Mr. ROGERS. Another evidence that this is a Federal Government, or a Government of States, is that each State is entitled to 2 U.S. Senators, and as to that the constitution prohibits an amendment. I will now procced more in the true line of the submit be ore us. There was no negro who plante himself upon this continent who was not brought here from the coasts of Africa as a slave. Every single negro man and woman in this land are the descendants of African slaves; and at the time negroes were brought here from Africa there was not a free negro upon this continent, and none were ever free except by the sovereign consent of the State, or munumission by the masters. For more than 100 years before the DeclarIndep was made negroes had been rerded as beings of an inferior order; they were bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchan dise. That idea of their condition was fixed and universal in all the civilized communities, without an exception, in the civilized world. The English Government seized them upon the coast of Africa and brought them here and sold them. The constitution recognizes them as slaves, and contains a provision expressly permitting negroes to be imported into this country and sold as slaves u to the year 1808. Therefore I say to this House and to the country, that the change which is attempted to be made in our social system is one never thought ofor dreamed ofb ose who controlled the organization of this the public, or by those who have controlled it down to Within the last 2 or 3 years. To show how consistent NewEngland has been in this negro equality subject, I will quote some of the legislation of those States upon the subject of the status of the negro, to show that where radicalism now seems to be running more mad than in any other part of the country they, by their legislation. regarded these Africans as an inferior race so far as to prohibit cohabitation and marriage of the 2 races. The revised code of Massachusetts, published in 1836, forbids the marriage of any whiteperson with a negro, Indian, or mulatto, under pen altof six months imprisonmentin the common aif, or to hard labor and a fine of not over 200 nor under 50 dollars; and it also dethe marriage to be absolutely null and void. I do not know whether that law has been repealedor not. Some of the honorable gentlemen from Massachusetts can answer that nestion. But it shows that our fathers always liept in view that one great idea which God has planted in the human heart, that there is a distinction between. negroes and whites that no law can change.