Chapter IV: Suffrage in the District of Columbia (2)

"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 Cæsars; 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.'

"Shall we follow the great law to which I have referred--the law that liberty is progress--and conform our policy to the spirit of that great law? or shall we, governed by unreasonable and selfish prejudices, initiate a policy which will make this race our hereditary enemy, a mine beneath instead of a buttress to the edifice which you are endeavoring to repair? Sir, I do not hesitate to say that, in my opinion, it were better to follow where conscience and justice point, leaving results to a higher Power, than to shrink from an issue which it is the clear intention of Providence we shall face, or to be driven from our true course by the chimeras which the excited imaginations of political partisans have conjured up, or by the misty ghosts of long-buried errors."

Mr. Van Horn, of New York, while willing to accept the bill as originally presented, preferred it as modified by Mr. Hale's amendments. In his speech he charged those who had opposed the bill as laboring in the interest of slavery.

"They seem to have forgotten," he said, "in their advocacy of slavery, that we have passed through a fierce war, begun by slavery, waged against the Government by slavery, and solely in its interest to more thoroughly establish itself upon the Western Continent, and crush out the best interests of freedom and humanity; and that this war, guided on our part by the omnipotent arm of the Invisible, made bare in our behalf, has resulted in a most complete overthrow of this great wrong; and by the almost omnipotent voice of the republic, as now expressed in its fundamental law, it has no right to live, much less entitled to the right of burial, and should have no mourners in the land or going about the streets. Such speeches as those of the gentlemen from New Jersey, [Mr. Rogers,] and from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Boyer,] and my colleague and friend, [Mr. Chanler,] who represents, with myself, in part, the Empire State, carry us back to the days and scenes before the war, when slavery ruled supreme, not only throughout the land, by and through its hold upon power, which the people in an evil hour had given it, but here in these halls of legislation, where liberty and its high and noble ends ought to have been secured by just and equal laws, and the great and paramount object of our system of government carried out and fully developed. They seem to forget that liberty and good government have been on trial during these five years last past of war and blood, and that they have succeeded in the mighty struggle. They forget that Providence, in a thousand ways, during this fierce conflict, has given us evidence of his favor, and led us out of the land of bondage into a purer and higher state of freedom, where slavery, as an institution among us, is no more. Why do they labor so long and so ardently to resurrect again into life this foul and loathsome thing? Why can not they forget their former love and attachments in this direction, and no longer cling with such undying grasp to this dead carcass, which, by its corruptions and rottenness, has well nigh heretofore poisoned them to the death? Why not awake to the new order of things, and accept the results which God has worked out in our recent struggle, and not raise the weak arm of flesh to render null and void what has thus been done, and thus attempt to turn back the flow of life which is overspreading all, and penetrating every part of the body politic with its noble purposes and exalted hopes?"

Thursday, January 18, was the last day of the discussion of this important measure in the House of Representatives. When the subject was in order, Mr. Clarke, of Kansas, "as the only Representative upon the floor of a State whose whole history had been a continual protest against political injustice and wrong," after having advocated the bill by arguments drawn from the history of the country and the record of the negro race, remarked as follows: "This cry of poverty and ignorance is not new. I remember that those who first followed the Son of man, the Savior of the world, were not the learned rabbis, not the enlightened scholar, not the rich man or the pious Pharisee. They were the poor and needy, the peasant and the fisherman. I remember, also, that the more learned the slaveholder, the greater the rebel. I remember that no black skin covered so false a heart or misdirected brain, that when the radiant banner of our nationality was near or before him, he did not understand its meaning, and remained loyal to its demands. The man capable of taking care of himself, of wife and children, and, in addition to his unrequited toil, to hold up his oppressor, must have intelligence enough, in the long run, to wield the highest means of protection we can give.

"But, sir, it is for our benefit, as well as for the benefit of the proscribed class, that I vote for and support impartial manhood suffrage in this District. We can not afford, as a nation, to keep any class ignorant or oppress the weak. We must establish here republican government. That which wrongs one man, in the end recoils on the many. Sir, if we accept, as the Republican party of the Union, our true position and our duty, we shall nobly win. If we are false and recreant, we shall miserably fail. Let us have faith in the people and the grand logic of a mighty revolution, and dare to do right. Class legislation will be the inevitable result of class power; and what would follow, so far as the colored race are concerned, let the recent tragedy of Jamaica answer.

