Mr. WADE. So anxious am I that this State should be admitted and that Colorado should also be admitted that I am willing, if it will produce harmony here, so that we can carry both measures and all unite upon the same ground, which would be an excellent thing for ourselves, to agree to the proposed condition if we can do it constitutionally. have grave scruples in regard to it; I think it would not be binding upon the State. That is my judgment, but as the Senator says, if it should be otherwise, the provision can do no harm, and every gentleman who believes it to be constitutional may vote for it. If it is an error at all, I admit it is in the right direction; and although as I have said, it is a bare abstraction, nevertheless if Senators believe it is constitutional, or if they believe that is so doubtful a point that it ought to receive the sanction of the courts to determine it, certainly I have no objection to their voting for the amendment. I want these States in. I have argued all the time that I do not care anything about this word “white” as applied to these States, because in my judgment it has no effect; not because the word “white” may not be a materiality and of great consequence in some connections, but in this connection where it stands it will harm a hair of no man’s head. The Senfrom Vermont mistook me when he supposed I was going to argue in the abstract that it was wrong to admit colored persons to vote; I gave no such intimation. I wish it might be so that they could vote everywhere; and I wish the Senator would remember my argument, good or bad. My argument was, that the very result which he seeks to of about, as all of us do, is so certain that it will be brought about sooner by admitting the State than by not admitting her. We have the pledge of the influential gentlemen here and of all the principal men of that Territory, who are all for it, that it will be brought about sooner, this abstraction will be rectified sooner by permit ting the State to come in than by thrusting it out; and I do not like to do a vain thing. argued before as I am compelled to argue now that it was a vain and idle thing to do it, be. cause the State, the moment she was in the Union, if she saw fit, could call a convention, rectify her constitution, and exclude this provision. That is the way I looked at it. Some Senators seem to think that is not the case. If it is not the case and we have full and plen ary jurisdiction over the subject, and can put into this constitution a provision that will admit its members and bind the people there to a principle that is right in itself, certainly I can have no objection to it not the least in the world. Let them in. I know they never will thrust it out if you put it in; I am satisfied of that. I have argued to you that they themselves will put it in, and surely they will not thrust it out if you put it in. They are ready to take it. If we can do it, let us do it; and let us all combine, unite, and place in there a provision that will admit the members upon the floor and still leave it to the people, as I think they will have the power if they dis. like it to put it out. I have stated to you my belief, founded upon as large an inquiry on the subject as I could make, that the people there are as anxious to have it in their constitution as you are; and it was not a matter of deliberation with that people that this word “white” was placed in their constitution. It is a form that is copied in copying one constitution from another. They found it everywhere they went. They put a copyist to work, and when he took up the constitution of Nevada, of Iowa, of Oregon, of my own State, of Illinois, of Indiana, or any other western State as a precedent from which to write the principal articles of the constitution, he copied that in, just as a clerk copies technical phrases into a deed when he is following a precedent. That is the way it was inserted. It was not a matter of deliberation, as I understand, among those people. It is in there; it will have no effect; i. if you can get rid of it by putting in a condition that there shall be no discrimination in the franchise on account of color, very well. There are some words that seem harsh in that amendment, and I would recommend that they be modified. They might be offensive to the people of Nebraska, and it would have a better effect without them. I would recommend if that amendment is to be adopted, instead of putting such strong penalties into their constitution, it be provided simply that it shall be a fundamental principle in their constitution that they shall make no discrimination on account of color or race in regard to the elective franchise, or something like that. I would rather it should be so. It would be more palatable to them, and just as effectual, in my judgment.