Mr. HOWARD. Mr. President, I was not present in the Senate at the time the vote was taken rejecting the bill. Had I been here I should have voted for the bill, and Iregret very much that I did not happen at that time to be in my seat. because I have a very strong conviction of the expediency and propriety of admitting Colorado as one of the States of the “ Union. There appear to be 2 objections raised against the admission of Colora o. The 1st is insutheient population according to the opinion of some gentlemen, and the 2nd is that the right of suffrage as defined in the constitution itselfis too limited in excluding colored persons. Now, sir, I confess that I do not regard either of these objectionsof sufficient weight to induce me to vote against the admission of Colorado. I consider the objection based upon the alleged insufficiency of the population in point of numbers as out of place entirel. n the 21st of March, 1864, congress declared in very plain terms that "The inhabitants of that portion of the Territory doef se igonloartaeddobiencluded in the boundaries hereinafter and theyare herebyauthorisedtoform for themselves.out of said Territory. a State government with the name aforesaid, whichsaid Statewhen formedshall be admitted into the Union on an equal footinzn withthe original Statesin all respectsw at soever. It is said that this statute, which in its subsequent clauses provides the mode by which the people shall organize themselves into a State has spent its orce and become funclus oficio; and we are therefore called upon, by the honorable Senfrom Massachusetts especially, to pay no regard to the act of 1864. I go not regard the statute in that light; I do not regard it as having spent its force. Iregard this 1st section, which I have read, as containin a pledge of the Government of the U.S. to the people of Coloradopthat whenever they shall Form themselves into a State and provide for themselves a government, they shall, so far at leastas population is concerned, he admitted into the nion. I have said we passed this statute in March, 1864, and in the same breath we passed another statute iving the same privilege to the Territory of ebraska, and another giving the same privilege to the then Territory of Ne vada; and we did it at a time when the population of these several Territories, as ascertained by the official agents of the Government who took the census in 1860, was as follows: the population of the Territory of Colorado at that time, according to the census from which I have these figures, was 34, 277; that of Dakota erritory 4, 837; that of Nebraska Territory 28, 841; and that of the then Territory of Nevada, perched like an eagles nest upon mountains, was 6 857. The people of the Territory of Nevada proceeded regularly, as required by the statute, to institute for themselves a State government at a time when they certainly had not a smaller population than 6,857. The probability is that in 1804. when they went through the process of forming themselves into a State government, the population was lar er, but whatit was I am not now ableto say. t was certainly, as I resume, not greater than the population of ol orado. fIam wrong in this my friendfrom Nevada will be able to correct me. We have admitted Nevada as a State of the Union, which in 1800, being then a Territor, had a poulation of only 6,857 inhabitants. If the Territory of Colorado in 1864 possessed a sufficient population to justify 80n gress in granting them the privilege of forming themselves into a State government and if, as is indubitably the truth, that population has not diminished since then, upon what ground is iIt, ask, that gentlemen allege insufficient population as a reason for refusing admission to Colorado? I insist, sir, that so far as congress are concerned, so far as the spirit of the Iaw is concerned, we are estopped from insisting upon this objection.