Mr. CLARK. Mr. President, we are new considering (forthatis the realqnestion; whetherive shall recommend to the States oft 10Union an amendment of the constitution grantin to all the people of this country, both white an black, the right of suffrage and as I state this question to the Senate, cannot help recurring to what occurred in the Senate of the U.S. about 6 ears ago. As the traveler who has passed a ifficult road, when he comes to some high hill looks back to see the difficulties which he has passed, I turn back, and I ask the senate to turn back, to consider what occurred, as I"say, about 6 years ago. In the session of 185960, in the old Senate Chamber, a bill was brought into the Senate of the U.S. by the then Senfrom mississippi, (Mr. Brown) who was chairman of the ComDistCol, a place which my friendfrom Maine [Mr. MORRILL now so worthily fillsa bill in aid of the education of the children of this District. The bill proposed to rant certain fines and forfeitures to the use of the schools, and also proposed to tax the people ten cents on every 100 dollars of the property in this District for the purpose of educating the children. That bill proposed to tax the white man and the black man alike, and fearing that the property of the black man would be taxed to educate the child of the white man I proposed an amendment to the bill that the tax collected from the black man should go to educate the black mans child. There was also a further provision of the bill that if the District raised a certain amount of money for the education of the children the Government of the U.S. would appropriate alike amount from the Treasury. f, or instance, on raised $20,000 by taxes on the people in the District, the Government should pay $20,000 more to be added to it for the education of the children of the District. I moved the amendment that no child whose father paid any portion of that tax for the education of the children should be excluded from the benefit ofit, be be white or black but that there inight be no inconvenience feltzl agreed to an amendment that the black child should not be put into the same school with the white child, but that they should be educated in different schools to be provided for them; but if the black man paid for educating the children of the District his child should be educated. There was at once an outery, ” Why, this is social equality of the 2 races, this is political equality:” and the would not consent that the lack child shoal be educated, even with the money of the black father. That amendment was declared to be carried in the Senate of the U.S., and after declaring it was carried the Senate adjourned, and after the adjournment the chairman of that committee, Mr. Brown. appealed to me person ally ifI would not withdraw it. I said to him “ No, I would never withdraw it; if you tax the black man, the black man should have a part of the money that you raise from him to educate his child.” After some days the bill came up the Senate of the U.S., an 4 again in the Senfrom Mississippi, the chairman of the ComDistCol, got up and in Open Senate a ealed to me, “W ill the Senfrom NewHampshire withdraw that ainendment?” “ Never, Mr. President.” “Then, ” said the Senfrom Mississip i, “I will lay the bill aside, and will not ask the Senate to pass it, ” and so the whole scheme failed, because they would not consent that the mono of the black man should educate his own o ild, and they could not vote it to educate a white child. Now I turn back to that time 6 years ago, and I mark the road that we have come along. I mark where we struck the chains from the “ black manin this same District, whose childyou could not educate 6 years ago. I mark in this Senate, at this very session, that we have passed a bill in aid of the Freedmens Bureau to secureto him his rights in this District. I mark that all throng this nation we have stricken off the chains of the slave and secured to the slave his rights elsewhere in the Union and we have now come to the height of the hill and are considerin whether we will not enfranchise those very Elack men through all the countr. Mr. President, when that bill, to which I have referred, was ending in the Senate of the U.S., Mr. Mason, then a Senfrom Virginia, who occupied relatively the same position in the old Chamber that my friendfrom NewYork [Mr. HARRIS] occupies here, got up and state unblushingly and openly in the Senate of the U.S. I think my friendfrom Massachusetts [Mr. WILSON] will remember it that it always had been the pol icy of the State of Virginia, his “ honored State, ” to keep the negro” in ignorance. I read his words: “Mr. Mason. I saythat it is theostablishodpolicy, find has beenprobably for a centuryI do not know owlongatlmeot myown Stutc, and I think equall ooof the state of Maryland, the ndjoining State, an, sofar asI amintbrmem of thelegislntionotallthesluve States. toprohibittho education of thenegrorace and in myyudnmentawise policy, an expedicntand a just one. amnotgoinginto the reasons for the policynor that does notbecomemehere. But such ist a policy; and in my opinion the properand wise administration of the atfairsof the DistCol