Mr. HENDRICKS. I did not intend to say a word on this bill, and shall not now occupy the attention of the Senate more than a noment Or two. I always listen to the Senfrom Pennsylvania with interest and instruction, but I am not able to agree with him upon the construction which he has given to the amendment proposed by the Senfrom Connecticut. I, feel it to be my duty to support that amendment, but not upon the construction given by the Senfrom Pennsylvania. The amendment provides that “no person who has not heretofore voted in this District shall be permitted to vote unless he shall be able at the time of offering to vote to read and also to write his own name.’ I think a fair construction of that amendment is that the voter shall be required to be able generally to read, and in addition to that, to write his own name; and with that construction of the amendment I propose to vote for iv, as I said yesterday, not because I am in favor, as a general proposition, of an intelli too. qualification for the right to vote, but because, in this particular instance, I think it to be proper to prescribe it. I cannot speak for other sections of the country, but for the Northwest I think I am justified in saying that there is a great deal of intelligence found among men who are not able to real, They do not acquire their information from books. but from intercourse one with an other: An that part of o.1S the U.S. our up of men coming from the England. States, men coming from the central portions of the country, and also persons from the southern States. These peole meet in the same neighborhoods. They have intercourse with each other, and the one communicates to the other what he knows. They attend the popular meetings; they hear the political questions of the day discussed; they are called upon the juries, and they hear the law discussed both by the attorneys and by the court, and in the course of a generation many men who are not able to read and write become very intelligent men and entirely competent to the exercise of political power. have addressed, in the course of my professional life, very many men as jurors, who were excellent jurors indeed, who were not able to read. Perhaps gentlemen from other sections of the country are not able to understand exactly how this may be. I. attribute it to the fact that our population is made up of citizens coming from every part of the country, and in their intercourse they communicate to one another the peculiar information of each, and because also of the popular institutions which prevail, calling the people together in public assemblies and hearing the great questions of the day discussed, and the popular character of our courts in which the law of the land are freely discussed. But, sir, does that state of fact at all apply to the colored people? They have had none of these opportunities of obtaining intelligence which I have mentioned. They have been in a state of servitude. They have never mingled with citizens of other sections of the country, and thereby acquired information. They have never been.into the courts to hear the laws and institutions of the country discussed. They have never attended the popular meetings and there heard discussed the institutions and policy of the land. They have had none of the means of information which has made intelli gent men out of many in the Northwest who are not able to read and write. The Senfrom Pennsylvania will hardly. that intelligence acquired in some way or other is not important to the citizen. He certainly is not prepared to question that which has become al. an axiom with us, that our institutions rest upon the virtue and the intel. of the people. Has that been a mistake all the while, or in fact do our institutions rest upon public virtue and public intelligence? If so, I submit to Senators whether the slave coming from the farm, who has never heard the Constitution of his country either read or discussed, who has no knowledge whatever, and has had no opportunity of acquiring knowl edge of the laws of the country, of the policy ol. of the policy that has governed us in the past, or that is proposed for the future, is competent to exercise political power in this country?, For many offices it is only important to know the character of the candidate. For merely administrative or executive offices it is enough for us to know that the man we vote for is an honest man and a man of ordinary intelligence, because the discharge of the duties of his office has no influence upon the political policy of the country; but when we come to vote for the legislator or any executive officer who has any influence upon the legislation of the country, is it then only important that we should know the man? Is it not important, then, that we shall comprehend the policy that he is to advocate and carry out as a legislator? Then intelligence becomes important, not only to know the particular candidate, his qualities, whether he has intelligence and honesty and fitness for the office, but it becomes important that we shall know the policy and system of laws which he will favor; and I submit whether the negroes coming from the plantation have that sort of information or have had the opportunity to acquire that sort of information in an; Mr. President, the objection has been made to this bill that it proposes an expostfacto punishment. I thought the objection made by the Senfrom Pennsylvania was well made, and I think the Senfrom NewJersey did not meet it. It is not enough to say that the right to vote is a conventional and not a natural right, that it is the result of the social organization. Suppose it be a conventional right; but it seems to me it goes back of that. I know that the right of voting is regulated by law, yet when men enter into the social compact as equals and agree to a form of government and that the power shall rest with the people, is it not a natural right after they have made such a compact that their equality shall not be disturbed. But suppose it to abe conventional right, and a conventional right is taken away from a inall because he has committed a crime, is not that a punishment? It has so been considered. This is not a new question. In the reign of George HI an act of Parliament taking away the right to vote was regarded as a bill of at tainder, a bill of punishment. Upon that subject I will read from Woodeson's Lectures, vol ume one, lecture 41: “Thus, in the case of New Shoreham 68 electors for that oby name are disqualified to vote for members of Parliament. such incapacity was part of the Toho provided by the general law against bribery. The operation, therefore, of this legislative sentencewas to preclude the necessity of formal convictions against each individual, their guilt being thought sufficiently apparent. It must be admitted that in all penal statutes passed expostfacto, except where the innovation mollifies the rigor of the criminal code, justice wears her sternest aspect. Moral conscience and human foy have no longer the additional guidance of the aW. There, sir, an act of Parliament which took away from 68 men the right to vote for a member of Parliament because those 68 men had committed the crime of bribery at an election was regarded as a bill of pains and penalties, regarded so by this writer, regarded so by Parliament itself, o so by the courtS.