Mr. COWAN. Now, Mr. President, I will come to Nebraska. This Union is composed now, I believe, of 36 States according to one theory and 26 according to an other. It is utterly and totally immaterial to me for the present argument which of these 2 hypotheses is adopted. The reasons which I shall offer I think are potent to show that the people of the Territory of Nebraska are not a State now and have no good reason to present why they should become a State, while there are a great many very good ones to show why they should not be so. Mr. President, when the Union was 1st formed it was composed of great States and small States; but it being a matter of great importance that it should be formed, a matter of paramount importance, indeed, remarkable concessions were made to the small States, made to the State which you, sir, [Mr. AN. Thosr in the chair, so ably and honorably represent here, one of the smallest in the Union made to the State which my honorable friend on the other side [Mr. SAULsBURY] so eloquently and forcibly represents here at times great concessions made to RhdIsland and made to Delaware. Although small States, weighing nothing in the great scale compared.Virginia, NewYork, and others, yet it was conceded to them that upon this floor they should have an equal status with the greatest, or in other words, that they should have an equal representation in the Senate with the great States. That was a concession to procure the formation of the Union; but it imposed no obligation upon the States of the Union afterward to admit insignificant members upon the same terms. Nobody will pretend that if Nova Scotia, or a part of Nova Scotia, or a part of Canada 50 miles square with 100,000 inhabitants had come forward and proposed to ask admission into the Union the States would have been bound to admit her. Because we made that concession to your State, Mr. President, because we gave it to other small States, it is by no means a sequitur that we shall give it to every insignificant fraction of people who come here in these troubled times to seek for power so momentous as this is. Then I say we are perfectly free; we are not bound by precedent; we are not bound by any obligation to admit the people of Nebraska to the privileges of a State at this time. It is wholly a question of policy, and another question to which I call the attention of some of my Radical friends, a question of fairness. I believe that they plant themselves now entirely and totally upon the ground of fairness. The Constitution is to be overridden where it is in the way, laws are to be set aside, everything is to be made to yield to the question of fairness. Well, I propose, 1st, to look at it upon the question of fairness. What is there fair in it? Is it fair that 80 8,000 people and for the sake of making it better and so that I may not misrepresent my honorable friendfrom Ohio, I will say 100,000 all the way through is it fair that 100,000 people should have the same right upon the floor of this Senate that 3 million people have or that 4 million people have? I ask is it right? Can any man say that that is fair? It is so far from fair that is absolutely preposter ous; it is presuming. And, Mr. President, let me say to you another thing. The questions which interest and which agitate the great States are not felt in the smaller and particularly in the far western States. It is utterly and totally immaterial to Nebraska how she may vote on some great questions involving the very safety of the Union; whereas it is matter of most momentous issue to Pennsylvania, to Maryland, to Virginia. Take if you please the question of negro suffrage, which now agitates the country from one end to the other; what do the people of Nebraska care about negro suffrage in their Territory. Is that the Territory where there was only one negro to agitate this matter, and since that he has died? I do not know whether that is the Territory or not, but we have heard of such a Territory about which there was a great ado that the negro ought to vote, and it turned out that there was only one negro in it; and before the question was decided here in the Senate he had died, and that settled it. [Laughter] I say what possible degree of interest could the people oNebraska take in the question whether negroes voted or not? Even in Boston they had not enough the other day, when they turned over with the Democrats, to give them a majority as I understand. Even in Boston, where the negro is such a favorite that he is taken and cooked and caudled, and tried to be whitewashed and made into some body, and where he is elected to the legislature and all that even in that attractive spot where one would suppose every hungry, thirsty Ethiopian, who was “stretching out his hands to God, ” would go even there they have not enough to give the Democrats a majority when they vote with them. But Nebraska! Why, Mr. President, the question whether the negro should vote in Nebraska is of no moment whatever. I question whether there are a dozen men in the Territory that would snap their fingers for the difference whether they did or did not vote, because whether they did or no the effect produced would be inappreciable. But when the question comes to the DistCol, when it comes to the State of Maryland, when it comes to the State of Virginia and the southern States, then it does become a question, and one of great import a very different question from that which it is supposed to be here. Gentlemen upon this floor voted the other day to give the negro suffrage in the DistCol because they said he was entitled to his share in the Government. It is not a share, it is a question whether he or the whites shall rule. It is not a question whether they shall rule jointly; it not a question whether one shall rule in part and the other in part; but it is a question which of the 2 races shall rule. oes any man believe that in this District or in any of the southern States, or where negroes are very abundant, where there is any chance of competing with the whites, but where if they had the majority they would