Mr. EDM unDS. Mr. President, as I feel constrained to vote against this reconsideration, and as the reasons which impel me to that course are somewhat different in degree, if not inlcind, from those which have been advanced by other Senators upon this floor, I beg the indulgence of the Senate for a very few moments while I state them. The principal objection which induces me to oppose the a mission of this Territory at this time, and to oppose it in spite of the personal respect and esteem which I feel for the disfinguished gentlemen who would otherwise represent her in this bod, is found in the nature of the constitution itself which she has presented, rather than in the irregularity with which it has been adopted or in the want of a sufficient population to entitle her to admission; and I presume that nobody will suppose thatimisre present Vermont on this question when I say that it grows out of this much discussed word, “white.” In my own State from its foundation, when it was an independent State for many years, not a member of the Union, its constitution from the beginning to this day has adhered to what I understand to be the principles of the Declaration ofIudependence thoroughly. It has tolerated no distinctions between human rights of one race and another, or of one color and another, or of one sect and another. While my State, as all other States do, recognizes distinctions among men, while it acknowledges the paramount right and the paramount duty of a majority of the whole people to determine what are the true qualifications of electors, it discards the dogma of delusion and of wron which declares that these qualifications an distinctions are to rest 11 on unreal and accidental foundations. Its laws always have, as the laws of all States do, provided that luna tics, noncompetes, criminals, and a variety of classes of persons upon whom the law under similar circumstances operates equally every where, are not. entitled to exercise a voice in the government of the State. Now, sir, in the case we have before us, in dependent of the question what are State rights, in ependent of the propriety of anything in the constitution of any State which already exists, we are called upon, in the exercise of a constitutional power, to decide as a matter of propriety for which we are responsible, what is fit and necessary to be contained in the constitution of aState which we are about to admit. We have entire power over the subject. It appeals to our sense of justice and to our duty to the country. It appeals to that sense of jus tics and to that duty in the lessons we have derived from the past and the hopes which we have for the future. I amnot to be told, for one, that the rejection of a constitution because it imposes the qualification of coloru on its elect ors is a thing that has never been one before. As the honorable Senfrom Massachusetts said the other day, when is the time to begin if it is not now? In all receding time the condition of the country, the rights of States, the situation of the people were different. We have reached the on minating point where the bitter fruits of errors of years ago have been reaped in a large degree, and where now, tuming our faces once more toward the arts of ace and the hopes of prosperity and of equal lty, and fraternity too, I should hope, we nreto begin a new era. There is, therefore, eminent fitness according. to the spirit of the times, there is great appropriateness that now when we have the 1st opportunity after what has ppnssed we should put ourselves right upon the damental principles of government; and accordingly there have been in this spirit introduced already in these enabling acts qualifications and requirements which were neverintroduced before. i to my recollection, to insert in these enabling acts that “ the constitution when formed shall be republican and not repugnant to the Constitution of the U.S and the principles of the DeclarIndep.” T rat ancient charter of our liberties has a sin been reierredzto, and among its principgs I It has not been usual, accordi believe is the cardinal one, which has been stated by the Senfrom Massachusetts, of the equality of man, and that further principle which has been stated by him, which that instrument emphatically declares, that the oblition and the right of those who govern is dZrived from those who are governed. Now, there is offered to us a constitution which contains in it the fundamental declaration that the obligation to obey law, the power of those who are to exercise law, does not de pend upon the consent of some portion of the governed at all; but that by reason of the accident of the color of a mans skin or of his race, of origin, independent of colon because I take it the word “ white” in this constitution means white as a race distinguished from the negro race a portion of the people are to be excluded from articipation in the government. We are calledp upon under this constitution, I say, to declare, if we approve it and submit it to this people, that a.provision, fundamental in its nature, in this constitution of that description is correct. I cannot consent to the doctrine. If I rightly understand the theory of the formation of government, it is that constitutions are formed (aside from the mere frame work and machinery of government) for the protection of private rights