Mr. LANE. Mr. President, at this stage of the debate, when the Senate are exceedingly anxious to vote, in which anxiety I certainly participate, I shall content myself rather with stating my positions upon the question than arguing or giving reasons for them. It is necessary, perhaps, in order that my position may be fully understood, that I state very briefly how Ys. vote, and still more briefly the reasons for that vote. I understand, 1st, that all the just powers of government derive their authority from the consent of the governed. Here is a proposition to confer, 1st, the right of suffrage upon the colored people of this District without qualification. An amendment proposes to confer that same right with certain qualifications. I shall vote to confer the right upon the colored people of the District without regard to qualifications, recognizing simply that they are the governed in this District, that they are citizens by virtue of the civil rights bill, by virtue of the constitutional amendment, from the fact that they are native, born to the manor. I, then, shall vote for this proposition without any qualification or restrictions. not feel with my distinguished colleague that I am simply the representative of the people of the District. I read in the Constitution of the U.S. that Congress shall have exclusive legislative jurisdiction over the ten miles square to be ceded to the U.S. for the purposes of a General Government. In my vote here today I am equally the representative of the whole people of the U.S. as I am the representative of the people of this District. If we are alone the representatives of the people of the District, why are we not alone elected by the people of the district? This is a great question in which the whole people are interested, every voter in Indiana precisely as much as every resident in the DistCol. Our power to legislate is full and plenary over all subjects of legislation. Then the only question is, whether the right of suffrage is a proper subject of legislation? If so, our power is complete and ample over the whole subject. I believe that no man will doubt the constitutional power of Congress to legislate upon all subjects proper to be legislated upon, and that the right of suffrage is one of the subjects most peculiarly within our legislative jurisdiction. But we are told that we should not force this measure upon an unwilling constituency, taking it for granted that the people of this district upon this subject are alone our constituents, i. we should not force it upon them, because they, the citizens of this District, by a deliberate vote, have determined that they do not desire any such thing. Who has determined it? Who ordered this election, and who voted at this election? Your mayor and common council, without any authority of law whatever, ordered an election in the District to determine upon a question over which they had no possible jurisdiction. They derive all their power to legislate from the acts of congress. They have an act of incorporation allowing them to do certain things and to legislate upon certain subjects; but where is the authority of your mayor and common council to order an election to instruct the people's representatives as to the legislation in this District? Where is any such authority? The whole election was unauthorized and a volun.tary act upon the part of the people of this District, and was so regarded by very many of the most loyal residents of the District. such was their understanding of this election and its invalidity that they refused to attend the polls; and hence it is that you have only 35 votes in favor of this proposition. But by your legislation you have made the colored people The of this District citizens. now is, whether you shall enfranchise them. The men who have oppressed them, who have grown rich upon. unrequited toil for 200 years, meet in solemn conclave and resolve that the colored man, a freeman and citizen as he is, shall not be permitted to vote If you wish a vote, pass an act of Congress and let all vote, the as well as the white, and then there may be some validity and some authority in your election. So much for the instructions that we have received upon this subject. I shall vote to enfranchise the colored residents of this District because I believe it is right, just, and proper, because I believe it is in accordance with those 2 grand central truths around which cluster every hope for redeemed humanity, the common fatherhood of God above us and the brotherhood of universal mankind. I go to the original principle and right of the and hence I shall vote to enfranchise the colored people of this District. But gentlemen tell us they are not qualified to vote. What are the 2 constituent elements which should enter into the character of a good voter? Loyalty 1st, and intelligence 2ndly. These are the only 2 elements which need necessarily enter into the constitution of a good voter patriotism and intelligence in order to exercise appropriately the right of suffrage. 1st, as to loyalty, how does it stand in this district? According to numbers, the colored population have furnished more soldiers to the Army of the Republic than the white residents of the District. The report of your Provost Marshal General shows it. Their patriotism is undisputed. Their color, a badge as it is of oppression and degradation and servitude, is equally a badge known and read of all men of loyalty and devotion to the Government under which we live. Their loyalty has been tested everywhere upon the battle field and in administering kindly to your prisoners. They were and have been the loyal element. They have turned out nobly to defend the country. Without any attack upon the people of the District, the records of the provost marshafs office show that here at least, in proportion to numbers, they have given more soldiers to the Army than have the patriotic white residents of the District. Then we have the 1st element loyalty. Now, 2nd ly, as to their intelligence, my distinguished colleague from Indiana says that although opposed to this test of intelligence as applied to white men, yet, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, he is in favor of applying it to colored men. For the last 200 years it has been impossible for these poor slaves to educate themselves. Under the laws of many of the States it has been a penal offense to teach them their letters, and to read the Gospel of eternal truth and to teach them to read it has been a penitentiary offense. These poor people have hitherto had no opportunity of education, no opportunity of learning; and because they cannot read and write now