"The principles involved in the arguments put forth on the other side of the House are not alone destructive to the rights of the defenseless, intelligent, and patriotic colored men of this District, but they militate with a double effect and stronger purpose against the poor whites of the North and of the South, against the German, the Irishman, and the poor and oppressed of every race, who come to our shores to escape the oppression of despotic governments, and to seek the protection of a Government the true theory of which reposes in every citizen a portion of its sovereign power. Against this attempt to deny or abridge in any way the rights of the weak, the poor, and the defenseless, and to transfer the governing power of the nation to the favored classes, to the rich and the powerful, and thus change the very purpose and principles of our republican system, I protest in the name of constitutional freedom, and in behalf of equal rights and equal laws.

"I protest against this stealthy innovation upon popular rights, in the name of the toiling millions of the land; and I warn the House and the country of the untold mischief and disaster which must come to distract and divide the republic in the future, if we follow the pernicious and destructive doctrines founded upon either the prejudices of class, caste, wealth, or power. I protest in the name of a constituency whose early history was a sublime and persistent struggle against the prejudices of pampered and arrogant ruffianism at home, and the worse than ruffian spirit of the Administrations of Pierce and Buchanan, and the Democratic traitors who at that time constituted a majority of this House, and were engaged in preparing the nation for its harvest of blood. We must go back to the spirit and purposes of the founders of our Government. We must accept the grand logic of the mighty revolution from which we are now emerging. We must repudiate, now and forever, these assaults upon the masses of the people and upon the fundamental principles of popular rights. I accept in their full force and effect the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and by constitutional amendment and law of Congress I would stamp them with irrevocable power upon the political escutcheon of the new and regenerated republic. I would avoid the mistakes of the past, and I would spurn that cringing timidity by which, through all history, liberty has been sacrificed and humanity betrayed.

"Sir, I hesitate not to say that if we do not gather up, in the process of national reconstruction, the enduring safeguards of future peace, we shall be false to our history and unmindful of the grand responsibilities now devolving upon us. The establishment of impartial suffrage in this District will be a fitting commencement of the work. It will be hailed by the friends of freedom every-where as a return to a policy of national justice too long delayed. In behalf of the State I have the honor to represent, and upon whose soil this contest for a larger liberty and a nobler nationality was first submitted to the arbitrament of arms, I hail this measure with feelings of satisfaction and pride. It is the legitimate result of the courage and fidelity of the hardy pioneers of Kansas in 1856, who dared to face the blandishment of power and the arrogance and brutality of slavery when compromisers trembled, and Northern sycophants of an oligarchic despotism, then, as now, scowled and fretted at the progress of free principles."

Mr. Johnson, of Pennsylvania, after having adduced a variety of arguments against the bill, finally said: "Sir, we hear a tremendous outcry in this House in favor of popular government and about the guarantee of the Constitution of the United States to the several States that they shall have republican governments. How are the poor people of this District to have a republican form of government if gentlemen who have come to this city, perhaps for the first time in their lives, undertake to control them as absolutely and arbitrarily as Louis Napoleon controls France or Maximilian Mexico? Gentlemen ask, What right have they to hold an election and express their sentiments? What right have they to hold such an election? Surely they ought to have the right to petition, for their rulers are generally arbitrary enough.

"Mr. Speaker, it seems to me ridiculously inconsistent for gentlemen upon this floor to prate so much about a republican form of government, and rise here and offer resolution after resolution about the Monroe doctrine and the downtrodden Mexicans, while they force upon the people of this District a government not of their own choice, because the voter in a popular government is a governor himself. But, sir, this is only part of a grand plan. Gentlemen who dare not go before their white constituents and urge that a negro shall have a vote in their own States, come here and undertake to thrust negro suffrage upon the people here. Gentlemen whose States have repudiated the idea of giving the elective franchise to negroes, come here and are willing to give the suffrage to negroes here, as if they intended to make this little District of Columbia a sort of negro Eden; as if they intended to say to the negroes of Virginia and Maryland and Delaware, 'You have no right to vote in these States, but if you will go to Washington you can vote there.' I imagine I can see them swarming up from different sections of the country to this city and inquiring where the polls are. Agents, men and women, such as there are at work in this city, will no doubt be at work in these States, telling them to pack their knapsacks and march to Washington, for on such a day there is to be an election, and there they will have the glorious privilege of the white man. Sir, all this doctrine is destructive of the American system of government, which recognizes the right of no man to participate in it unless he is a citizen, which secures to the citizen his voice in the control and management of the Government, and prevents those not citizens from standing in the way of the exercise of his just rights.

"This Government does not belong to any race so that it can be divested or disposed of. The present age have no right to terminate it. It is ours to enjoy and administer, and to transmit to posterity unimpaired as we received it from the fathers."