Mr. COWAN. Mr. President, I had not intended to say a word on this subject in defense of the message of the Executive, and I should not do so now had it not been attacked. If it was the design of the majority of the Senate to force this measure to immediate consideration and to an early vote, they should have refrained themselves from attacking the message. however, that was perfectly legitimate. I rise more particularly for the purpose of saying that I differ on tirely with the honorable Senfrom Maine in the expression of that sentiment of his, that the people of this District had nothing to do with this question. I do not know whether I caught his exact words, but I endeavored to get their substance. If that proposition be true, then this whole Government from top to bottom, our institutions all, State and national, are based upon a wrong foundation. What, sir, the people of this District have nothing to do with this question Who else have anything to do with it? What have the people of Maine to do with it? What have the people of Ohio to do with it? What have the people of Pennsylvania to do with it? It is the 1st time in my life that I ever heard the claim set up on the part of an outside people to interfere with the legislation of those who are affected by the legislation. Will any legislation of the mayor and councils of the city of Washington, or any legislation of the municipal authorities of this DistCol affect the people of Maine in any way, or affect the people of any State in any way, or any people outside of the limits of the District? If they are not affected, how comes it that they have a right to regulate the internal affairs of the District here? By what warrant would Pennsylvania undertake to regulate the internal legislation of NewJersey? Would not the answer be obvious at once, “Does this legislation affect you?” By what warrant would the people of NewJersey interfere in the election of officers in Penn. sylvania? Is not the answer there equally obvious: “Are you to be governed by these officers?” Why, Mr. President, it is a fundamental principle in all our institutions, or else I have very much misunderstood them, that it is to the people alone that these questions are to be referred. Yes, but the honorable Senator says we have exclusive legislative power over the DistCol. We have exclusive power of legislation; what for? To tyrannize over the people of the DistCol? To contravene their will, or to carry it out and embody it in our legislation? Which of the two? Was it intended by the founders of this Republic, when they put the District under the guardianship of Congress, the great council of the nation, that the people should be servants; that they should be slaves; that their will should go for naught in the regulation of their municipal affairs? I have always understood that the very reverse was the case; that it was thought, from the magnanimity of this great national council, the DistCol would receive more liberal legislation than if it had a local Legislature of its own. What was the purpose of this grant of exclusive legislation over the DistCol? Was it for the purpose of making this a hunting ground for experimenters? Was it to make it an arena in which all the new fangled notions of modern times could be tried at the expense of the people of the District, disregarding their will and their wishes, their almost unanimous will; or was it to give this Government simply that control over the district which was necessary to enable us to carry on the Government? Can any man furnish a motive why our authority, our tyrannical authority, our arbitrary authority, should extend further than that? If there is a single one I should like to hear it. We have a right to that extent, to enable us to govern the nation well, to control the DistCol; but that gives us no right to disregard the will of the people of the DistCol, and trample upon their wishes, and introduce among them, against their will, an experiment which has never yet been tried upon the continent. To say that the people who are to be affected by the measure ought to have no voice in the question is laying the ax to the very root of the tree of liberty. It is to put the bar at the very foundation of the edifice and to overturn it. The people of the DistCol are a free people, a distinct, separate, independent community, as much so as the people of Maine, or the people of Pennsylvania, or the people of Ohio, with the same rights; and those rights are to be preserved by us, not trampled upon. Now, what is the question? This District is inhabited by 2 different races. Gentlemen say this argument has all been probed to the bottom; it has all been answered. I be leave to say that I think it has not been probe to the bottom; I think the question has never been argued down as into the nature of things as it might be. This is not a question as to the admission of a certain number of citizens to the elective franchise, as it is in England. It is an entirely different question. This District is inhabited by 2 races of people, distinct races. How distinct? So distinct as to prevent anything like social equality. Is not that a fact? If there were no facts before the ComDistCol to show that there was a majority of the people of this District opposed to this measure, I suppose that committee will agree that it is a fact that the distinction of races prevents social equality. I think that cannot be denied. Then a question arises immediately behind that: if the difference between the 2 races brevents social equality, is it not enough to. political equality? Honorable Senators say: “No; we will grant political equality.” You may grant, if you please, a