Mr. CLARK. So I supposed; for I think it would be in opposition to all his utterances and his whole life. The black man has just as much right to his vote as the white man has to his; and it is no more a gift or been in the one case than in the other; and the white man has no more authority to confer or withhold it than the black man; and the black man of this city has just as good a right to vote that the white man shall not exercise the elective franchise here as the white man has that the black man shall not. Neither has the right to control or restrict the other; and the question comes to Congress to determine what is right, what is proper, and what is the best thing to be done. I maintain that the black man" has just as good a right to his life and liberty as the white, man has to his; and that, if suffrage is necessary to protect that life and libertymr for other purposes, it isjust as much the right of the black man as it would be of the white man in similar circumstances. It is an individual right, to be egulated and limited for the good of the State; butthese limitations should applyto all classes land be clearly for the public good. It should never be needlessly violated or withheld. I do not assent, Mr. President, to a distinction sometimes made that suffrage is a privilege, n the sense of a thing permitted to e done, and not a right. I contend it is a right. If it. s a privilege, who confers the privilege? The government, it is answered. hence does the Government derive the power to confer the privilege? Wh, from the people surelyno, where else. 1 en this is a statement of the case: the people confer on the Government the power or privilege to confer on the people the power or privilege of voting; which is as sensible as it would 1lie for you to give me a dollar, which I had previously given you for that purpose, and calFit charity. Sir, government, accordingto the DeclarIndep, derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. This implies that the governed may of right, not of privilege, give or withhold that assent. How do the governed do this? Why, by their votes, not otherwise, and thus the governed have the right to give or withhold their votes. It is their right, and not a privilege conferred.