Mr. SPRAGUE. Mr. President, I who in part represent one of the smallest States of the American Union look on with great complacency when I witness Territory after territory formed into States, having the consent of a majority, and with the approbation of all the States here represented; and the Senators who are thus introduced into this body seldom represent 1/2 of the population of the smallest State. My friend, the distinguished Senfrom Indiana, [Mr. HENDRicks,) sel dom rises in his seat except to complain that the 6 NewEngland States, with a population less than either NewYork or Pennsylvania, have a representation here of 12 members, while each of those States has but two. The exact words in the Constitution that compel obedience to this state of things are as follows: “ARTICLE W. No State without its own consent shall be deprived of its equalsuffrage in the Senate.” You complain of this provision when you practice it daily. Would Indiana be a State today if the 13, original States had been governed by the spirit that emanates from the Senator? Certainly not. The 6 NewEng land States joined with the smallest middle State would have kept her a colony and a dependency. Would the great West have resisted? Taught dependence, they would have been less likely; but the power that could triumph over that of GreatBritain might have been able to have sustained themselves against } adversary. he liberality with which the men of the Northeast, and those of the smaller States, have ever treated this subject, fills all fair minded men with profound admiration. These men surrendered political power and prospective wealth to their people to advance the principles of free government, and thus became the founders of the present greatness of the country honor sufficient to satisfy the most extended ambition. What do you gain by enlarging the representation here? No measure can prevail without having the consent of the representatives of the people in the other House. Do you want more than this? Do you ask greater influence? States or sections, as such, have influence here when advocating ideas. There are very few State interests, or the interests of a section, which have real merit; that do not prevail now. Under an enlarged representation would they more than [. ". Would you agree better? I have been here long enough to see that it is confidence in the integrity, in the fairness, in the justice of members that carry measures, not because those members represent small or large States, larger or smaller sections. Would you build up your State upon principles hostile to the justice, to the honesty, to the fairness of your respective measures? Could you succeed better than you now do in advancing measures so based if you had increased representation? I think ine t. Numbers would rightfully confuse your councils. While great States combine to destroy small ones they may live upon terms of amity; but when the division has once been entered into, what next 1.Have we not witnessed but yesterday convulsion and redivision growing out of the very best system of robbery and plunder? Study the causes and effect of the recent conflict in Europe. Did the greater State obtain advantages from its past record of robbery and plunder? Suppose that you of the large States should resolve to violate the compacts of the Constitution, treat with profound illiberality the expansive ideas of the men of the North east, how long would you be content with the advantage you had gained? Having obtained influence you would absorb territory. Thus would be reenacted a coalition, established in injustice, that would be disastrous to those who formed it, equally so toward those who were the subjects of it. Exhausted and beaten by the conflicts you would, after having stayed the wheels of progress and shown your incompetency and your unfitness for the enjoyment of a government based upon justice and the rights of man, gladly resume the status quo of our own time. such has been the history of the grasping ambition of large constituencies when dealing with smaller ones, when the smaller have been forced into giving up ancient privileges. How much more so when those privileges have been the safeguards of your prosperity and your progress. Again,this last step has been taken, before you have inaugurated this war and revolution for it is only by war and through revolution you can ever arrive at the point at which you aim you must have a contest with all the smaller States, with every new State with a small population, and with those of the American people who desire to develop our western wilderness into American States, and with all those who comprehend the greatness of their country and understand the simplest principles upon which that greatness has been established; formidable forces, it must be admitted. I therefore see additional guarantees for the perpetuity of State sovereignty and the peace of the country by increasing the number of States that are to constitute the American Union. I have no fear for the future, because that future has for its leading object the virtue, the independence, and the progress of the mass of the people. A branch of the Government that ji.on to that which is gained for these objects, and does not lose hold of them in a too eager reach after greater progress before the people are educated to enjoy it, will not be inconsiderately treated in the future. You would excite the fears of the smaller States!, Why? The revolution has indeed renewed our ideas. We do believe.; has come o: besides a sacrifice of life an property, and that something else has been developed in the struggle for free principles oyer those that are slave. For this we are told that our natural interests will be warred against; that you will destroy our property through a policy that is destructive to our F.". Our prosperity is identical with that of the country, and when you strike at ours you injure your own, and you strike at country and all that has made that country glorious. If, however, to the contrary, why continue to believe our principles are to be found only in our pockets? Was that charge, so often made be fore the war, proven when the flag of our country, the emblem of freedom, justice, and ros.perity, was dragged in the dust and when the of its defenders covered it? Did those fSataitteos, now the subject of hostile wordy attack "from whence came the 1st sincws of war? From whence came money and property? The lavishness of their gifts was equaled only by the willingness with which they shed their blood. The people of those States will continue to shed their blood, and they will sacrifice their property if the ignorance, the envy, or the ambition of men compel it; and also all the rights they have to a fair recognition of Government ay, Government itself, if it must be so to defend the principles for which our Government was established. We ask nothing for ourselves that may not be enjoyed by others. We demand only oevery man under the Government shall have the rights enjoyed by us. such is our crime. Banish then from these Halls those revolutionary harangues so near akin to those repeated here prior to the revolution. Do not encourage a spirit you do not believe; for while it may furnish food for reflection that is profitable to all, it does not find a response in the heart of any lover of his country, of liberty, or of justice. In a comparative manner I have endeavored to treat the subject of representation in the Senate, and I point to the grand results that have come from that representation. I do not treat of the reasons that induced the actors from the 1st revolution to enact that compact. The advancing power of the nation and of the States sufficiently attest their wisdom, and those of our own time, whose cooperation is recorded, will in the future share in that wisdom. We are now approaching the 2nd step contemplated in.previous remarks made ". me upon the District suffrage bill. By an immortal act of the people the control of the person of one individual by another has ceased forever. No one, I think, is at a loss to understand as to who is an American citizen, And the question is: shall Congress recognize as a State of the Union the Territory of Nebraska, having a constitution that does not recognize a class of American citizens on account of their color. Congress has exclusive control over the territories and the individuals thereof. Congress is therefore bound to exercise jurisdiction over every citizen in a Territory. Congress can constitute every citizen an elector or withhold that privilege; but by the latter act Congress cannot free itself from the responsibility of exercising jurisdiction over him. By recognizing Nebraska as a State, with its present constitution, the Government of the U.S. surrenders, so far as it can, all control of the individual to the State. Thus those individuals that are not recognized by the State lose the protection and control of the Government of the U.S and are not recognized by the government of the State. A class of people are thus deprived of all government. Have these people been guilty of any crime that they should not have that which they would have among Indians on your plains; ay, among the half civilized and barbarous tribes in Africa? In all my reading and experience I have never heard of anyone ever having been born over whom a Government did not have jurisdiction. The men whom it is proposed to exclude from government in Nebraska now have an all powerful Government in the Unioted states. Soon they will be far poorer in this regard than the native Indian or African. Qur civilization, the sympathy or interest of the people of Nebraska may, it is true, protect him, and that which he is entitled to by right may be extended to him in charity. The government of the U.S., being bound to exert its whole power for his protection, surrenders him over to the charities of a people who refuse to recognize him. I doubt the ability or the right of any Government thus to free itself from its responsibilities.