Mr. THAYER. Mr. Speaker, the measure before the House is of so much importance that, notwithstanding the length of the discussion to which it has given rise, I am unwilling that it should close without a brief statement of the reasons which influence my own conclusions and justify to in own judgment and conscience the vote which I shall give. The proposition contained in this bill is a new proposition. It contemplates a change which will be a landmark in the history of this conn trya 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 footprint ofan advancing civilization, or the conspicuous monument of an unwise and pernicious experiment. I have considered itunder a deep sense of the responsibility which its importance imposes upon me. have in its conSideration endeavored to divest myself of all artisan influences and personal prejudices. further, my judgment may be arraigned, but my conscience will be clear. The proposition which is submitted to us is free from any constitutional embarrassment. This is admitted on all hands. It is clearly within the scope of our constitutional powers. The action proposed is undoubtedly an exercise of lawful authority. The question to be solved is, isitconsistentwith justice, and isitdemanded by the best interests of the people of the U.S.? Much has been said: on the part of those who oppose the bill, on the subject o its injustice to the white inhabitants of the DistCol. 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 arment in favor of slavery, and a selfish appea to prejudice and i gnoranoom It is insisted thata majority of the whitevoters 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. I do not know how far thatal eged expression of opinion may be considered as fair and impartial, or precisely what value is to be attached to it as an expression of popular sentiment. The Gentfrom lowa[Mr. V11. sos] informs us that those who were in favor of the law abstained from voting. But, conceding to it all the force which is claimed for it, let me say, sir, that in my judgment this is a question not concernin alone the wishes and prejudices of the 7,000 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 U.S. that a certain class of its peole, in a portion of its territo subject to its exc usive jurisdiction and contro, shall, in consideration of the change which has taken place in its condition and of the fidelity which it as exhibited in the midst of great and severe trials, be elevated somewhat above the political degradation which has hith erto been its lot, shall the U.S. be preveplted from the accomplishment of a generous purpose that giant y e an 11 o VO911! 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 U.S., through their Representatives in Congress as sembled, than to the present qualified voters of this District. Sir, the field ol inquiry is much wider than the DistCol, and the problem to be solved one in whichnot 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 conecture what the fate of that great measure would have been had its adoption or rejection depended upon the voters of this District. Wou d anyone restore that reproach to the ca ital of the U.S. now. even though Wasington and Georgetown should cast 7,000 votes. for it and 36 against it i The power which is given by the Constitution to ongress to exercise exclusive legislation for this District, is not given to them as the Representatives of the people of this District. it is given to Congress in its collective capacity, as the legislative Dept of the national Government, and it is given because this districtis. in the language of the constitution, “the seat of the Government of the U.S. ” I deny that I sit here as a Representative of the people of this District. They have no Representative; and while on that account it is emi ncntly properthat Congress should not over look their interests and their welfare in its legislation, the claim which is now set up by some of their self Constituted friends upon this floor to limit that legislation according to their dictation, and to pronounce that which they do in the name of the nation as immoral and unjust because it does not comport with their convictions or their prejudices, is preposterous and absurd. Congress has the same control over the DistCol which it has over all the Territories of the U.S. It is the common preperty of all the people of the U.S., and itslaws areto be made, not by the peopge who for the time being inhabit it, but by the representatives of the people of the U.S., and the Senators who speak for those States. Shall we be told, sir, that if the Representatives of the people of 25 States are of the opinion that the laws and institutions which exist in the seat of Government of the U.S. ought to be changed, that they are not to be changed because amajority of the vote rs who rodde here do not desire that change? Will any man say that the voices of these 7,000 voters are to outweigh the voices of all the constituencies of the U.S. in the capital of their country? I dismiss this objection, therefore, as totally destitute of reason or weight. It is based u)o" a fallacy so feeble that it is dissipatedby the bare touch of the constitution to it. The uorwn before us is free, therefore, from all political embarrassmept. There is no question here of conflict of powers between the States and the General Government. I agree with the Gentfrom Iowa [Mr. Kassox] that it is the undoubted doctrine of the constitution that the determination of the qualifications of voters rests with the several States alone and not with Congress, and that nothing but an amendment to the constitution can alter that fundamental principle of our system. I do not say whether the States lately in rebellion can claim the benefit of that constitutional principle, nor do I say that we should refuse to apply that principle to them although they may not justly e entitledto claim it. [These questions relate to another subject are in no way concerned with the measure now before the House, and, in my Opinion, are entirelyforeign to the present discussion. Surely, sir, we shall best dispose of the difficult and serious work we have on hand by confining our attention to one thing at a time. By mingling subjects which are totally distinct we but confuse our minds in regard to all. Let us inquire, therefore, whether the proposed measure is in accordance with the est interests of the people of the U.S and here let me say that whatever is the duty of the U.S. to do, that is for their interest to do. The 2 great facts written in history by the iron hand of the late war are, 1st, that the Union is indissoluble, and 2nd, that human slavery is here forever abolished. From