Mr. HILL. Mr. Speaker, the Gentfrom California referred to the progress which has been made by this House on this subject of legislation. I will allude for a moment to a matter perhaps personal to myself. The Gentfrom California remarked that we adrecently passed a law through this House that the P. white” should not appear in any law of any Territory, and that no rights and privileges should be given to the whites not extended equally to the blacks; and he spoke of it as a matter of congratulation that we had made that progress. Well, sir, as that appeals perhaps personally to me in regard to certain votes that I have given in this House, I cheerfully embrace the opportunity to say a word on the subject. When the act regulating suffrage in the DistCol was before the House one year ago I voted against it. I did so for reasons that seemed to me amply sufficient at the time, and I have had no reason to doubt the validity and cogency of those reasons since. At that time matters of the weightiest importance were before this Congress. No rupture then existed between the President and congress; but it was foreseen by many that such a rupture was imminent, and the question was whether it should be precipitated or aggravated, and whether the condition of the country would be more embarassed by shouldering a question of that character at that time than by avoidin it. It seemed to me the part of wisdom. prudence to settle the questions then before the house regarding reconstruction questions of the utmost importance not merely to the States unrepresented but to the country at large. For that reason I voted against the extension of the right of suffrage to the colored people of this District. But that reason has now ceased to exist. A policy has been adopted by congress in regard to reconstruction. We have now time in which to educate the public mind upon this subject, and consequently being more at liberty to exercise and assert the principles more nearly approaching abstract right for it is never practicable to assert it absolutely I voted this year directly contrary to what I voted a year ago; because the reasons that operated then to control my vote do not operate now. So much in explanation of my progress upon this subject. And now, in regard to the measure imme diately before this House. The section that is proposed to be stricken out is a condition sub sequent upon the admission of this State. I am satisfied that a large majority of the House are of opinion that no valid condition can be imposed upon a State seeking admission by act of Congress which would be binding upon the people of the State thereafter. I think that was sufficiently shown yesterday, and I confess to some surprise when I heard gentlemen of high standing as lawyers advance the opinion that conditions might be imposed upon the admission of the State which Congress or the Government would have the power to enforce upon the people of a State after admission. Why, sir, is it to be contended on this floor that when a State is once admitted with its representation here and becomes a part of the family of States it is not to be permitted to regulate its own affairs within its own limits equally with every other State? Is that the equality of States which is recognized upon this floor? Sir, that is not in accordance with our theory of Government; it is in direct violation of all its traditions from its formation down to the present time. The theory which we have always adopted is that when a State is once admitted into the Union it has the same rights as every other State, and no act of Congress in the admission can control the future action of the State. The Ordinance of 1787 was referred to by the Gentfrom Illinois as having been held valid by the Supreme Court, so that no State could ever authorize the existence of slavery after that prohibition. Now, with all deference to the gentleman's opinion, I insist that no case has ever arisen or could arise where that decision could be made. It is a mere obiter dictum. No State formed out of that Territory has ever undertaken to establish slavery; hence any opinion of the Supreme Court would be a mere opinion of good law yers but no decision, and therefore not entitled to any weight as authority in this House, even if any opinion of the Supreme Court,, which I deny, is entitled to weight as binding authority here. The Congress of the U.S. decides questions for itself; the decisions of the Supreme Court are only o upon the parties immediately before it an the judiciary as precedents, and in regard to matters immediately involved in the particular decision made. But the theory of the Government has been that every State in the Union must regulate this matter of suffrage for itself. Massachusetts prohibits those from voting who cannot read. Indiana permits a man to vote who has been a resident of the U.S. one year and a resident of the State 6 months preceding the day of election, and who has declared his intention of becoming a citizen of the U.S. Other States attach other conditions. Now, sir, I insist that in the light of all these facts, of all the practice of the Government from its foundation down the present time, it is impracticable to impose any conditions which shall be valid after the State shall be admitted into the Union. Now, it is proposed to change this condition subsequent to a condition precedent by sendin the whole question back to the Legislature o Nebraska for future actionf which is in fact, in all probability, throwing it beyond the present Congress. It has been desired to have immediate action; it is desirable that this State shall be admitted, and for that reason this House has disregarded its own enabling act, an act passed by the House and by the Senate after solemn consideration, and has passed an act admitting this State notwithstanding it had a provision in its Constitution which the most strenuous advo cates of negro suffrage insist is not in accordance with the principles of the DeclarIndep, while the enabling act required that its constitution should be in accordance with those principles, yet the House passed that act.; it went to the Senate and from that body now comes this bill upon which we are called upon to act. By adopting the amendment of the Gentfrom Massachusetts [Mr. Bottweii] we accomplish nothing. We only require an action of the State Legislature which may be repealed the day after it is enacted, and for that single object it proposes to send the whole matter back to the terri torial Legislature and thus postpone it indef initely, because if it goes over beyond this session of Congress the whole subject drops and must be taken up denovo; if by delay this Congress fails to act the whole matter must be originated anew in the next Congress. Now, I am unwilling to incur the delay that would necessarily result from action of the character proposed by the Gentfrom Massachusetts, when I can discover no prac tical good that would be accomplished. I prefer the bill in the shape in which it originally came from the Senate, not because I think the provision contained in the 3rd section more effective than the amendment proposed, for I have already attempted to show that it has no binding validity whatever, but because by all the proposed action and delay still nothing would be accomplished. Here the hammer fell]