Mr. SAULSBURY. I have but afew words to say upon the question now before the Son ate. As I understand, the motion is to strike out that section of the bill which provides for universal suffrage in all the Territories named in the bill. In other words, that section is a proposition to give to all persons, without distinction of race or color, within the Territo ries of the U.S., the right of suffrage. It is a proposition to admit to the exercise of this great right, a right the proper exercise of which is so essential to the preservation of a pure republican government, the negro race. What has occurred, Mr. President, in the history of this count or in the history of that race, since the organization of the Territories named in the bill, that new demands that they be admitted to the right of suffrage in these Territories? Does anv great public necessity exist in any of those Territories that the comparatively few negroes who inhabit them shall be admitted to the right of suffrage? Has any public grievance been experienced in those I‘erritories, has any great public calamity evertaken the people of those Territories, that it becomes essential to their welfare and essential to the welfare of the white race that the negroes there shall now be admitted to participate in the government of those Territo ries? If so it is due to the Senate, it is due to the country ', that the evils experienced from withholdin this right of suffrage from the negro race shoultgi be made known to the Senate and the country. I know, sir, that the attempt has been made to justify such an enactment as this, upon the ground that a faithful observance of the principles of the DeclarIndep requires that all persons, negroes included, shall be admitted to a participation in the Government, to a voice in the management of public afiiiirs. That assertion has been so often met and so successfully met that it is not necessary now for me to enter into any elaborate discussion to prove what was meant by the declaration “ that all men are created equal.” Is it possible that the American people can at this pay be induced to believe at George Washington, a slaveholder. James Madison, a slave holder, and most of the framers of the DeclarIndep, slaveholders, ever meant to say by that Declaration that the negro race were to be admitted to participation in the affairs of Government; and that they contemplated by that Declaration that they would be understood as saying that the negro race were equal to themselves? The proposition that those founders of the Government meant such a thing as that is derogatory to their high characters; for if they meant by that Declaration so to be understood, how is the fact that those great men lived and died slaveholders to be reconciled with such an opinion upon their part? Sir, they only meant to say that the people of every distinct political community had a right to govern themselves and were not to be controlled by another distinct and independent community; and such is the interpretation which, until these modern days when a light has sprung upin the East which attempts now to irradiate the whole land, made its appearance. ut, sir, I will not discuss that feature of this question, because the bare statement of the imposition itself is sufficient to show that the ounders of this Government never meant to be understood that the negro race was equal to the white race, or should beadmitted ton participation in the affairs of this Government. If they meant it, why did they not set the example of negro suffrage? Whydid they notbestow upon every negro in the land a voice in the Government on a right to participate in the management ot'public alfairs? They did no such thing. Sir, the founders of this Government meant to establish n white man’s Government, and they lived up to their meaning; and while they lived, and while the generation of great statesmen lived who succeeded them, no man in the Halls of Congress was ever heard to make such a proposition as this. Did not the necessity exwt. in those days why the negroes of the country should be admitted to share in the right of suffrage? We heard no comlaint in those days on account of the withho ding of such a right. from the negro race. Do on believe that if the negroes in the days of t o founders of the Government and of the generation of great men who succeeded them had been admitted to the exercise of this rightthis Government would have been more wisely administered than it was? Do you believe that the great principles of constitutional and civil liberty would have been more firmly established more deeply rooted, or more fondly cherished than they were? If no necessity existed in those days for the bestowment of this privilege or right upon that race, I ask you, sir, what necessity has arisen since, what necessity of a public character exists now why it should be conferred upon that race? Has it come to this, that the noble race to which we belong has become so degenerate, has so lapsed, so fallen from its high character and its high estate, that it is now necessary to supply its weaknesses and defects by admitting to participation in the affairs of Government that formerly servile race? Has the intellect of the white man so degenerated, or has his heart become so corru)t