Mr. SUMNER. I was commenting on the statement in the pamphlet, as follows: “The report of the Superintendent of the Mint showsthat Colorado. In a gold producing country is 2ndonly to California. I answored this statement by the finance report, showing the contrary; so that, according to this highest authority, whatever may have been the position of Colorado 5 or 6 ycars ago, during the lost 3 years it has not been the 2nd gold producing region of our country. When the Senator interrupted me, I was giving the figures from the finance report for the year ening June 30, 1864, showing from California $15, 710,000 of gold, from Idaho $2, 306,000, from Oregon $2,162,000, and from Colorado $2, 186,000; so that in 1864 Colorado stood 4th on the list, instead of standing 2nd. Then comes the finance report for the year ending June 30, 1865, where it spears that California produced $13,332,000 O gold Idaho $4, 971,000, Montana $1,767,000, an Colorado $1 622,000; so that during this last your Colorado was again 4th on the list, instead of being the 2nd. For the years 1861, 1862, 1863, and 1864, Colorado, according to this testimony, produced over 2 millions annually, but in 1 65 it produced considerably less than 2 millions; less in 1864 than in 1863; less in 1862 than 1861. Therefore, sir, according to this unanswemble evidence, you find that her mineral wealth has been failing, and that this Territory has been less productive than it was at the beginning. Sir, there is another illustration which goes to show how this Territory has been falling off. I refer to the postoffice. I need not. remind you that there is no part. of our system which quickens, increases, and expands with time more than the Post officc. There is no person who does not write more letters this year than he wrote the year before. So with all families. The interchanges of affection and of business grows naturall rather than diminishes. If you find, there ore, that there is a falling off in the Postoffice, it is because the population there has essentially failed, showing there is not the same need of a postoffice that there was before. In this respect the fall has not been great, but it has been enough to indicate a retrogression. It shows what I have been aiming to exhibit from the beginning, that this Territory has been oin backward. According to the report of 5m PostMGenl for the year ending June 30, 1863, there was received from letters in this Territory $1, 440, from papers $993, from the sale of stamps $14, 263, makingasum total of $16, 697 received by the postoffice from this Territory. For the year ending June 30, 1864, on had from letters $1, 185, a fewer number O letters than the year before; you had from apers $674, a fewer number of papers than the year before; and you had from the sale of stamps $12, 953, being a sum total of $14, 812, showing a decrease in one year of $1, 685. To my mind this is a painful revelation, and it speaks volumes. Thus, sir, oes it appear from this somewhat minute survey that this Territory has gone back ward in population, in agriculture, in minin, and in the ost officc. at this is not all; this is not its only retrogression; there has been a worse retrogression than any in population or agriculture or the postoffice. the rehas been a retrogression in republican principle. The Territory began by a recognition of human rights. As it proceeded here also was another retrogression, and it denied what it began by recognizing. Like Peter, it denied its Lor. I add, therefore, to this exhibition of the failure of this Territory, its failure in republican principles, and this I shall proceed to show in the authority of the present governor of the Territory in his message communicated to the Legislature of the Territory under date of January 23, 1866. By this message it appears that the original organic not the Territory provided that t 10 qualificactrieoantinog voters should be “ such as shall be reseribed by the Legislative Assembly.” under the authority thus conferred, the Legislative Assembly at its 1st session passed a law regulating elections, which was approved November 6, 1861, providing that Every male personof the eof 21 years or upward who shall have resi ed in the Territory for 3 months next preceding any election shall be deemed a qualified voter at such election.” Here is no discrimination of color. This was the way this Territory began in 1861; but as it proceeded, the same failure which showed itself in other respects showed itself in its devotion to the principle embodied in this legislation, until at last the Legislative Assembly at its session of1864, by an act approved March 11, 1864, declared that no person bein a negro or mulatto should be a voter. The language of the statute was Every male citizen of the age of 21 ycars or upward. no!bema a negro or mulatto, shall be deemed a qualified voter." Here, by espressed language, open and bare faced negroes and mulattoes were put under the ban. A caste was established. A discrimination, odious, offensive, and unchristian was organized in the statutes of the Territory. Sir, consider, that when this act was passed. in March, 1864, the country was still struggling in that terrible war involving the great question of justice to the colored race. At that moment this distant community, already aspiring to be a State in the Union, undertook to put its feet upon the colored race that had egan to gather under its jurisdiction. We are told they are few in number, perhaps 100; but out of that 100 there are some 70 who prom tly went forth as soldiers to do battle for your dog; but when they returned to their homes the found that the franchise that they had alrea y enjoyed was taken from them; that they who had eriled life for to save the Republic and to aid it in establishin the rights of all, when they once more found themselves at their own firesides were despoiled of their own. Sir, am I wrong when I say that here was a retrogression in republican principles; that here was a departure from those ndamental truths which are essential to our Government. It was, I say, a departure and ret progression because this community had be unright. It began by recognizing these trut s; but as if blasted by some evil genius, the same failure that attended it in population, in agriculture, in mining, and in other respects, seemed to dese end upon its moral sense.