they are to be disfranchised, while white men who have had the advantages of free institutions and of the means of education are to be permitted to vote in ignorance, the result of their own want of attention, perhaps, or want of disposition. It is not proper to apply the test to the white man who cannot read, but alto gether proper to apply it to the colored man who has had no possible opportunity to learn to read I think the ballot itself is worth all the schools and all the schoolmasters to educate voters to enable them to vote intelligently. You have freed by your legislation and by your constitutional amendment 4 and a half million slaves; you have made them citizens, free before the law, free before the Constitution as it soon will be declared. Now, sir, one of 2 things is true: you must either give these colored people the right to protect themselves, or you must take upon yourselves for all time to come the duty of their protection, for they cannot be abandoned. They must be enabled to protect themselves or you must protect them. If you protect them, you must continue in operation your charitable associations, your Freedmen's Bureau, your civil rights bill, and all that system of legislation, or you may abandon them the very moment you permit them to vote. Then they are self protecting, self sustaining. I vote therefore to confer this ballot upon the colored people here because of our duty to protect them, and because it is cheaper and in every sense better to give them self protection than to extend to them the protection of the Government. So much in reference to that. Now, in reference to their intelligence, we find that in the DistCol the colored people subscribe, pay for, and read over 5,000 daily newspapers. We find that they have 7,000 colored children in their own schools. We find that they have religious, benevolent, and philanthropic associations sustained alone by the colored people of the district. That would argue, to my mind, a state of intelligence far from dangerous to the public liberty of the country. But my distinguished colleague would not force this right of suffrage upon an unwilling people. Do you not remember that the same protest was urged by these same resident citizens of Washington against the emancipation of the slaves in this District? Would my colleague recall that glorious act, that act which flashed like a sunburst of liberty in the darkness of our legislation upon the subject of African slavery in this District and under the shadow of the Capitol 2, Would he recall that act emancipating the slaves in the District? Would any man recall it? Would he again rivet the chains of slavery upon the freed limbs of these emancipated slaves? And yet that act was passed over the earnest remonstrance of the people of the District. When we placed them in the Army they remonstrated against that, and against the general proclamation of emancipation. They have thrown themselves across the pathway of the onward march of this nation to the redemption of the nation and the supremacy of free institutions from the beginning of the rebellion to the present moment. What act of ours calculated to suppress the rebellion has yet met the approbation of the white residents of the DistCol? Not one single one. Mr. President, I shall vote to enfranchise and give the right of suffrage to the colored people of this District. But gentlemen ask me if I would force negro suffrage upon the States lately in rebellion. I understand that under the Constitution of the U.S. the right of suffrage is left to be regulated by the respective States as they see fit. Those loyal States that have never forfeited their right to participate in the Government of the country have today full control over that whole subject. Whenever the rebel States shall be remitted to their rights under the constitution and permitted to participate in the government of the country, when their relations to the Federal Government shall be fully restored, the regulation of the right of suffrage may appertain to them; but they never can be remitted to those rights except upon the terms and at the time that the Congress of the U.S shall permit them. We have proposed to them the constitutional amendment. One reason why I voted for that amendment was that I supposed that in order to retain their political power in the country they themselves, when remitted to their constitutional relations, would permit the colored people to vote. I yet believe that will be the operation of the constitutional amendment. But suppose they reject it, what then? We have held up to the rebellious States the constitutional amendment as the brazen serpent was held up in the wilderness to the children of Israel. We tell them to look approvingly upon the constitutional amendment and be healed from all the evils inflicted by the fiery serpents of treason, sedition, and rebellion. If they look not, then they perish in their sins and in the wilderness, and by my vote shall never get representation in these Halls. When they shall reject that amendment giving to them the full power to determine the right of suffrage in their own States, it will be necessary perhaps to resort to other means. What are those other means? To assert all the constitutional power which devolves upon Congress. We alone have the power to restore, to reconstruct, to revivify, to resurrect; and without the almighty power of Congress neither the President nor the Cabinet nor any earthly authority has a right to restore these rebellious States to their constitutional relations to the U.S. Gentlemen ask me how I would vote if the saine Poio were pending in my own State. "I have only to say this: as I understand it the State of Indiana has forfeited none of her rights of State sovereignty by any rebellion; she has a right to fix this matter as she pleases within her own limits; but if I were called upon in my State to vote for a constitutional amendment in favor of universal man hood suffrage I should unhesitatingly vote for it. I should unhesitatingly vote it in In Oiana or anywhere else. The right to vote may not be strictly a natural right, but it is so onately connected with the right of self and self preservation that it is hard to distinguish where the one begins and the other ends. So far I am clear, “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;” today I vote to enfranchise the colored people in the DistCol. I do it proudly. I believe the peoo demand it. I have never dodged the issue. have been ready to vote for it for the last 6 years, I am ready to vote for it now, and I give this vote with more pride and as much pleasure as I have given any vote in this body.