rule; and does any man doubt but that where they have not the majority the whites will rule? To say oth erwise is to ignore the whole history of affairs. Do you suppose that the negro would not deprive the white man of a vote in the DistCol if he had the chance? Why not? I only compliment his good sense when I ask why not? Certainly he should, because he knows, even the instincts of a semi barbarian will teach him, that this is a question not of sharing dominion, but it is a question as to which shall have dominion. Then Isay as to the other States of this Union these are important questions, most important, vital, lying at the very base and foundation not only of their society, but of the organization of that society and the happiness of the people. Who shall decide them? people who are not interested or people who ere; people who are in sympathy with those in contact with the evil or people who have never felt the evil and who know nothing of it, and who are moved merely by political theory and political hypothesis and party bias. Wherever these questions arise it becomes of the utmost importance to the older States, and I say to NewEngland look well to your borders; you may be cooking a kettle of fish that you will not be willing to eat yourselves, by creating corporations of this kind. How many of these oare there?. A 100,000 people I have agreed to set them down. Suppose there are a 100,000 American citizens in Nebraska, you ask have they not a right to be represented. I say, certainly, under certain circumstances. But look to the State of NewYork which has 4 million people; 2 million of those people have no representatives on W. this floor. system does not provide for the representation of minorities., Who represents the minority of NewEngland on this floor? Are the 100,000 people in Nebraska to day better than the one million of people in NewEngland who are not represented here? Have they rights higher, holier, more sacred? And yet who represents those minorities? Who represents the minority in NewYork, I ask again? Who represents it in RhdIsland? Who represents it in NewJersey now? Who represents it in Ohio? Who represents it in Illinois? Who represents it in Missouri’ You talk about representation and you talk about fairness; but if you come to count the millions that are unrepresented here, your claim for Nebraska will sink infinitesimally into the distance; it will be invisible; it will be what mathematicians call a vanishing point; you will see no more of it. Now, I, ask, when there are millions of people of intense beliefs, of the same rights in this country, upon whom the same burdens are imposed, who have to bear your arms in the field of battle, who have to pay your taxes, and who have to obey the laws you make, and who are yet totally unrepresented here, with what face can a man come on this floor and ask for power here, to be given to 88 or 100,000 people in Nebraska? That is not the worst of it. It is not a 100,000 people in Nebraska, but it is 50,000 plus 100 out of that 100,000. Pennsylvania as well as NewEngland is very much interested upon the question of a protective tariff. I believe the State of Ohio wants a protective tariff. Now, what would you think, sir, if the whole system of protection and non-protection, of free trade or the American system, were to be put into the balances and the protective system should kick the beam because the Senators from Nebraska were thrown i2n What would you think of it when you came to ask why they did it? Perhaps they would say, “We do not know; we cannot give any particular reason except that we have a great Territory there and not very many roads; we want to build railroads and get iron as cheap as possible and therefore we go for free trade.” What of pennsylvania say to that? What would Ohio say to that? What would all the protective States say to that?, And yet that may be. It is very well known here that many gentlemen from the western States I do not quarrel with them, I do not think hard of them are free traders. They are opposed to protection because they conceive it to be a i.upon them as they are agricultural States, and they will resist it. Wilf Nebraska be with them, or will it be with the Atlantic States? I might apply to my honorable friendfrom RhdI.not in the chair, [Mr. SPRAGUE, ] who talks “tariff” very often, whether he had not better have an eye to this and see about it. It is not a question of today. My honorable friendfrom ð. says that the men who come here to represent Nebraska today are clever fellows. have no doubt of that; and there are clever fellows enough in the country to make up 1000such Senates as this if that were a qualification. I can find clever fellows everywhere. I have no doubt these are clever gentlemen. And he says some of them have fought for the country during the war. There is nobody willing to pay to them a higher compliment than I would. for that. But what has all that to do with the question? Just nothing at all. The question is whether there is any fairness in this demand, in the 1st place, and in the 2nd place whether there is any danger in it to the older States; whether there is any danger in it to large unrepresented minorities in the country; whether there is any danger in it to interests in the country of whom these epresentatives may not have charge. '. exceedingly anxious to hear my honorable friendfrom Ohio tell us why it was that the people of this Territory should be H.A. consti into a State, what was the necessity for it, what grievance they labored under. Have they no executive? Have they no Legislature? Have they not a Legislature of their own election? Have they no courts? Have they complained that the laws are not equal, that they are not just? Have they complained that the laws are not administered, or not administered properly? Not at all. There has not been a word uttered here, not a word from the beginning to the end of this debate, which bore upon the question as to whether a State government was necessary there or not. Nobody has pretended that opeople in the Territory of Nebraska are not