requires our la illation here to conform to the policy of the adjoinIna Statesin referenceto this population, bond or free. "(0ngreoaimm Globe, Thirlyfbizlh 1st union. p. 1680. Now, Mr. President, let me draw the contrast. Where that Senfrom Virginia? An outcast in aforeign land. Where is that Senfrom Mississippi? A rebel in his own land. We propose to elevate the freedmen to all the dignities and privileves of a citizen, and to make him the equal ofother men in regard to political privileges. Verily, Mr. presicut the balances of 0d are just and true, and they need no sealer of weights and measures to test the allotments of divine compensation and retribution. Mr. President, I am not one of those who believe or assent to the declaration that this is the Government of the white man, and then offer it as an excuse for neglecting or ostracizing the black man; but I hold it to be the Government of all men, and for all men and all classes of men. It is its crowning glory that no citizen or person living under it is so high or so powerful that he can refuse or deny its obligation; and none so low that its rotcction cannot reach him. Its great strengti is in the universality of its principles, and its chief danger in attempts to narrow, contract, crib, and confine their application. Whence comes this idea, Mr. President, that this is the white mans Government? its founders did not so make it. They laid its foundations upon the rights of mannot of white men, or black men, but all men; and it was the sad, the wretched mistake we made in denying the application of this principle to the black man which has devastated the land with civilWar and deluged it in blood; and every battlefield and every soldiers grave, and every wound, and every drop of blood shed, and every twinge of ain and anguish therefor and thereby, is but the declaration of Omnipoteuce v reu, that those men have rights which this Government l just respect. Mr. President, the question of the negro has troubled the nation lon. His condition as a slave troubled you; and is COndilion as a freedman troubles you. Are you sick, heartsickof this trouble? and do you inquire, when will it end? I will tellyou. When you have given him equal rights, equal privileges, and equal security With other citizens; when you have opened the way for him to be a man. Then will you have rendered exact justice which can alone insure stability and content. Y Sir, if I ever did hold that this Government was made or belonged exclusively to the white man, I should now be ashamed to avow it, or to claim for it so narrow an application. The black man has made too many sacrifices to preserve it, and endan cred his life too often in its defense to be excluded from it. The common sentiment of gratitude should open its doorsto him if not political justice and equalit. Mr. President, my house once took rein the night time; my 2 little boys were aslee in it, when I and their mother were awa. The nei hbors rushe into it, saved the c ildren an extinguished the flames. When I reached it, breathless and exhausted, the 1st exclamation was, “Your children are safe.” Can you tell me how mean a man I should have been, and what execration I should have deserved, if the next time those neighbors cameto my house Ihad kicked them out of it? Tell me then, I pray you, why 200,000 black men, most of whom volunteered to fight your battles, who rushed in to save the burninghouse of your Government, should not be permitted to participate in that Government which they helped to preserve? When you enlisted and mastered these men, when your Adjutant General went South and gathered them to the recruiting office, and persuaded them to join your ranks, did he, or anyone, tell them this was the white mans Government? When they came to the rendezvous did you pointto the sign over the door, wh“ Black men wanted to defend the white mans Government?” When youput upon them the uniform of the U.S. did you say, ” Dont disgrace it; this is the white mans Government?” When they toiled on the march, in the mud, the rain, and the snow, and when they fell out of the ranks from sheer weariness, did you cheer them on with the encouragement “that this is the white mans Government T” When they stood on picket on the cold, stormy night to guard you against surprise, did you creep up and warm their congcahng blood with an infusion of the white mans Government? When, with a wild hurrah, on the “ double quick, ” the rushed upon the enemys guns, and bore your ag where men fell fastest and war made its wildest have c, where explosion after explosion sent their mangled bodies and scv ered limbs flying through the air, and they fell on glacis, ditch, and scarp and counterscarp, did you caution them a inst such bravery, and remind them that “this was the white mans Gbvernment?" and when the struggle was over, and many had fought “ their last battle, ” and you gathored the dead for burial, did you exclaim, “Poor foolsl how cheated! this is the white mans Government?” No, no, sir; you beckoned them on by the guerdon of freedom, the blessings of an equal and justGovernment, and a “good time comin and can you now deny it to em? Do