Mr. MORRILL, I do not propose to occupy the attention of the Senate in submitting remarks at large upon the message, but to advert to the points as I have gathered them as the document has been read. I understand that the 1st objection which the President makes to the passage of this bill is that it is against the popular will of this District. I had occasion to say when this bill was under consideration that that fact does not appear. It was not made to appear before the committee, and I have not seen the evidence of it in the Senate. The evidence which was relied upon here on a former occasion, that which is relied on by the President, is a vote of the electors qualified to vote in the ordinary affairs of the District. Now, the objection I took perhaps it was more iawyerike than otherwise was that this was a subject upon which those electors qualified to vote in ordinary affairs were not qualified to act. This is a popular question; or, in other words, it is a question of popular rights. It does not belong exclusively or peculiarly to the persons who are qualified by law to vote in this District upon the ordinary affairs of the District. But, then, on this subject there is a more conclusive answer still; and that is that this question does not belong to the people of this district in any sense whatever. This District belongs, in the highest sense and the strongest sense, to the people of the U.S., and upon all questions of popular rights here the people of the U.S., and not the people of the District, are to control, I take it. . are the representatives of this District as we are the representatives of the country at large; and beside us this District has no representa: tive, and by the Constitution was not expected to have. So in the sense that this question is a question of popular rights, the people of this District have no control over the subject at all. It is a question, I repeat, belonging entirely to the American people. I said on a former occasion all I then deemed necessary or now deem necessary to say if I were to discuss this question more at large. The next objection which the President takes to this bill is that it violates the right of local government which this people have. Why, sir, what rights of local government have the residents of this District? Was this District organized in the sense of government? Was it ever designed that this capital should be a government? Certainly not; otherwise they would have been provided with a local Legislature, as they are not; otherwise this District would have been provided with representation, either by Representatives, Senators, or Delegates, nei ther of which is there. In no just sense whatever I conceive is the DistCol a government, either local or general, and the questions of local self government do not arise here. It is the capital of the U.S.; that is all; exclusive jurisdiction is given to the representatives of the nation. It is the home, the local home, the residence of the representatives of the American people, over which they have exclusive control; and, sir, no local government was contemplated here originally. When this grant was provided for in the Constitution of the U.S., the history of the times show that no local government was contemplated, and in conformity with the general expectation it was governed originally and in the beginning by commissioners chosen directly by Congress governed as what? Governed as the capital of the U.S., and that was all. The next objection I notice upon which the President lays stress, is that of the supposed antagonism between the races which it is said will arise here, and arising here will spread throughout the country to the detriment of the inferior race. I had occasion to anticipate this objection when the bill was before the Senate before; of course I shall not detain the Senate by repeating now what I then said. I had supposed, I may be permitted to remark, that this was a popular delusion, and would not be repeated as an argument by the Executive of the nation why justice should not be done to a defenseless race. 4th, and the last statement: I hardly know that I ought to say it is an objection to the passage of this bill, but the 4th specification or statement in this message is that the dangers to be apprehended to popular liberty in this country arising from the encroachments of the legislative rather than the executive dept of the Government. That may be so or it may not; I know there has been much speculation on that subject; but it is cer. tainly time that an argument on that point, whichever may be. to be the state of the case, has no relevancy whatever to this measure. If the danger is precisely as the President apprehends, it is not a reason, it is not an argument why this bill should not pass, it has no reference to it; and as I propose to endeavor to get a vote on this bill today, I shall postpone the consideration of that subject to some future occasion, when certainly it can be discussed with as much propriety as upon this bill. With these remarks I content myself with asking for the passage of the bill.