that the superior enlight enment and the higher morality of the negro are necessary to save our institutions or to better our condition? Sir, what. greater evidence has that race given in these times of a fitness for participation in public alfairs than itgave in the days when your Constitution was founded? Have they ever made any great discovery in art, science, literature, or learning of any description that it now becomes necessary to invoke their superior wisdom to direct and guide the councils of the American people? Sir, there are but comparatively few negroes, I suppose, in those Territories, but the principle is the same. The American Senate is asked to recognize a right in the negroes to articipate in the elective franchise in those 'lerrito ries, and then the question is to be asked, if they have such 9. vight there, how can you with hold it in the son era States where they are t so much more numerous? You are asked to adopt the principlejn reference to afew negroes scattered liere and there over the Territories; and then the plea of estoppel is to be put at vou, “You have recognized the principle, you have recognized the right; ” and having recognized the principle and having recognized the right in that race in those Territories, to be consistent you must recognize the principle and the right wherever the negro exists W] in the boundaries of the U.S. I attrilr ute no personal motives to any man, but I say that is to be the legal, logical argument with which you are to be met when the proposition shall come up to establish it throughout the southern States, where millions of the race exist. If you recognize the principle here, as contemplated by this bill, to be consistent with yourselves and to be logical in your own reasoning you must say that they ought to be clothed with this franchise wherever the race exists. Now, Mr. President, in most of the northern States represented here by gentlemen of the Republican party, this very right is withheld from the negro race. You have not set the example to the American people of n1lowing this race to vote in a majority of your own States; and yet you attempt to say that in the Territories of the U.S. they shall have this right. Where is the consistency ofit? In the State of NewYork they have a qualified negro suffrage; ifa negro happens to be worth $250, he is allowed to vote. Even in the State which the present occupant of the chair so abl and faithfully represents on this floor, [Mr. Thrusts in the chair] popular sentiment will not tolerate universal) negro suffrage. Go home to your constituents, I say to gentlemen from the northern States, adopt the system of universal negro suffrage among your selves, and then you may consistently (if you have the power) attempt to force it upon the distant Territories of this country; but until you do that you are not consistent with your selves. Mr. President, it was said the other day by the honorable Senator who has charge of this bill that it might as well be known now as at any other time the people of those Territo ries that unless is privilege was accorded to the negro race they could not expect admission into this Union. Sir, the honorable senator was speaking for the present, speaking, I suppose, in reference to what he knew to be the sentiments and the opinions of a majority of this body at the present time. But neither he nor any other Senator has a right to speak for any future Senate of the U.S. The time may come, the time may be near at hand, and the indications of the times are that the day is not far off when the complexion of both Houses of the American Congress may be changed. May God hasten the auspicious day, not on account of any desire to get rid of such very polite, honorable, and learned gentlemen as compose the present majority, but because the public necessities and the public interests require it. Mr. President, let me ask gentlemen who favor this proposition one question. Suppose that when you entered upon the prosecution of the late civilWar you had proclaimed, as the party just come into power, that your object was the abolition ofs avery in the U.S., could you have succeeded? No, sir, not even upon that issue. You were too wise as Sens&Reps, you were too wise as representative men of your party to proclaim in the commencement of the late civil struggle that you were even prosecuting the war for the liberation of the slave from bondage; but you declared that your object was to preserve the Union with nll the rights and institutions of the States unimpaired, and that when this was done the war ought to cease. Well, sir, you went on step by step. A patriotic people, aroused by an attack upon the American flag. at the summons of the POTUS flocked to the national standard, as they supposed, to preserve the union of the States with all their rights and privileges and dignities unimpaired. fh ewar went on for years before a word was ever uttered in these Halls suggesting that even the abolition of slavery was the object of this war. It was not. until Mr. Seward had rung his “little bell” a member of your party, gentle men, not of ours; you may talk about not as much as you please, but the Democratic party has no such captains. He rung that "little bell” too often even to be a lieutenant in the