living as happily, and in the enjoyment of their rights, with the laws administered just as well as they are in any State in the Union. Nobody has said so. But the honorable Senfrom Ohio, fair, just man, always desirous to have something at least plausible to throw into the scale in order to show the necessity for a State government there has given us what he calls a reason. Now beg Senators to listen. What is the reason that there must be a State government in Nebraska, and why can they not get along just as well under a territorial government as heretofore, particularly in this disturbed state of the country when balances of power are beginning to be of the utmost importance everywhere, and since it is avowed almost on this floor that these men are to be admitted here in order to strengthen still more the great excess of power now in the hands of the dominant party?. My honorable friend says at the outstart of his speech: “Now, Mr. President, one reason” And it is the only reason he gives; whether there are any others I do not know– “Now, Mr. President, onereason why the Territory of Nebraska should be very soon admitted as a State is that the land there is being taken up by your college o: by your railroad, grants, &c. Ine us ways the fami vari: is being aii"absorbed, so that if we leave it a little while longer exposed in this way, we shall not have the power to give to the State for sgcrhanootsl purposesand for various other purposesthose which we have uniformly made to States on their admissioninto the nf. } new That is the reason why the Congress of the U.S. should create this corporation equal in power here on the floor of the Senate to New .Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, at the beck and bidding of 50,000 people lus 100 out of 100,000. ad the honorable Senator no better reason 7 Is that the reason why Nebraska should be a State? Is that the pressing necessity which induces the people to divide the crown and scepter with this handful of men? I am not the chairman of the ComTerritor nor the chairman of any other committee; but I think that if I was I could have devised a mode by which the people of Nebraska could have been well protected against this impending evil. Was it out of the reach of my honorable friend's legal acumen and stretch and sagacity to give them a remedy? I should think not. I believe he was a Republican as I was, and we held that Congress had supreme authority over the Territories to fix their status while they were Territories. That was our doctrine. I think we could have saved their lands, we could have protected their people so far as the interest of the school and the church, or any other that we chose to subserve might be in volved; we could have saved all that without this extraordinary stretch of power on our part. Mr. President, I do not know that anything I can say is to have any weight here upon the determination of this question; but I have felt it my duty to my own State and to the unrepresented minorities of other States to invoke on the part of the Senate a calm, careful examination of questions of this character. If it became necessary to insure the liberty, the freedom of the people, and the proper administration of the law in Nebraska that these 100,000 people should be endowed with the corporate powers of a State, I should not object to trying it; but, Mr. President, there is another thing to be considered, and it is a thing upon which we cannot turn our backs here. Why is it that the people of Nebraska want a State? Does any sane man suppose that it is because they cannot get school lands and college lands, and that somebody will approriate them with scrip here and scrip there? Not at all. We know that in all these Terri tories there are politicians, and we know that these politicians are exceedingly anxious to have a State. umphal and sovereign car of the State ride Senators and members of Congress, ride power and dominion; rides, in other words, a State; rides NewYork, rides Pennsylvania, rides Ohio, and as well ride Nebraska and Colorado. Think of it! These are high stakes to be played for, and here is the sweat cloth in which they arg won, in this Senate. Now, Mr. President, so far as compliment is concerned, so far as gratifying a laudable ambition is concerned, so far as doing anything to accommodate a clever fellow is concerned, I think I have always been willing and am willing now to go as far as anybody else; but Why? Because, in that triI ask the Senate not to admit Nebraska upon this showing, not to think of it, not to think of the eloquent blandishments with which those who come here to electioneer for her admission assail you, but to think of the duty we owe to the Union and the rest of the States, to our own States, and to ourselves. Mr. President, in some of its aspects I cannot conceive how anybody in the present circumstances of the nation, in the situation in which we find ourselves, can with any kind of face come here and ask us to bestow this boon upon that little knot of people who reside in Nebraska for no reason in the world, no reason pertinent to their welfare, no reason pertinent to the existence of the Union, but every reason calling us to act the other way. It has not the poor apology of being needed to give the dom inant party a preponderating majority in this body; it is not needed in the other body. I could understand why partisans, why ambitious politicians should desire to possess a 2/3rds majority here which would override a President's veto. I can understand why, people would want to have that; but why want more than that at such a cost and at such hazard to such important interests I cannot conceive. If my Radical friends had not that 2/3rds already well assured, 3 to one, indeed, then I could understand why they should desire to add a compeer or 2 in order to aid them to supplement their weakness. But what is it for here? Surely they cannot be moved by considerations of that kind. Mr. President, I do not know whether it is in order to amend the amendment of the honorable Senfrom Missouri, but I believe it is. –