Mr. GRIMES. Mr. President, that there may be no misunderstanding among the very few people who may feel an interest in the manner in which I shall vote on the various propositions now under consideration in the Senate, I desire to say a single word. I shall vote with great pleasure for the amendment proposed by the Senfrom missouri, now abseut, and if that shall be adopted, although I have many doubts as to whether there be a sufficient number of people in the Territory of Nebraska to entitle her to a representation in Congress, yet I shall forego those doubts and vote for the passage of the bill. If that amendment be not adopted, I, like the Senfrom Massachusetts, shall not vote for the bill even with the amendment of the Senfrom Vermont. I apprehend, Mr. president, that that amendment of the Senfrom Vermont will amount to nothing. It is a mere declaration on the part of Congress, and a declaration, I apprehend, which Congress has no more right to make than it has to make an entirely new constitution for the State of Nebraska. At any rate, its friends the Senfrom Vermont himself as well as the chairman of the ComTerritor, who believes it is illegal and unconstitutional, and made an argument to the Senate to prove it to be so admit that in any event it is a legal question that must be carried before the judicial tribunals to be settled, and therefore we abandon the power which confessedly we have to put this question entirely beyond a doubt, by adopting that amendment and letting it go finally to the SCOTUS, which has recently rendered some decisions that I apprehend a majority of this body do not approve. Mr. President, it is said I think it has been said here today, I have certainly heard it in the conversation that propositions of this kind have been submitted to other States when they have been admitted into the Union; but in every such instance there has been an ordinance of the State admitted agreeing to the terms fixed by Congress, upon which they were admitted. I agree that whenever the State of Nebraska shall have agreed to this condition it will be binding upon the State of Nebraska. But what assurance have we that Nebraska will do that? Are we willing to sacrifice the principle that we have established, and for which we contended yesterday, by passing a bill over the President's veto; are we willing, upon a mere matter of expediency, to abandon that principle which our constituents hold so dear, when it is in doubt whether or not the people of Nebraska will ratify this condition? s there any such great pressing public necessity, any such great exigency resting upon us today that Nebraska should be admitted into the Union, as will justify us in giving a vote here which will be in future like Banquo's ghost, that “will not down.” Mr. President, there is not any doubt as to our power to legislate in regard to the DistCol, and we have exercised that power. There is not any doubt as to our power to control the constitution of the State of Nebraska and to determine the manner and form in which the constitution shall be presented to us. There is some doubt in the minds of a great many men as to our power to control the subject in some of the States that have lately been in rebellion. It may be that before we adjourn we shall deem it to be important and necessary that we shall undertake to exercise that power in those States about which a doubt is entertained and expressed by a great many good and wise men; and are we going to foreclose our selves today by saying that we will not under take to control this question in a State where confessedly we have the power? I appeal to Senators here to decide whether they believe there is any such a necessity, any such demand on the part of the people of this Territory, for immediate admission as to require such action on our part? Do their interests imperatively demand it 7 Is there a sufficiency of population to require it? Do we need the votes of the men from Nebraska in the Senate and in tohe Hlou.se sufficiently to justify us to sustain our and to strain the precedents that have been set heretofore in regard to this question? For my own part, having as a matter of principle voted the other day for the right of free suffrage in the DistCol, and having voted for it again over the presidential veto yesterday, I am not today to be hurried by a consideration of expediency to ignore and turn my back upon that vote and to say that I was wrong then.