great conquering army which is to drive you out of power. t was not until your “divine Stanton” exercised his great military power to take possession of the polls in Democratic States and to keep Democrats away from the polls; not until the voice of the American people was hushed by the clangor of arms; not while there was an open foe, but when all was silence and quietness within the boundaries of your power, that on dared proclaim even that the abolition of s avery was your object in the prosecution of the war. When the people were surrounded by military power, a power which unarmed men could not resist, it was then for the 1st time we heard an intimation that the object of the struggle was not the preservation of the union of these States, with all the rights and dignities of the States unimpaired, but the abolition of slavery. Then, I say, for the 1st time that voice like the whispering of the serpent, “Squat. like a toad, closeat the car of Eve, " was heard. Sir, had you announced that as your object in the commencement of the strug gle, not half of the volunteers that rushed to arms would have flocked to your standard even to support the American flag when assailed. But, sir, suppose you had then gone further, and had avowed that your object was not only the liberation of the slave from bondage but to confer upon him equal civil rights, and not merely equal civil rights but the right to go side by side with the white citizen to the polls, and to cast his ballot at the verysame poll; your call would have been scoute by the great mass of the American people, and you would not have had an army large enough to meet a single regiment of soldiers. The American people in the enthusiasm of the moment, relym upon your promise and your declaration oft e objects of the war; never dreamed that you meant to go further and confer the right of voting upon this race. You did not ovow it yourselves. If it ad beencharged upon you then, the denial would have been heard from one end of the country to the other. And yet now, sir, with the representatives of 11 States of this Union not. in these Halls, denied seats upon this floor and in the other House of Congress. you having an accidental majorityin this body because 1nmyjudgment you do not represent a majority of the American people, even iu the non-seceded States, not to take into consideration the seceded Statesundertake to incorporateinto the legislation of this country principles which the founders of the Government never asserted, whiclfyou your selves never asserted until, perhaps, you think it becomes necessary to the perpetuation of political power in yourselves. Mr. President, IS it possible that gentlemen of the majority upon this floor are more familiar with the negro race, their capacity, their fitness for participation in civil government, than those of us who have lived among them all our lives, who have been familiar with them? Where did you get your education, where did you go to so tool to get superior wisdom upon this subject? what were our textbooks? You had no personal knowledge, because you were not in the midst of the race. You might: have seen one here and one there, not enough to make mile stones along your public roads, mere curiosities which when seen by the children attracted their attention and caused their wonder. if such were your opportunities and your only opportunities by we of observation of judging of the capacities 0 this race, on must have acquired 'our superiorwisdom rem someother source, hat was your text book? Wusit Uncle Tom'sCabin, so pathetically written by I say it without any disprtragement of the lady a strong minded woman? Was it in her book which was writ ten to draw tears from weak minded men and feeble minded women that you learned all about the negro race? 'Whatwere her opportunities for acquiring a knowledge of the capacities of the negro? Was it from the northern press that you learned your wisdom? How many of their editors ever were in the midst of this race that they could judge of their qualifications for participation in public affairs? Sir, they staid at home, and ifa John Brown raid was to be got up they were not the men to go, but men of firmer nerve and men made of sterner stuff. Mr. President, in some of the States of this Union a majority of the population are of that class. I refer to those States, not because this bill proposes to force negro suffrage upon them, but because this bill is a recognition of the principle. Every one who has traveled in those States knows full well that you might as well admit to the polls the mules and the cows, for all practical wise purposes of legislation, as a majority of such a race. How 0 you know, sir, that the negro race in the Territories of the U.S. are better fitted for the purposes of articipation in public affairs than they are in those States? Have you ever been there to see? Do you know anythin about it? You do not propose to select such of them as are qualified; you propose no terms or conditions upon this class as a qualification for the exercise of this high governmcutal privilege; but you say that every one of them, whether he has qualifications or not, shall participate in this privilege, and you ask the intelligent white adventurer who has gone to make his