Mr. POMEROY. The reasons that seem to have influenced the Senfrom Iowa do not operate upon me. We ought to bear in mind that the nds have been in market for along time, and no foreigner coming to this country is going to be attracted to the southern States that have been in rebellion on account of the public lands. If foreigners are attracted there, it is for otherreasons. The of there, if the go at all, to take possession of abandon lioniesteads or of large homesteads that are being cut up, where the Government has no title, where the Government parted With its title many years ago. “What I claim as an excellence of this bill, if it has any excellcucies, is that there are about 3 million people in those States who never have had access to the public lands, and this bill will devote the tem nant of poor lands left there to them. 1st and foremost; and I think it is our duty to do so ratherthnn to open them up to all Europe. We are under greater obligations and there is a higher sense of duty resting upon us to provide for the landless of our own country rather than to have the nationalities of Europe entering into competition with those poor men who have been 10 alto us and yet whom we have never allowedy to have a foot of land. The object of this bill is to save the lands for this class of our people, who have become our fellow citizens, an now must have a footing in the soil; and the only way the can et it is to secure it to them upon the public lands in these States. The white men who own the large farms there are not going to sell them to the colored men, and for another reason, the colored men cannot buy them; they have been stripped of everything. True, thank God! they are free; but they have nothing but their hands to rely upon for support, an they want land. The object of this hi 1 is to let them have the land in preference to people from Europe or anybody else. 1 hope tie amendment will not prevail, but that we shall pass the bill as the HoRep passed it in this respect.