Mr. RAYMOND. I believe the question immediately before the House is upon the amendment submitted by the Gentfrom Massachusetts [Mr. Boutweil] to the 3rd section of the bill as it came to us from the Senate. I am inclined to vote for that amendment for this simple reason, that it makes clear and explicit the purpose which the 3rd section of the bill leaves very vague and uncer tain. The 3rd section professes to make provision for extending all civil and political rights to all races and conditions of men in Nebraska as the fundamental and imperative condition of the admission of the State of Nebraska into the Union. But gentlemen on this floor do not whether the section accomplishes that object or not; the Gentfrom Ohio [Mr. BINGHAM] says he will vote for this bill, because he regards that 3rd section as utterly null and o the Gentfrom Illinois [Mr. FARNsworth] says he will vote for the bill because he regards that 3rd section as full and effective; and the Gentfrom Iowa [Mr. ALLIsoN] says he shall feel constrained to vote against the bill, because that 3rd section as it stands can have no binding effect whatever. Now, when I vote I would like to know for what I am voting. The amendment offered by the Gentfrom Massachusetts [Mr. BouTwell] is clear, distinct, precise, and effective. It provides that this act shall take effect when, and only when, the Legislature of Nebraska shall have fulfilled the conditions imposed upon the State by the amendment; then by proclamation of the President, and without any further action by Congress, Nebraska is to be admitted as a State into this Union. And I will take occasion to say that I am moreover in favor of the main provision under debate here, the extension, whenever it can be done by competent authority, of equal rights to all races and conditions of men. I do not believe there is any shadow of reason why the right of suffrage, as well as all civil rights, all personal rights, all rights pertaining to or enjoy able under a republican Government, should be extended to one class of men and denied to another because of a difference in their color, their condition, or their race. The only pretense of a reason that ever existed for any such discrimination grew out of the institution of slavery, out of the fact that one race as a race was held in abject submission, and was not civilly, personally, socially, or in any other way the equal of the race that ruled the land. But with slavery perished the last shadow of reason for any such discrimination. I have, therefore, never neglected any opportunity to vote to make, wherever this Government had the o so to do, the civil and political rights of the colored man equal to the rights of all other men. And the question whether suffrage be or be not a natural and inalienable right or the gift of the Government has nothing to do with my opinion on this point. If suffrage be a natural right, then the colored man, equally with the white man, should be allowed to enjoy it. If it be only a privilege resting upon considerations of policy, then good policy requires its extension to him as well as to men of other races. I hold that whether it be an inalienable right or simply a matter of policy, it nevertheless is true, as a o general prin in every republican Government, that all who are required to obey the laws should have. voice, directly or indirectly, in making those a WS. I shall therefore vote for the amendment offered by the Gentfrom Massachusetts, [Mr. Boutwell, ] though not for the reasons nor on the gounds assigned by him; nor do I mean to say that I shall vote for the bill whether it shall or shall not have been thus amended. That question I shall reserve for further consideration. There are many other questions entering into its decision beside the question of suffrage. There is a great question, a question of paramount interest to me, and to the State which I in part represent, which I cannot help considering the question whether it is just and wise and politic to allow the great States of the Union, such as NewYork, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, the old, populous, and powerful States, to be overborne, year after year, in one branch of the Legislature of the nation by States whose population is not sufficient to entitle them to a single member upon this floor. I do not think it good policy; I think it unwise, unjust, and if pushed to the extreme to which it seems likely to be pushed, calcu lated to work fundamental and most important changes in the whole structure of the Government. Why, sir, we all know that sometimes in England when the ministry finds it necessary to have additional votes to pass some favorite measure they add to the peerage by ereating peers for the purpose, so that the vote under their control in the House of Lords may be made sufficient for the purpose. Sir, this creation of new States is liable to the same abuse, if it has not already been subjected to it. Then again, as to the power of Congress over the constitutions of new States that are coming in, that is a very grave question which I think has not been at all settled by the discussions which have been had upon it. Gentlemen on this floor maintain the right of Congress not only to prescribe conditions of admission, but actually to create constitutions for the States to be admitted; and yet they claim this power under