fortune in a western home, the man of high purpose and firm resolve, who has left the home of his fathers to seek a better condition far 05‘, to be governed. so far as the negro race can govern im, by the votes of negroes in the Territories of the U.S. Sir, honorable Senators who advocate this proposition may suppose that it will be popular, that the idea of the equality of all men will be so popular that it will sweep as a hurricane the political field, and continue foran indefiniteterm in power those who so disinterestedly and patriotically advocate it. Mr. President, there never was a greater humbug preached upon earth as from the Almighty than the equality of races. The great God, in the human as well as in other animal races, has formed a great chain; and that chain is composed of links; in other words, there is the highest step, the next higher step, the next higher step until you come to the very lowest step in animal and in human existence, and to preach that the race which occupies this lower step in the great gradation of life is equal to that race which occupies the highest is contradictory to the observation of man and is in contravention of the workings of the Almighty. It is not true in inanimate nature that equality is the law of God and of nature; it is not so in human existence; it is not so in other ani mal existence; it is not so in the great works of nature spread out before our view. I ask you to go With me into the majestic forest and view with me the great trees found upon your Pacific slope go with me into the great forests of your coun'iry and tell me, if equality be the law of nature and race, why it is that you see the majestic oak spreading his branches far and wide, upon whose 1,000 boughs the birds of heaven chirp and sin sweetly, and then why beside it do you see the little sapling that is unworthy of notice? No, sir, equality is not the law of God or nature; but inequality, diversity is the great law. Man in his wisdom, legislators with their on erior knowledge, may say that all these things are wrong and ought to be different. The Almighty could have made the mole which burrows in the ground equal to the lion which majestically roams the forest. Is the one equal to the other? If so, why did not the Almighty make them so? He could have done it. Take the other great animals which roam in your for ests and the more obscure and less distinguished animals which you deem not worthy either of your curiosity or regard. If equality be the law of nature and nature's God, tell me why He did not make these animals alike, why did not He make the trees and the bushes and the shrubbery of the forest all the some! aYour humble scrubby pines might have equaled thdse of Lebanon if He had chosen so to do. The fact that He did net chooseto do so shows the truth of my proposition, that equality is not in the works of nature or in animal existence His law; and if it be not His law in the works of nature and in other animal existence, where is the evidence that we built: of its being His law in the existence of the human race? Observation does not teach it; history disproves it. Sir, the proud and noble race to which we belong has had its moments of darkness and ignorance, even when its members made their homes in the caves of the earth; but there was a Heaven inspired power, a something placed within that race by the determined Wi l of the Almighty, which caused it to develop itself and become the great guiding race of the world. Why do you not find that race now in its ori ginal ignorance and barbarism? It is because the Almighty God, when He breathed into ourancestors the breath of life, made it as a distinguishing race, the crowning work of His almighty power on earth. But take the race Whitfil you now propose to admit to a participation in public affairs; go to his native home where for century after century he has dwelt, and show the developments and improvements which he has made. You find him in his ori ginal ignorance, in his original barbarism, not making one single step in the onward path to enlightenmentand to civilization. What is the reason? I believe it to be because the eternal God for His own wise purposes made distinctions between the different races which He made; and dost thou, oh man, say that this is all wrong? Shall the clay accuse the potter? He who made all the trees of the forest, the animals of the field, and the men who inhabit the earth, of all gradations and all conditions, had the right to establish inequality. His power was omnipotent; His will all controlling; and what He made the creature has no right to question. Sir, that is not only sound reasoning, derived from the observation of His works wherever we find them, buTTt is the teaching and the in spiration of that Book of books, from which, in childhood at our mother’s knee, we learned these lessons which if properly observed would guide us to brighter and happier elimes. Sir, even in that better world, if we believe the language of inspiration, you are not to have equality, but as one star differeth from another star in glory, so, also, shall they be in the future world. Inspiration adds its voice to the mani festation of God Almighty’s works on earth and attests the absurdity; ay, sir, the infidelity of this doctrine