chance to try it; but you cannot grant the equality. That is a thing lying out of your reach; lying within the nature of the races themselves. Pass what laws you please, you cannot make black men white nor white men black, because that is not the subject matter of your legislation. Then I ask what is to be the line which will divide laroties.in this District when the bill of the Senfrom Maine becomes a law? As among us of the same race, the line which divides parties is one of principle. My honorable friend on the other side is a free trader; I am a tariff man. There is a line between us, and which side we take depends upon argument and reason. It is from that fact that the lines between parties depend upon argument and reason, o to be settled by them and them alone, that we have a free Government. I ask what will be the line when the negro votes in the District? I am presuming now that he is just as well oto vote as the white man; that he is just as good, just as wise, just as intelligent as the white man; and I ask what is to be the line between parties when he does vote? Is it to be the line of argument, the line of reason, the line of principle, or is it to be the line of tribal distinctions? Will a man belong to a white party because he believes the white party has the best of the argument, that the principles which the white party advocate are the true principles upon which to govern the District; or will he belong to the white rty:simply because he is white; and will he to the negro party because the negro is right or because he is black? To a wise man, and to a man who is willing to look a little beyond the excitement of the moment and the passion of the hour, is not this inevitable? Then, what is the consequence, supposing it to be so, and no one can deny it? Nobody can anticipate anything else as the result of the bill but that. Then what is the consequence? It is not a question of sharing in the Government; it is a question of which race shall dominate. There are 100,000 whites, and there are 30,000 negroes. Which will dominate? Given that things remain as they are, the whites will predominate. Then what will the negro get by the bill? Of what use is his vote to him? When your party lines depend upon tribal differences of what use is the vote to the weaker? There, Mr. President, we come back exactly to that which every society does at the outstart by its fundamental law. In a case of that kind the whites exclude the blacks from the right of suffrage altogether, and it is right and prudent and proper. I would not quarrel with a black community that would exclude the whites from voting, and why? All that the honorable Senator's bill does is to create this contest for every election, to make it recur year after year, and to exclude from the contest all considerations of principle, of reason, of right, of wrong. His is to invite in the DistCol a contest of races at every election from this time forward. That is the object of it, and that will be the effect of it, and there can be none other. Now, the DistCol, being a free community, just like a State, would, if it could, call a convention to settle this matter settle it just as the States have settled it; “We are the majority; we are the ruling class of the community; we have the power; we can exercise it year after year; but we do not choose to invite that contest; we choose to form a constitution and fix that matter at the outstart by the exclusion of the weaker race from the right of suffrage.” That is right and proper and wise, and anything else would be exceedingly imFprop.er and exceedingly unwise. Mr. President, this being a question, not of sharing the Government, this being a question of dominion, who will have the i. minion? You have 100,000 whites and you have 30,000 negroes, and you have 60,000 or 100,000 negroes standing all around who have no property, who have no ties to any particular spot, who are not engaged in any business which entangles them, perfectly free footed to come into the District within any period of ten days and live here as well as they live where they are. They may attain to the as cendancy in that way; but they do not need to come here in equal numbers with the whites to attain to the ascendancy. 60,000 negroes here in the city, if you suppose there are ten wards, may govern the city without any difficulty. There is no difficulty in withdrawing that kind of population from one ward to another so as to enable them to carry a majority of the city government, although it is a mine irty of votes. The whites do not enjoy these facilities for colonizing and pipe laying. A man who owns large and valuable property in the city cannot pull up stakes and go and live in another ward in order that he may have a controlling vote at an election; but at least niue out of oten of the colored men can. The effect of this bill, then, will be to introduce these contests into the DistCol, wo perpetuate them annually, and to beget a never ending feud. If white men of the same race can become as much embittered against each other as we see that they can when in this society even now, in the society of the best regulated States north, what are you to expect when the vial of this tribal difference is poured in? It is hardly to be supposed that there were not wise men before us as well as there were brave men before Agamemnon. Why has this experiment never been tried heretofore? Gentlemen say it has been tried artially in Massachusetts. Very sparingly in W and very well guarded; very sparingly in NewYork, and very well guarded; very sparingly in Maine, and very well uarded if not sparingly in the words of the aw, sparingly in the number of negroes.