrage in Iowa had been squarely before the people of that State in the late fall election, and their vote had been in favor of the measure by a majority of sixteen thousand.

Mr. Julian, of Indiana, having obtained the floor near the hour of adjournment, made his argument on the following day, when the consideration of the question was resumed. In answer to the objection that negro voting would "lead to the amalgamation of the races or social equality," he said: "On this subject there is nothing left to conjecture, and no ground for alarm. Negro suffrage has been very extensively tried 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 the year 1840; in Virginia and Maryland till 1833; in Pennsylvania till 1838; in Delaware till 1831; and in North Carolina and Tennessee till 1836. I have never understood that in all this experience of negro suffrage the amalgamation of the races was the result. I think these evils are not at all complained of to this day in New England and New York, where negro suffrage is still practiced and recognized by law."

In answer to the argument that a "war of races" might ensue, Mr. Julian said: "Sir, a war of races in this country can only be the result of denying to the negro his rights, just as such wars have been caused elsewhere; and the late troubles in Jamaica should teach us, if any lesson can, the duty of dealing justly with our millions of freedmen. Like causes must produce like results. English law made the slaves of Jamaica free, but England failed to enact other laws making their freedom a blessing. The old spirit of domination never died in the slave-master, but was only maddened by emancipation. For thirty years no measures were adopted tending to protect or educate the freedmen. At length, and quite recently, the colonial authorities passed a whipping act, then a law of eviction for people of color, then a law imposing heavy impost duties, bearing most grievously upon them, and finally a law providing for the importation of coolies, thus taxing the freedmen for the very purpose of taking the 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 any feeling of the enormity of treason as a crime. To them it is not odious, as very naturally it would not be, under the policy which foregoes the punishment of traitors, and gives so many of them the chief places of power in the South. And their hatred of the negro to-day is as intense and scathing and as universal as before the war. I believe it to be even more so. The proposition to educate him and elevate his condition is every-where met with contempt and scorn. They acknowledge that slavery, as it once existed, is overthrown; but the continued inferiority and subordination of the colored race, under some form of vassalage or serfdom, is regarded by them as certain. Sir, they have no thought of any thing else; and if the ballot shall be withheld from the freedmen after the withdrawal of military power, the most revolting forms of oppression and outrage will be practiced, resulting, at last, in that very war of races which is foolishly apprehended as the effect of giving the negro his rights."

A serious question confronted Mr. Julian, namely: How could Representatives from States which negroes by constitutional provision are forbidden to enter, be expected, to vote for negro suffrage in this District? He said: "In seeking to meet this difficulty, several considerations must be borne in mind. In the first place, the demand for negro suffrage in this District rests not alone upon the general ground of right, of democratic equality, but upon peculiar reasons superinduced by the late war, which make it an immediate practical issue, involving not merely the welfare of the colored man, but the safety of society itself. If civil government is to be revived at all in the South, it is perfectly self-evident that the loyal men there must vote; but the loyal men are the negroes and the disloyal are the whites. To put back the governing power into the hands of the very men who brought on 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 coercing her again into her constitutional orbit, her loyalists had been found unable to hold her there without negro ballots, the question of negro suffrage in Indiana would most obviously have been very different from the comparatively abstract one which it now is. It would, it is true, have involved the question of justice to the negroes of Indiana, but the transcendently broader and more vital question of national salvation also. Let me add further, that should Congress pass this bill, and should the ballot be given to the negroes in the sunny South generally, those in our Northern and Western States, many of them at least, may return to their native land and its kindlier skies, and thus quiet the nerves of conservative gentlemen who dread too close a proximity to those whose skins, owing to some providential oversight, were somehow or other not stamped with the true orthodox luster.

"The ballot should be given to the negroes as a matter of justice to them. It should likewise be done as a matter of retributive justice to the slaveholders and rebels. According to the best information I can obtain, a very large majority of the white people of this District have been rebels in heart during the war, and are rebels in heart still. That contempt for the negro and scorn of free industry, which constituted the mainspring of the rebellion, cropped out here during the war in every form that was possible, under the immediate shadow of the central Government. Meaner rebels than many in this District could scarcely have been found in the whole land. They have not been punished. The halter has been cheated out of their necks. I am very sorry to say that under what seems to be a false mercy, a misapplied humanity, the guiltiest rebels of the war have thus far been allowed to escape justice. I have no desire to censure the authorities of the Government for this fact. I hope they have some valid excuse for their action. This question of punishment I know is a difficult one. The work of punishment is so vast that it naturally palsies the will to enter upon it. It never can be thoroughly done on this side of the grave. And were it practicable to punish adequately all the most active and guilty rebels, justice would still remain unsatisfied. Far guiltier men than they are the rebel sympathizers of the loyal 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 far as practicable, in the hands of their colored brethren. Nor shall I stop to inquire very critically whether the negroes are fit to vote. As between themselves and white rebels, who deserve to be hung, they are eminently fit. I would not have them more so. Will you, Mr. Speaker, will even my conservative and Democratic friends, be particularly nice or fastidious in the choice of a man to vote down a rebel? Shall we insist upon a perfectly finished gentleman and scholar to vote down the traitors and white trash of this District, who have recently signalized themselves by mobbing unoffending negroes? Sir, almost any body, it seems to me, will answer the purpose. I do not pretend that the colored men here, should they get the ballot, will not sometimes abuse it. They will undoubtedly make mistakes. In some cases they may even vote on the side of their old masters. But I feel pretty safe in saying that even white men, perfectly free from all suspicion of negro blood, have sometimes voted on the wrong side. Sir, I appeal to gentlemen on this floor, and especially to my Democratic friends, to say whether they can not call to mind instances in which white men have voted wrong? Indeed, it rather strikes me that white voting, ignorant, depraved, party-ridden, Democratic white voting, had a good deal to do in hatching into life the rebellion itself, and that no results of negro voting are likely to be much worse."

