Mr. SAULSBURY. I tried, Mr. President, to reconcile myself to vote for the amendment offered by the honorable Senfrom Pennsylvania with a view of benefiting the condition of the people of this District. believe that upon the passage of this bill this active, never satisfied abolition element of the country will put itself to work to flood this District with as many free negroes as possible, so as to get control of the District, elect its mayor, its common council, and have at least one free negro government in the American Union; and although I am not in favor of female suffrage for reasons which have been so well stated by others who have spoken on the subject, yet with a view to delay as far as possible such a catastrophe as that I tried to bring my mind to the conclusion to vote for it. But, sir, to vote for it would have been to vote to confer the right of suffrage upon negro women as well as upon white women, and under no circumstances here, in my own State, or wherever upon this continent I may be located, will I vote for negro suffrage under any circumstances. It is but the be ginning of forcing negro suffrage everywhere throughout this country. This bill, in the language of the Senfrom Kansas, [Mr. Pomeroy,) is to be a model to be copied through: out the States, and we have his assurance at least throughout the Northwest it is to be followed. Neither, sir, can I vote for the proposition of the honorable Senfrom Connecticut. What is the test? A person who can read and write. Is it his name, or only read and write? [“His name.”] Read and write his name; a wonderful amount of education to qualify a man for the discharge of the high office and trust of voting ! Great knowledge of the system of government under which we live does this impart to the voter! But, sir, in voting for that I also vote for negro suffrage to some extent. I have no more prejudice against this race than gentlemen who assume to be their warmest friends. I know them much better than they do. I have received many more acts of kindness from some of them than they have, and I have extended to them many more acts of kindness than they have. If I know my own heart today, the early recollections of childhood and the experience of my life would teach me that wherever it was in my power to extend to them an act of kindness to do it. Born in their midst, with them as my play mates in childhood, with them as members of my own father's household, I have no unkindness for them; and today their true friends are not to be found among that class of men I will not say who are to be found in this Cham ber, but who are to be found in this country who clamor for their equality of rights. But, sir, when their true friends are to be found among those who have known them, who have been taught from early infancy and throughout all their lives to treat them with that kindness with which an inferior race ought to be treated by a superior race. Sir, it has been stated during this debate and if it had not been for the introduction of this amendment perhaps I should not have said a word even upon the final passage of the bill that the adoption of this measure was a duty the Congress of the U.S. owed the nation, and it was to be done for the benefit and for the example of the nation. Sir, I thought that the object governing the framers of the Constitution in giving exclusive legislative power over the District to the congress of the U.S. was not to legislate for the people of the whole U.S., but to oil. for the people of the DistCol. It gave this exclusive jurisdiction over the ten miles square because the capital being located here and the public property being located here, it was necessary and proper that Congress should have the control of the District so as to preserve and protect the capital of the country; but so far as legislation to govern the people was concerned it was designed to relate simply and solely to the people of the DistCol. i. was not for of setting up a model government to imitated by States, no more than it was to set up a model government to be imitated by all the nations of the earth. adnow, sir, I appeal to the honest heart of every Senator here, if it be true, as I suppose it is true, that the Congress of the ti U.S. sustains the same relation to the people of this District as the Legislature of a State does to the people of a State, and if in the States from which you come, Senators, there was such a large proportion of the whole people opposed to conferring the right of suffrage upon the negroes in your midst, would you, in defiance of that strong popular sentiment and will, confer the suffrage upon the negroes in your own State? I ask the Senators from Maine, I ask the senators from Kansas, and other Senators who have spoken on this subject in advocacy of this bill, this question were to be submitted to your own people, whether the suffrage should be conferred upon the negro race in your midst and there was such a majority of the white people of your State opposed to it as there is in the DistCol opposed to it; that is, if the opposition to it was as great in proportion to the numbers in your States as it is here, would you vote for it? Gentlemen, you would not unless you in tended to make political martyrs of yourselves. Now, you being the Legislature of the DistCol, and the people of this city having by a vote of between 6, and 7,000against 35 asked