and the fundamental rights of minorities and individuals against the powers of majorities, against the exercise of arbitrary power or of tyranny on the part of the Government. Now, sir, what is there so sacred, what is there so fundamental in the right of the white men to rule the black, that the white men cannot be trusted with the power of wielding it by amajority? What is here in the nature of this question which makes it our duty to say to the people of Colorado, “ We will not trust a majority of your voters to repeal the clause, but we wrll allow you to put it in your fundamental law so that the free will of your majority can never get it out?” I fail to see what there is so sacred in this right of white suffrage and in the duty of the absence of suffrage on the part of the black man, as to require it to be inserted in the fundamental law of the Government. You will find, sir, and Senators will find, that this constitution contains the usual clause that 2/3rds of the Legislature are requisite to amend it in any Frticular. It is not, therefore, as I said before, the question whether it is right or fit that a State should decide for itself who or what portion of its citizens should vote, but it is the fundamental question whether we will allow a Territory over which we have control to impose upon itself an obligation which it cannot rse e e from, to exclude from any of the political rights of government any class of its citizens. but is the question. I do not know but that if this were left, as the original enabling act left it, to the people of that Territory to declare of themse ves when and under what circumstances the colored race should be clothed with political rights, I should not be satisfied. I should then have preferred indeed that we should have some vorce in the matter; but I fail to perceive how we can be appealed to to give to these people a constitution which ties up their own and s from doing what every one of my political brethren says is an act of justice. What is there so sacred in this thing that this same constitution does not require the Legislature, by 2/3rds of its members, to allow any other class of citizens to vote? Is it not the subject of ordinary legislation to de clare who shall vote and under what circumstances? and if so, wlr is it necessary to insert in a constitution which cannot be controlled by a majority of white men, that the mere accident of race or color shall be a fundamental objection to any allowance on the part of the whites to the blacks of the right to vote? Mr. President, it a pears to me, without eu larging upon this topic, that the aristocracy of class, the aristocracy of caste, is as bad as the aristocracy of kings. It is the some evil, antidemocratic spirit precisely as that which ani mates the aristocraoics that govern the monarchies of the Old World, only the form of the aristocracy is developed in a different way. For myself, I am a Democrat in the thorough sense of the term, as I understand it. I believe in the political equality of all men. I believe in the sacredness of the private rights of all men and yetI am asked asa political friend of these gentlemen, as one having an ardent political desire that my party as it Represents, as we suppose, the ho wasof the wow try, should succeed I am ased to deny my principles in order to achieve a temporary ant. cess. Sir, I cannot deny, I cannot turn my back to thoseprinciples which are cardinal and essential for tesa c of any temporary success. A success of that description, in my judgment, is one not worth winning upon mere grounds of policy. It is one which no man who is convinced as I am of the cardinal error in this constitution can possibly be influenced by. But where is the arrln, Mr. President, tlo at it upon mere groun s o tempera po iby? Are not these people still in the rTerritory? Can we not send this constitution back to them and say, “Try your hand at it again; reconsider your reconsideration once more; see if you cannot trust yourselves by a majority to declare whether you will allow negroes to vote or not? Have you not confidence enough in yourselves to leave it out of your constitution and not to tie yourselves u for evermore to a principle of this description?" and then, on the 1st Monday of December, if a majority of that people are still desirous of being represented in this body, can they not present themselves to us with a constitution to which no objection can be made, which sets no bad precedent in morals er in fundamental right that will come to plague us by and by when we apply necessary legislation to other portions of the country? and will these people have been harmed? The tyranny of taxation without representation, if it be a tyranny, will not then have lasted long. I see no difficulty in that course, and Without occupying the time of the Senate in dilating upon these questions, I say therefore it is that I feel cour elled for one, representing in part, as I do, a State whose sentiments on that subject have never been mistaken; I feel compelled, against in sense of what I should desire to do person al y for the respectable gentlemen who come here; in spite of my wishes to accede to the desires of that young and growing population, I feel compelled by a sense of duty which cannot be put aside by temporary considerations to vote against this reconsideration.