After an hour occupied by Mr. Randall and Mr. Kelley, both of Pennsylvania, in a colloquial discussion of the history and present position of their State upon the subject of negro suffrage, Mr. Thomas, of Maryland, addressed the House. After setting forth the injustice the passage of the bill would work toward the people of his State, he said:

"If I believed that the matter of suffrage was the only mode to help the negro in his elevation, and the only safeguard to his protection, or guarantee to his rights, I would be willing to give it to him now, subject to proper qualifications and restrictions. But I am honest in my conviction that, uneducated and ignorant as he is, a slave from his birth, and subject to the will and caprice of his master, with 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 element will be controlled by a few evil and wicked politicians, and as something to be bought and sold as freely as an article of merchandise. I am satisfied of another fact, from my experience of the Southern negro, that if they are ever allowed to vote, the shrewd politician of the South, who has been formerly his master, will exert more influence over his vote than all the exhortations from Beecher or Cheever.

"It is a notorious fact that the Southern planter maintained his political influence over the poor white man of the South, because the poor white man was dependent 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 the poor, uneducated, ignorant, and dependent African, even to a greater extent than he formerly exercised over what used to be called the 'poor white trash.'

"Mr. Speaker, let us not, because we have the majority here to-day, pass upon measures which, if we were evenly divided, we would hesitate to pass. Let us not, because we are called radicals, strike at the roots of society, and of the great social and political systems that have existed for over a century, and attempt to do in a day, 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, and that because the negro, freed and emancipated by us, would naturally vote on the side of his deliverer to-day, that it is any guarantee, when new parties are formed and a competition arises, that the whole or the major part of his vote will be cast on the right side. White men and black men are liable to the same infirmities.

"Let us rather, sir, rejoice at what has been already done for him, and be content to watch his future. Let us help to elevate and improve him, not only in education, but in morals. Let us see to it that he is not only protected in all his rights of person and of property, but let us insist that the amplest guarantees 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 forgotten that 'revolutions never go backward;' and if you ever confer this right on the negro, and find it will not work well, that you have been too hasty, that you should have waited awhile longer, you will find it is too late, and that, once having possessed it, they will not part with it except with their lives."

On the 17th of January the debate was resumed by Mr. Darling, of New York, who remarked:

"What public necessity exists for the passage of this bill at this time? There are no benefits which the colored people of this District could attain by the exercise of the right of suffrage that Congress could not bestow. Our right and power to legislate for this District are unquestioned, and instead of wasting days and weeks over a question which is exciting bitter feeling among our 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 franchise on those not now possessed of it, give it to every soldier who served in the Union Army and was honorably discharged, whether old or young, rich or poor, native or foreign-born, white or black, and show to the world that the American people, recognizing the services and sufferings of their brave defenders, give them, as a recognition, the highest and best gift of American citizenship.

"If I know myself, I know that no unjust or unmanly prejudice warps my judgment or controls my action on any matter of legislation affecting the colored race on this continent. I believe in their equality of rights before the law with the dominant race. I believe in their rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And yet I believe that, 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 conferring upon the colored men of this District the gift of unqualified suffrage without any qualification based on intelligence. The large preponderance which they possess numerically will inevitably lead to mischievous results. Neither would I entirely disregard the views of the people of this District, many of whom I know to be sound, loyal Union men.

"But I do not wish to see the Union party take any step in this direction from which they may desire hereafter to recede. Let us first rather seek to enlighten this people, and educate them to know the value of the 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 respected, and encourage them to act as becomes freemen. Then they will vote intelligently, and not be subject to the control of designing men, who would seek to use them for the attainment of their own selfish ends.

"Now, Mr. Speaker, in conclusion I desire to say that, as no election will take place in this District until next June, there can be no reason for special haste in the passage of this bill, 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 opportunity to mature a bill for that purpose, and have it presented for the consideration of this House, I move the postponement of the pending bill until the first Tuesday in April next."

At a previous stage of the discussion of this measure, Mr. Hale had proposed amendments to the bill. These amendments were now the subject under discussion. They were in the following words:

"Amend the motion to recommit by adding to that motion an instruction to the committee to amend the bill so as to extend the right of suffrage in the District of Columbia to all persons coming within either of the following classes, irrespective of caste or color, but subject only to existing provisions and qualifications other than those founded on caste or color, to wit:

"1. Those who can read the Constitution of the United States.