on say they have that freedom? Slavery is abo hed. True; but what is that freedom worth which they have no means to maintain, and which depends upon the uncertain and undefined protection of another? “White mans Government, ” do you say? Go to Fort Pillow; stand upon its ramparts and in its trenches, and recall the horrid butchery of the black man there because he had joined you against rebellion, and then say, if you will, “This is the white mans Government.” Go to Wagner. Follow in the track of the Massachusetts 54 th, as they went to the terrible assault, with the guns flashing and waring in the darkness. Mark how unflinchingly they received the pelting iron hail into their bosoms and how they breasted the foal See how nobly they supported, and how heroically they fell with their devoted leader; count the dead; pick up the severed limbs; number the wounds; measure the blood s villed; and remember why and wherefore an in whose cause the negro thus fought and suffered, and then say, ifyou can, ” This is the white mans Gov;ernment.” Go to Port Hudson, go to Richmond, go to Petersburg, go anywhere and everywhere, to every battlefield where the negro fought, where danger was greatest and death surest, and tell me, if you can, “that this is the white mans Government.” and then go to Salisbury and Columbia and and orsonville, and as you shudder at the incffable miseries of those dens, and think of those who ran the deadline, and were not shot, but escaped to the woods and were concealed and fe and piloted by the black men, and never once betrayed, but often enabled to escape and return to their friends; and then tell me if “ thisisawhite mans Government.” Then, sir, follow one of these exchanged prisoners to his home. See how lovingly the mother clas 5 the emaciated form of her " dar ling soldier oy " in her arms; how carefully she feeds and nurses him, how gently she tends him, how constantly she watches over him, and as she bends her ear to hear him tell how the b“lack man saved him, whisperin the other car, “his is the white mans Government.” Ay, sir, go to the grave of one of these devoted black men, where they lie all along the march of your armies, and upon every battle field and rampart, and, remembering there by what fiery trials and struggles this nation has been saved, think of him who sleeps be neath your feet, and how and why he died, and then give thanks to God that you are not like other men, especially this poor negro, and that the “white mans Government” has been preserved. Oh, what a cruel mockery to say to such men, as did the Senfrom Pennsylvania, that " a right to vote was but a chance to get their heads broke in contact with a superior race.” When these men went forth to fight did that Senator think of broken heads, or is it a new solicitude, born only when they ask to be acknowledged as citizens of a common country to which they have devoted their lives? Galileo, to borrow an illustration used by the Senfrom Wisconsin, [Mr. Howsj asserted, in spite of the Inquisition, “that the earth did move, ” but, ah me! Mr. President, it seems sometimes to go backward. In ancient Rome, when one not a citizen deserved well of the republic, he was rewarded by the rights of citizenship, but we den them, and here in Americanot in the conederate States, of America, where, attempting to found a government upon slavery and the subjection of one race to another, it would have been fit ting, if anywhere, but in the U.S.A., the cardinal principle of whose Government is the equalit of all men. After these black men have so no 1y fought to maintain the one and overthrow the other, when they ask us for the necessary right of suffrage to protect themselves against the rebels they have ought, and with whom they are compelled to live, we coolly re ly, “This is the white mans Government.” ay, more, and worse, we have refused it to them, and allowed it to their and our worst enemies, the rebels. Sir, from the dim and shadowy aisles of the past, there comes a cry of “ Shame! shame!” and pagan Rome rebukes Christian America. But not chiefly, Mr. President, do I advocate this right of the black man to vote because he has fought the battles of the Republic and, helped to preserve the Union, but because he is a citizen and a man, one of the people one of the governed, upon whose consent, i the DeclarIndep is correct, the just powers of the GOvernment rest; an inteI igeut being, of whom and for whom God Wtl 1 IWIPMIF fl 7 cameraman;, i233 have an account of us, individually and as a nation; whose blood is one with ours, whose destinies are intermingled and run with ours, whose life takes hold on immortality with ours, and because this right is necessary to develop his manhood, elevate his race, and secure for it a better civilization and a more enlightened and purer Christianity. Mr. President, the honorable Senfrom Nevada [Mr. STEWART] the other da asserted in this C amber that if we conferre suffrage on the negro it was a boona gift. from us to himnot something to which he had a rivht, but which we conceded or gave; and I under stood the honorable Senfrom Ohio [Mr. WADEH to assent to this idea. Sir, I dissent entire