the pretense for it can be nothing more that it rests on that clause of the Constitution which declares that the U.S shall guaranty to those States a RFG. Now, I shall not enter into the discussion of what is or is not a RFG; but certainly it seems to me clear that the assent of the people, the action of the people, the will of the people to be governed, should enter, in a more or less restricted form, into the creation of the fundamental law by which that people are to be governed if it is to be a RFG. Now, if we here in Congress dictate a constitution for the State of Nebraska and force it upon the people of that State, can we call that a RFG?. We prescribe a constitution, a fundamental law, to the people of Nebraska, and then because they accept the terms which we impose we say they have a RFG. Now, sir, I cannot quite assent to what have been stated as historical facts by the Gentfrom Pennsylvania, [Mr. STEVENs] I did not know that Rome was called a republic under Nero or under Trajan. It may be that any government which we call a republic is a republic; but on no other ground certainly can we consider the government of Nebraska a RFG, if she comes in under a constitution which we dictate to and impose upon her. I, however, honor the Gentfrom Pennsylvania today, as I have had occasion to do many times before, for the courage with which he follows his principles to their legitimate conclusion, however start ling and extraordinary that conclusion may be. He has declared here that the government of Pennsylvania is not a RFG, and he has expressed the hope that Congress will make it such. I do not know, sir, whether he would go quite as far as the distinguished Gentfrom Massachusetts [Mr. BANKs] did yesterday, and claim that congress has the power to prescribe conditions of admission, to prescribe terms which shall make proposed State governments republican in form, and then, if the States concerned do not assent to those terms, or afterward violate. them, that we have power to march armies into their midst and compel them to submit to and adopt the government which we impose. That seems to me to be extending the principle asserted on this floor to a somewhat dangerous extent, though I confess it seems to me a logical inference from the principles which are asserted in this bill and by gentlemen upon this floor. I have sometimes feared that gentlemen of this House, in their anxiety to secure republican forms of government to the States, might entirely forget the necessity, or even the propriety, of maintaining a RFG for the U.S. Certainly a Government which is to march armies into the States to compel assent to its will can scarcely be called a RFG. It may be a democratic despotism, a centralized despotism under democratic forms, as the Government of France is; but it is not, and noingenuity, no sophistry, can make it even seem to be, the Republic which our fathers founded and handed down to their posterity to be preserved forever. Nor do I think that the clause of the Constitution which imposes on the Government of the U.S. the duty of guarantying to each State a RFG obliges or authorizes the federal Government to make for each State what at any time its shifting parties may be pleased to call a RFG. We “guaranty” to a man or a State or community that which that man or State or community has already in possession. If we guaranty to a man possession of his house, we do not oblige ourselves to put him into a house, to erect and provide a house for him, and keep him there against his will. If we guaranty the payment of a note, we presume that note to be already in existence. The Government of the U.S. guaranties to each State what that State adopts and accepts, acting under the Constitution of the U.S and in obedience to its restrictions, as a RFG. And it is rather starth ng to hear, as we have heard upon this floor today, that, with one or 2 exceptions, there are no States in this Union having RFGs, such as the U.S. are bound by the Constitution to guaranty to every State in the Union; and it is still more starth ng to hear the power of the Government invoked to make all those States old and new, Pennsylvania and Ohio as well as Nebraska and SCarolina republican in form by an arbitrary exercise of its will, backed by its armed power. I think it desirable that new States should come into this Union as soon as they are properly organized, as soon as their population is sufficient to entitle them to representation upon this floor. They are guarantied full representation at the other end of the Capitol the moment they come in. I do not think there is any reason, either in right or good policy, why we should have States here simply because they have some population and desire to come in. There are many advantages in being a State undoubtedly, advantages to the State itself and advantages to the Government of which they form a part; but I think we should not act with undue haste in these matters. If these States have elements of growth in them they can afford to wait a few years until their population is sufficient at least to entitle them to one member here. Until they have at least population enough for that I do not think we are bound by any consideration of duty or of sound public policy to admit then on equal terms with NewYork, Pennsylvania, and Ohio as States into the Union. Here the hammer fell]