Mr. WILLIAMS. Mr. President, to extend the right of suffrage to the negroes in this country I think is necessary for their protection; but to extend the right of suffrage to women, in my jo is not necessary for their protection. For that reason, as well as for. I shall vote against the amendment proposed by the Senfrom Pennsylvania, and for the amendment as it was originally introduced by the Senfrom Ohio, [Mr. WADE] Negroes in the U.S. have been enslaved since the formation of the government. Degradation, and ignorance have been their portion; intelligence has been denied to them; they have been proscribed on account of their color; there is a bitter and cruel prejudice against them everywhere, and a large minority of the people of this country today if they had the power, would deprive them Of all political and civil rights and reduce them to a state of abject servitude. Women have not been enslaved. Intelligence has not been denied to them; they have not been degraded; there is no prejudice against them on account of their sex; but, on the contrary, if they deserve to be, they are respected, honored, and loved. Wide as the poles apart are the conditions of these 2 classes of persons. exceptions I know there are to all rules; but, as a general proposition, it is true that the sons defend and protect the reputation and rights of their mothers; husbands defend and protect the reputation and rights of their wives; brothers defend and protect the reputation and rights of their sisters; and to honor, cherish, and love the women of this country is the pride and the glory of its sons. When women ask Congress to extend to them the right of suffrage it will be proper to consider their claims. Not one in 1000of them at this time wants any snch thing, and would not exercise the power if it was granted to them. Some few who are seeking notoriety make a feeble clamor for the right of suffrage, but they do not represent the sex to which they belong, or I am mistaken as to the modesty and delicacy which constitute the chief attrac.tion of the sex. Do our intelligent and refined women desire to plunge into the vortex of political excitement and agitation? Would that policy in any way conduce to their peace, their purity, and their happiness? Sir, it has been said that “the hand i.rocks the cradle rules the world;” and there is truth as well as beauty in that expression. Women in this country by their elevated social position can exercise more influence upon public affairs than they could coerce by. use of the ballot. When God married our 1st parents in the garden according to that ordinance they were made of. bone and flesh of one flesh;” and the whole theory of government and "society proceeds upon the assumption that their interests are one, that their relations are so intimate and tender that whatever is for the benefit of the one is for the benefit of the other; whatever works to the injury of the one works to the injury of the other. I say, sir, that the more identical and inseparable these interests and relations ean be made, the better for all concerned; and the woman who undertakes to put her sex in an adversary position to man, who undertakes by the use.]". independent political power to contend and fight against man, displays a spirit which would, if able, convert all the now harmonious elements of society into a state of war, and make every home a hell upon earth. Women do not bear their proportion and share, they cannot bear their proportion and share, of the public burdens. Men represent them in the Army and in the Navy; men represent them at the polls and in the affairs of the Government; and though it be true that individual women do own property that is taxed, yet 9 10thsof the property and the business from which the revenues of the Government are derived are in the hands and belong to and are controlled by the men. Sir, when the women of this country come to be sailors and soldiers; when they come to navigate the ocean and to follow the plow; when they love to be jostled and crowded by all sorts of men in the thoroughfares of trade and business; when they love the treachery and the turmoil of politics; when they love the dissoluteness of the camp and the smoke and the thunder and the blood of battle better than they love the affections and enjoyments of home and family, then it will be time to talk about making the women voters; but until that time the question is not fairly before the country. Negroes are a distinct class of people; they are distinguished from others by their color, and that color is generally regarded as a badge of inferiority, and that idea of inferiority subjects them to injustice. Suppose, sir, they are allowed to vote, who will be harmed? Suppose a white man goes to the polls and is followed there by a negro, what injury or harm results from that brief and conventional association? Sir, that same white man can go to the polls and be followed by a traitor, a thief, or a drunk ard, without any supposed degradation; but if he is followed by a man whose complexion is black, though he may be as honest and upright a being as God ever made, there some imagi nary disgrace is made to be the consequence. I am satisfied, Mr. President, that much of this feeling, strong as it is, difticult as I know it is to conquer, is mere prejudice, the result of the educational influences to which we have been subjected by the institution of slavery. People in other countries where slavery has never existed do not cherish the prejudice against the negro that exists in this country. Sir, I have seen negroes as slaves sitting on the same seat in the same coach and conveyance with white people without objection; but when that identical black man becomes free then his presence in a coach or a conveyance is very obnoxious to the same white person. Is not the negro as black as a slave as he is as a free man Is he not as odious and offensive in every way as a slave as he is as a free man? Nobody will pretend that there is any change in the person; but slavery makes a negro agree able while freedom makes him odious and hate ful. That is all there is about it. I dismiss, so far as I am concerned in connection with this question, all theories as to the natural rights of p.". to vote, and I put my action in favor of this bill upon the plain, practical ground that suffrage to the negro in this country is necessary for his protection. Sir, to insult and abuse a negro in this District is the pastime of some of its inhabitants. If there is anything that I hate and despise, anything that makes my blood boil with indignation, it is to see a man conscions of his supe riority and power insult and abuse one whose color or whose circumstances place him beyond H the reach of public sympathy or the pale of the law's protection. Sir, it is “base flattery to call such a man a coward.” Yesterday we were told that the descendants of dignified, haughty, and proud families lived in this district. I am aware of that fact, and for that reason I desire to extend the right of suffrage, so that all the descendants of those dignified, proud, and haughty families may enjoy it.