these 2 facts consequences corresponding in importance with the facts themselves must result: from the formera more vi orous and powerful nationulity; from the lattert celevation 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 today the same position in American a airs and counts no more in weight than it did before the rebellion. You cannot strike the fetters from the limbs of 4 million men and leave them such as you found them. As wide as is the interval betWeen a free man and a slave, so wide is the difference between the African race before the rebellion and after the rebellion. You cannot 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 seawall which restrained it impatient tides. Freedom is It everywhere in history the herald of progress is written in the annals of all nations. It is a law of the human race. Ignorance, idle ness, brutalitythese belong to slavery; they are her natural oiis ring and allies, and the Gentfrom NewpYork, [Mr. CHANLER] who consumed so much time in demonstrating the comparative inferiority of the black race, an swered 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 recormize him as a free man. 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 cannot be safely intrusted with the smallest conceivable art of political power and resonsibility, an that t iis is the case, not on e plantations of Alabama and Mississippi, but here in the DistCol. N ay, 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 cannot allow them to take this 1st 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 s ows that your objection is founded really on aprejudice, although it assumes the dig nity and proportions of an argument. The real question, sir, is, can we afford to be just nay, if you please, generousto a race whose shame has been washed out in the consuming fires of war, and which now stands erect and equalbefore the law with our own I Shall we have hope and encouragement to that race hegmnin, as it does now for the 1st time, its career of reedom, by erecting here in the capital of the republic a banner inscribed with the sacred legen 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 partv in this Hall are called upon tomlly, inscribed with no greatsentimento justiceorgenerosity, butbearing upon its folds the miserable appeal of the demagogue “This is a white mans Government?” When on inaugurate your newly discoveredpolitica principle do notfor ettomvite the colored troops beat the assemb y; call out the remnants of the 180,000 men who marched with steady step through the flames and earns of war, and many of whom bear upon their odies 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 low to which I have referred the law that liberty conform our policy to the spirit oisrptrhoagtrgersesat alnadw, 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 bi her Power, thnnto 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 artisans have conjured up, or by the misty ghosts of long buried errors, like that, for exam le, of Hob vs. Fogg, which my colleame [h Mr. Barnum] startled the House by uns rouding yesterday. Surely, sir, there is no necessity to disturb the manes of such venerable personages as Hobb and Fog. Why, sir, the Dred Scott case is old now, an as for Hobb and Fogg, they were before the flood. The war, let me tell the gentleman, has made a new State in many things relatiu to law as well as politics. It has, for examp e, as the gentleman may perchance have heard, very muc altered the status and even the definition of personal propertyin the southern States. No, sir, Hobb vs. Fogg is not a sufficient answer to this bill; and unless the gentleman can give us something more recent the judgment must be against him. h Mr. Speaker, the debate has assumed a some what discursive character, and many things have been said which it is hardly necessary to reply to. I agree to the proposition which several gentlemen have so laboriously argued, that the right to vote is not a natural right. It is. not a natural right any more than the right to be President is a natural right. It is not an more natural to you than it is to the color man. It i an artificial right, invented by society for purposes of government, aningenious contrivance to preserve a mans liberty and his rights. To adopt the definition of the Gentfrom Newl ork. [MLCHANLER] it is “only the manner of exercising the right to be free;” only thatnothingmore. Itis, sir, as we know, everywhere in this country the badge of a free man. While the class to which this bill proposesto extend it is deprived of it, that class remains virtually in the moral servitude and deradation which wore the badges of slavery. s it necessary that that injustice should exist here under the very shadow of the Capitol? Have those who undertook to prove that the condition of this people here, morally or intellectu ally, was such as to render the suffrage o. dangerous thing in their hands, made out their case? So far from it, sir, they have not put a single witness upon the stand, or stated a single fact in support of their assertion; On the contrary, there are certain facts which it is impossible we should overlook; such, for example, as the fact that 3500 of these men were the uniform of the Union in the great war whichhas ended, and bore in that glorious struggle their share of the peril, the labor, and the suffering. The chairman of the ComJudiciary [Mr. WILSQK] has also told us (I doubt not 11 on satisfactory authority) that the people for whom this privilege is asked owa here real estate exceeding in vs no $1, 250,000; that they own 21 churches valued at $125,000; that there are 33 schools attended by upward of 4000 of their o ildren; that they subscribe for 4,500 copies of newspapers, and that they have among themselves over 30 literary and benevolent societies. A community characterized by such evidences of civilization and intelligence asthese is not in my opinion an unsafe depositary of the right of suffrage. But if you still doubt, be at least just to that large class whose education and whose qualification in every respect enable 1866. 283 I them to conform to any reasonable conditions w“hich you can impose. Justiceim artial, equal, and exact justice”is the 1st nty of a nation. There is no people, however weak and small, which is not strengthened and enno bled by it; there is none, however great and strong, which can with safety disregard its solemn obligations. He who answers its immortal a cal with ridicule and evasion, and he who, a ugh his conscience is convinced, has not the courage to give his voice in favor of the right, are alike unequal to the duties and unworthy of the responsibilities of the present our.