you not to pass this act, and the other portions of the District being unanimously opposed, will you do it? You would not do it if you were legislating for the people of your own States. You are now acting as the Legislature of the DistCol. Then you are not governed in your action by a desire to conform to the will of the people for whom you act, but by a desire to show here an example of free negro government so that that example may be imitated in other sections of the country, and you hope that from this center will go forth such an influence as to cause the people in the different States of the Union to follow your example. Mr. President, be not mistaken. I know it has been said that the people of the southern States will follow this example. It has been said in other quarters that unless they do they shall have no part or lot in the Federal Union, but that they shall be reduced to a territorial condition and shall be no longer States of this Union. Sir, there is nothing that stings a proud and noble spirit so much as dishonor, and I trust in God there is not a son of a southern State who will so debase and degrade himself as to accept of representation in either House of Congress upon such degrading and dishonorable terms. What, sir, gallant, proud, and noble States of the American Union to be asked to follow your example, and to admit to participation in the legislation of their States a numerous class of persons, wholly unfit, wholly incapable of exercising any of the offices, powers, or functions of Government! Never, sir, never. You have no right to impose such conditions and they would degrade themselves, if they accepted them. But, sir, during the progress of this discussion the merits of this bill have been placed upon higher grounds, or what are supposed to be higher grounds. It has been put, on the ground of the equality of the races in the sight of God and of man, and we were told by the honorable Senfrom Maine, [Mr. MoRRILL,) in effect and in substance, that those who denied this doctrine were infidels. Then, sir, all the civilized nations which have ever lived on earth among whom the African race existed were infidels; then, sir, was the writer of the Pen Stateuch himself an infidel. Now, I charge home, that instead of the doctrine of the infe riority of race being a doctrine of infidelity, the assumption of the equality of races is itself infidelity, because it is a denial of the Scriptures. Although I had no intention of entering upon this train of thought, I will dwell upon it for a moment longer, as I see the honorable Senator now before me, and he was good enough to indicate to us that he was a believer, and that some of us were infidels, in his reference to a passage of Scripture, “cursed is Canaan; servant of servants shall he be.” The Senator proclaimed in effect that those who believed that thereby the curse of slavery or servitude was put upon this race were infidels. Let me tell Senator that if he believes the Bible, even accepting the meaning of the word found in that passage as “servant, ” he must himself admit the negro's inferiority. If this class of people be in fact, the descendants of Canaan, then he must admit that the Bible itself says servant of servants shall they be. Then they are distinguished from their brethren in that respect. Then there is inferiority of condition. But I will show to that honorable Senator that the words in which that curse were pronounced prove conclusively that something, if not to be lasting and forever, yet something of great magnitude was contained in that curse. What is the language used? I refer my very learned friend to the original in which it is placed, and if he will refer to the term “servant of servants” he will find it there expressed in the strong words natbad wouladan, which means “slave of slaves, ” or, according to the idiom of that language, a slave forever, and for his benefit I will tell him that that word corresponds, with the word dovaos, doulos, in Greek, which means a slave born about your house as a slave. But, sir, I had no intention of alluding to that iranch of the honorail. Senator's argument, and would not had I not seen him present in the Chamber. Mr. President what should be the object of Congress in legislating for the people of this District?. Should it be to try an experiment, or should it be the practical good of the people living here? Is there any Senator who believes that giving the right of suffrage to this large class of free negroes would cause the affairs of this city to be better administered? Is there any Senator who believes that by conferring upon this class of people the right of voting at the elections in this District, better officers will be thereby selected, that the financial affairs of this corporation will be better managed, the general prosperity of the people of the District be promoted, and their general good and hap piness advanced? Is there such a great amount of wisdom to be found in this class of people that it is necessary to call in their aid for the administration of its affairs? If so, the advo cates of this bill have made a wonderful discovery, indeed. But, Mr. President, as all argument upon this subject will be unavailing, as nothing can I suppose prevent the final passage of this bill and I presume its finally i.i. d law.i content myself simply with protesting against it as a Senator upon this floor.