of equality of races or the equality of man. But, Mr. President, I did not rise for the purpose of oing into this view of the subject, at to say a few words by way of protest against the incorporation into the organic act organizing these Territories of this obnoxious provision. I cannot see how the legislation of these Territories, how the public eace, how the rights of the community, ciVi and political, are to be elevated or advanced by the recognition of such a principle as this in those organic acts. Unless gentleman can show that there is some wrong to be remedied, practically, not theoretically; unless they can show that there is some wrong that should be remedied, and which can only be remedied by such a provision as this, and by the recognition of such a right as this, then, sir, I obtest before this senate that your legislation is unwise, and you are treading upon allowed ound because you are not guided by any light from the past. There is nothing in the past to show you that the condition of the people of these Territo ries would be bettered by conferring this privilege upon the negro race. Therefore, finding nothing in the experience of the past demon strating that the condition of the people in these Territories would be bettered by such legislation, I ask you, is it not rash legislation to make the attempt now? It is only for the good of the people of the Territories and for the good of my country that I have felt it an im crative duty to protest against this sort of Iegislation. Were I to speak only as a partisan; were I to look only to the success of the political organization to which I belong, I should hail every measure of this kind that you passed as a means to restore to power that noble party to which it is my pride and my boast that di‘om childhood to the present hour, amidst all the mutations of party, have ever belonged; and with all the expe rience of the past I would not change it for any party that ever existed in this country. As, a mere party man I should hail our legislation as a means of your own decat, because I cannot believe that when these questions are fairly and fully presented to the American people, and when in the quietude of home, in the stillness of the midnight hour, they shall reflect upon this species of legislation, they will not meet it with an over powering and overwhelming condemnation. f it is the continuance of party power that you aim at, go on, gentlemen, in your madness and infatuation. I have not so read the character, I have not so read the sentiments of the race to which I belong, as to believe that now, when reason has resumed its throne and judgment has taken its place, they will ever approve such legislation. repeat, sir, that if I spoke today as a mere partisan, I should hail your legislation as a great political boon; but I do not so 5 eak. Mr. President, it is time weliad cease speaking theoretically; it is time we had quit shedding crocodile tears over the wrongs of the poor negro race. As legislators we should look at the questions presented in the legislation proposed as practical men and as practical states men. What, even now, let me ask, has the great boon of freedom which you say you have given to the negro race profited them? If we are to believe the accounts we read 100s and 1000s of those who thought you meant to do them good are returning to their old homes in the South, and 100s and 1000s more who stay away are left to languish and to die; and in some of the States, a distingnished Gentfrom Migsissippi told me, if mistakenot, that one 4th or 1/3rd of the whole negro race as it existed previous to the liberation which engave them, have ceased to exist; have died. Ilnder the nurturing care of their masters and former owners they were happy, they were contented. They sought not this boon which you proffered them. You came promising them a blessing and you have brought to them starvation and death. I speak from no unkindness to this rr cc. I think that I know them as well as. in fact better than, some Senators who have never been among them. I was raised, to be sure, in comparatively a small slaveholding State, but amidst slaves. I had them to nur ture me when an infant, to lead me when a.child. Inever felt any unkindness toward them; I wish them well; and now when I meet one that I knew in my boyhood there is no under in my heart, but thanks and kindness; and that is the universal feeling among those who have known them and been associated with them. There are monsters in human flesh everywhere. There are men in the North who whip their own children to death, even, sir, in the enlightened State that you so ably represent. There are men in the North who kill their own mothers, even in the State which is so honorably represented by the Presiding Officer of this body. There are monsters in the northwestern States who murder their own children. There may be monsters found in the southern States who cruelly treat their slaves; but the cases in one section as in the other are exceptions to the general rule. Mr. President, having made these remarks, much more extended than I anticipated when I arose. for when I came into the Chamber to day I did not know that the subject would be brought up for consideration, I will detain the Senate no longer.