"2. Those who are assessed for and pay taxes on real or personal property within the District.

"3. Those who have served in and been honorably discharged from the military or naval service of the United States.

"And to restrict such right of suffrage to the classes above named, and to include proper provisions excluding from the right of suffrage those who have borne arms against the United States during the late rebellion, or given aid and comfort to said rebellion."

At the close of Mr. Darling's remarks, in which he had moved to postpone the whole subject, Mr. Hale, of New York, having argued at considerable length in favor of the several clauses of his proposed amendment, remarked: "Of the details of my amendment I am by no means tenacious. I do not expect to bring every member of the House, or even every member on this side of the House, to concur in all my own views. I desire simply to put my measures fairly before the House, and to 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, sir; for one, and I say it with entire frankness, I prefer a restricted and qualified suffrage substantially upon the basis that I have proposed. If the voice of this House be otherwise—if the sentiment of this Congress be that it is more desirable that universal suffrage should be extended to all within this District, then, for one, I say most decidedly I am for it rather than to leave the matter in its present condition, or to disfranchise the black race in this District."

Mr. Thayer, of Pennsylvania, spoke as follows: "The proposition contained in this bill is a new proposition. It contemplates a change which will be a landmark in the history of this country—a landmark which, if it is 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, if it shall become a law, will be, like the law to amend the Constitution by abolishing slavery, the deep foot-print of an advancing civilization, or the conspicuous monument of an unwise and pernicious experiment.

"Much has been said, on the part of those who oppose the bill, on the subject of its injustice to the white inhabitants of the District of Columbia. Indeed, the argument on that side of the question is, when divested of all that is immaterial, meretricious, and extravagant, reduced almost entirely to that single position. Abstract this from the excited declamation to 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 unjust and oppressive in Congress to pass this law. In my judgment, this is a question not concerning alone the wishes and prejudices of the seven thousand voters who dwell in this District, but involving, it may be, the honor, the justice, the good faith, and the magnanimity of the great nation which makes this little spot the central seat of its empire and its power.

"If it concerns the honor of the United States that a certain class of its people, in a portion of its territory subject to its exclusive jurisdiction and control, shall, in consideration of the change which has taken place in its condition, and of the fidelity which it has exhibited in the midst of great and severe trials, be elevated somewhat above the political degradation which has hitherto been its lot, shall the United States be prevented from the accomplishment of that great 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 Congress determined that the time had come when slavery should be abolished in this District, and the capital of the nation should no longer be disgraced by its presence, did it pause in the great work of justice to which it laid its hand to hear from the mayor of Washington, or to inquire whether the masters would vote for it? It is not difficult to conjecture what the fate of that great measure would have been had its adoption or rejection depended upon the voters of this District.

"Shall we be told, sir, that if the Representatives of the people of twenty-five States are of the opinion that the laws and institutions which exist in the seat of Government of the United States ought to be changed, that they 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 United States in the capital of their country? I dismiss this objection, therefore, as totally destitute of reason or weight. It is based upon a fallacy so feeble that it is dissipated by the bare touch of the Constitution to it.

"Whatever is the duty of the United States to do, that is for their interest to do. The two great facts written in history by the iron hand of the late war are, first, that the Union is indissoluble, and second, that human slavery is here forever abolished. From these two facts consequences corresponding in importance with the facts themselves must result: from the former, a more vigorous and powerful nationality; from the latter, the elevation and improvement of the race liberated by the war from bondage, as well as a higher and more advanced civilization in the region where the change has taken place. It is impossible to say that the African race occupies to-day the same position in American affairs and counts no more in weight than it did before the rebellion. You can not strike the fetters from the limbs of four million men and leave them such as you found them. As wide as is the interval between a freeman and a slave, so wide is the difference between the African race before the rebellion and after the rebellion. You can not keep to its ancient level a race which has been released from servitude any more than you can keep back the ocean with your hand after you have thrown down the sea-wall which restrained its impatient tides. Freedom is every-where in history the herald of progress. It is written in the annals of all nations. It is a law of the human race. Ignorance, idleness, brutality—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 assumes the dignity and proportions of an argument. The real question, sir, is, can we afford to be just—nay, if you please, generous—to a race whose shame has been washed out in the consuming fires of war, and which now stands erect and equal before the law with our own? Shall we give hope and encouragement to that race beginning, as it does now for the first time, its career of freedom, by erecting here in the capital of the republic a banner inscribed with the sacred legend of the elder days, 'All men are born free and equal?' or shall we unfurl in its stead that other banner, with a strange device, around which the dissolving remnants of the Democratic party in this hall are called upon to rally, inscribed with no great sentiment of justice or generosity, but bearing upon its folds the miserable appeal of the demagogue, 'This is a white man's Government?' When you inaugurate your newly-discovered political principle, do not forget to invite the colored troops; beat the assembly; call out the remnants of the one hundred and eighty thousand men who marched with steady step through the flames and carnage of war, and many of whom bear upon their bodies the honorable scars received in that unparalleled struggle and in your defense, and as you send your banner down the line, say to them, 'This is the reward of a generous country for the wounds you have received and the sufferings you have endured.'