Mr. MCDOUGALL. I do not intend to occupy the time of the Senate by any extended remarks, for it is late in the evening; but I desire to say, that it may be understood, and may be understood to have been remarked by me, that I regard this as an opening measure, not of so much consequence as a fact in itself, but for that which it portends. It is the forerunner of a struggle which has yet to come on and be maintained on one side and on the other among the Opinions of the people of this country, whose and business it is from the citizen u to govern and rule; and I call the citizens the rest governors, and those who exert power simply their representatives. The bill itself is unconstitution al, in my judgment. I have said sufficient upon that subject. If constitution al, it is unwise; and 10,000 things might be said to show its utter want of wisdom. It exhibits itself to my minds eye as simply the result of a cat love to express power, having it in immediate possession, without any regard to its ultimate consequences. It is making an extra specialty out oi a subject in matter that I thought might have been removed by this time from the consideration of the Senate and HoRep and the executive Dept of the U.S., and left to local administration and to the judiciary. Since the time I 1st had the honor to occupy a place in congressional halls (and that is a great many years ago) this same subject, or some of its adjuncts, has occupied all the time of legislation, or nearly all the time. It has been hardly possible to have any great question of policy heard or considered either in the Senate or HoRep of the U.S. No matter how grave the questions resting upon us, all except the appropriation ill ha to give way to this mama t. at has seemed to evade a party as well as individuals. A single question was asked by one of the wise of England: may not communities be insane? who was thus interrogated inquired in his own thought and considered the question, and was not able to give a good response; but the wise bishop) said, “If history writes true, communities can be insane;" and so I say parties may be insane; and on this particular subject, if there can be any deduction from past history and the laws that govern States, the laws that govern peoples, from the family up into nations, all this proceeding has been right against the course and law of nature and all past human experience. Those who call themselves the Moseses and the leaders of the African race in this country, if they could be interpreted well, not by their intentions, but by what will be the necessary results of their action, would seem to have leagued together to be their worst enemies. This legislation special for the negro race against those who owned all these broad lands, in favor of them as against our own people, the white men who labor, the effort to make a privileged class of what are called the freedman, must really tend to their destruction. It will be worse for them than the policy we have pursued as against the Indian tribes has been to the red man. Within my own experience I have seen a tribe of 25,000 dwindle to 250, and I suppose there are not 5 of them left today. This has been the result of the oppression and the advance of the white man; but worse than the Oppression and the advance of the white man upon the Indian is this legislation, which seeks to elevate the negro, but only lifts him u that he may fall so profoundly that he will sin into the nether depths. I claim for in self to be as true a friend of the people of African descent or of mingled blood as an man upon this floorI think a better friend than the gentlemen from NewEngland who know nothing of them. I would protect them not by overlegislating. Let them now that they have the shield of the constitution and the laws of Congress, if you please, all of them in their favor to protect them. It is protection by law that makes a free man or a freedman.al the boy of 20 has is protection, and all our wives and daughters have is protection. They do not make laws. Government establishes rules, and it has always been considered that the wisest element should be brought into government; and those who have written and thought about it from Plato down have always said that the wisest clement should be brought into public affairs for the purof securing good government. ow, the only proper condition of the freedman is that he shall e subject to government, the some government that controls me, the same government that controls every Senator and every white man in the U.S.; and to that government he is bound to yield propersupport. There were a great many men in the ancient times, and in what were called republics, who could not cast their votes at elections, and had nothing immediately to do with the affairs of Government. I remember but one republic throughout all history where the people met together; and not all the people then. but only a class. When the wild democracy of Athens met and cast their votes, all of them did not vote. Government, it has always been supposed, should be in the hands of the best and the wisest. It is thenght by good thinkers that since the time of our fathers, when all the people probably were fit to be citizens, we have become greatly demoralized by introducing improper elements to act upon the laws in the coal and State governments as well as in the Federal Government; and the question has often been asked, are we not getting almost as unfit for free government as those in France, who undertook to maintain a free Government among the French people? No one pretends that e negro population have the education or the information that belongs to the white race. They have not had the opportunity, to say nothing of their possibilities, of which I may take occasion to speak hereafter. Every thin that is proposed to be done is inviting them to ink that they are not only quite as good as, buts. little better than, we wild: whom they have commingled, or with whom they have lived, belonging to the white races. It is exhibit in itself everywhere in demonstration. All these things tend in the same way. Now the issue has come. If we are to allow an inferior population to engage in the highest office of the Government, debasing further the standard of the metal which is debased enough already, God knows, let us understand the issue. I know, for one, that nothing but red and white blood courses through my veins. I believe in the Pelasgians, who drove the Egyptians out of Greece, and the Hyperboreans, who became the demigods of that same country, from whom Theseus and Hercules are supposed to have descended, whitehaired, eat, godlike looking men. I believe something in that Scandinavian race that came from the frozen North, swept the shores of Europe, and settled themselves on the most beautiful islands of the cat sea. I believe somethinging the Saxon an the Celt. But the Numidian, proud and noble as he is said to have been, and the Corthanian, not of northern, but of high eastern blood, went down, and so did India, and so did the East, and so did Italy, even before the northern barbarians. There is a law of force and there is a law of truth. Who that calls himself of the old Norse ancestry would dare bow himself before those who come up out of central Africa, and acknowledge them as having to do with government? What, sir, they to government! God forefend Mr. President, we might as well meet this question now, because it is proposed at the present time that this district of country in which our capital is located shall be governed by the African. Under the legislation now proposed, on may in a short time see the people who inhabit the city of Washington and the Sens&Reps of the people of the U.S. the subjects of those who have come out of slavery within perhaps 2 or 3 years, but who are now to enjoy the elective franchise and carry on government in the DistCol. The other House, I understand, has already passed a bill with that view, carrying out the idea of making an inferior race a governing power in this republic, thus do priving us of the very clement out of which weal grow, the soil out of which we are able to produce advised persons, informed men, citizens of a republic claiming to be able to exercise that big lest power, to govern ourselves through the voice of the peep e. We are the only people that ever achieved success in this. Our motto should be improvement and not demoralization. All these things tend to demoralization, and it may as well be understood now, that never while I am able to express myself either by word or action, will I commit the great legacy of our fathers, our constitution, our system of government, to any who are inferior to the properly understood white races. This bill undertakes to make the negro in some respects their an, as I have said, and gives them favors that the poor white boy in the North cannot get; gives them favors which we never offered to the Indian, whom I hold to be a nobler and far superior race. It makes us their voluntary guard to see, in the 1st place, that they have the opportunity to work, and then their guardians to see that the get paid and that they are taken care of, and we are to take care of them ourselves. I never had anybody to do that for me, even when I was quite a young lad; and from that time until now it has been my office to protect myself to earn what I could for my own support. This bill confers on the negro race favors that have not been extended to man on this floor within my own personal knowe e. say these things because I desire Senators to give their attention to the whole subject which they have now of upon their shoulders. Hercules multiplied by the majority of the Senate could not carry these propositions and this policy through to any considerable or to ion, whether he comes from the North or the vast, or elsewhere. I understand, at the same time, that we have to maintain our individuality as a race, and we have to employ this inferior race in their properplace. According to the views of many, we should be better off if they did not inhabit any part of this land, better off, if the idea could be realized, if they were placed anywhere elsewhere they might not come in contact with the progress of white civilization. They cannot aid it; they cannot promote it. The African has ability in a certain way. If he is a genuine African, he is strong of body; like the Indian, quick of sight; like the mon keyI speak not offensivelyhe has great imitative powers; like birds, he is fond of music; he can be an orator by his command of language, and he can imitate the best orators. I 5 seen in the sacred desk what were called eloquent clergymen, full Africans. They are capable of discoursing what would be called more eloquently than can be discoursed by any gentleman whom I now see on this floor, myself of course included. The finest musician I ever heard in a wild way I think was an old negro who was called General Jackson, when I was a boy. They understand music, and therefore they are able to understand some of the arts. But as a race you can give me no illustration, from Fred. Douglass all the way the category, of through a single individual of them who is or was a grave, careful, considerate, and high reasoning man. None of them ever gave a thought to philosophy; none of them ever studied, beyond the mere matter of management, an thin about government; none of them have achieve success in an field where belongs high intellectuality. These are things that I affirm and dare affirm, because no part of history furnishes any contradiction to what I say. Some gentlemen who do not know much about these things think they are mere matters of party question to be resolved by a caucus; and liere let me say that until recently such things as caucuses by the majority for the purpose of carrying measures have not been known to the Fedora Congress. The system is the growth of the last and the present Administration, in this House at least, and I suppose in the other House also. Now we do not come here to deliberate carefully, to counsel each other as to what is best to be done for the Republic, but we come here to organize into cliques, to get men committed to a majority to pass things without consultation with others, thinking that the opposition to the majority may not have a s ark of wisdom. They have forgotten a little that text which I think was delivered by King Solomon, and he intended it for just such an occasion as this: “Iron sharpened iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend, ” and so it. may be said that a man sharpeneth the countenance of his adversary, intellectually. It is very possible for me to be instructed by anyone of the gentlemen on this floor. I was once instructs by a man who did not. know how to read or write. The system ofreducm the action of the Senate to that which IS agree upon by party caucuses is a thing I say unknown until the period of the last and the present administration, within my knowledge of public affairs. Heretofore men in these high places would counsel with each other and talk with each other, but that it should be resolved that on all public measures the majority should act to get or is a new thing in the Federal Congress.