Mr. MORRILL. I believe the title of the paper is not on this piece. I think it is printed or purports to be printed in Georgetown. It H is the Times, printed in Georgetown. It is in conferring the elective franchise on the col: sent to me marked, the emphatic parts of it. I submit, if I am not wrong in the deductions which I make from this extraordinary article, that here in the capital of the nation is the spirit of insurrection and rebellion rife in another section of this country revived. Sir, the man who reasons thus of his duties of citizenship is an insurrectionist and should be bound over to keep the public peace against all men, no matter who he is; and the man who interprets the word of God in that way is an infidel, unchristian; he has denied the faith, and, no matter what may be his dignity or pride of family, he is the least in that kingdom of our Master, without regard to race or color. Sir, it is not emancipation and it is not enfranchisement of this defenseless race which these people have occasion to dread; it is that spirit of slavery, that system of slavery which has eaten out the heart, tainted the blood of the descendants of these dignified, proud, logy families to which reference is made ere. Mr. President, these are all the objections that have come to my knowledge that are specifically made against the passage of this bill in its application to this District. Opposed to these are the memorials of some 2500 persons who style themselves colored citizens of the DistCol, citizens of the U.S., who say in substance that they are loyal, that they have served in the Army and Navy of the U.S. during this great conflict with rebellion, that they are sufficiently intelligent to vote, industrious, self supporting, that they support churches and common schools, and educate their own children without any aid from the general school fund, and they claim upon these grounds not to be discriminated against in this particular. Mr. President, if this were a question simply of a local character between the corporation of Washington, the mayor, aldermen, and common council and the electors of this district and the colored persons, I do not think it is doubtful what justice would seem to require. But, sir, it has a broader and more comprehensive meaning; it is in some sense general, and if the Senate will bear with me Io to address myself to that particular phase of the question, the general objections to this bill, and the principles upon which I ask the votes of the Senate. This is a matter affecting the capital of the nation, one in which the American people have an interest, as indireetly, at least, touching the country at large. What the nationafCongress pronounce here as a matter of right or exbediency, or both, touching a question of popu. rights, may have an influence elsewhere for good or for evil. We cannot well justify the denial of the right of suffrage to colored citizens on the protest of the voters of the corporation of Washington. We may not think fit to grant it simply on the oof the petitioners. Our action should rest on some recognized general principle, which, applied to the capital of the nation, would be equally just applied to any of the political communities. }. the nation is composed. We may not exercise the ample power we possess over this District arbitrarily or in disregard of its effects upon the country at large. i. was upon this ground that the friends and advocates of the system of slavery objected to its abolition here by act of Congress. To abolish it here was to abolish it everywhere throughout the country; and if, as they contended, the nation was under covenant to suffer nothing to the injury of slavery in the States, they were right. If negro suffrage is wrong in principle, pernicious in the policy of American States and republican communities, and dangerous to popular liberty, Congress should hesitate to do an act, which, having the force of precedent, would endanger the peace and tranquillity of the nations We were most solemnly told on a former occasion by the opponents of the measure that such is its character and such would be its effects. They affirmed that this Government “is a white man's Government;” that it was instituted by, in the interests of and for th9 advantage of the white race, and ought to be administered by that race exclusively, and for its development and benefit; that the negro race is an inferior race, wholly incapable of self government, and that to invest it with civil and political rights is impolitic, unwise, and dangerous to the liberties of the white man, the dominant and superior race. These assumptions are sufficiently sweeping, and would be conclusive upon the representatives of the American people if made good by all o to history o facts. I content myself with the statement of a few plain propositions in reply. The gist of these assumptions is the old plea of man's incapacity for self government, scarcely improved by the specification of info. rior race, for the old argument since civil society was instituted was lack of natural aptitude for government in the masses. Now, sir, a Government of the people, its rightful messand practicability, a moot question every where else, is no longer debatable in this country. We have put aside the creed of the despot, the monarchist, the aristocrat, and have affirmed the right and capacity of the people to govern themselves, and have staked the national life on the issue to make it good in practice. Not that every man of all races or of any race or people is capable of wise administration of public affairs, legislation, or interpretation of the laws; but that the aggregate public virtue and intelligence of political communities is the safest basis of government. The masses may be trusted to select their rulers. To deny any portion of the American people civil or political rights common to the citizen upon pretense of race or color, is to ignore the fundamental principles of republicanism. We are fully committed to the rule of the people, and no question of race or color, inferiority or superiority, can arise to exclude any portion. They are none of them terms of exclusion. No sentiment was ever uttered. here or cleewhere, better calculated to bring this nation into contempt and to expose it to the hatred of the friends of popular govern.ment than that “this is a white man's Government, ” as no statement could well be more false to its origin and history. Its founders professed to institute, the government in the interest of human rights. The American Declaration was a declaration of the political rights of man. The principles of the American Revolution were those of universal liberty. Otherwise that immortal Declaration of political rights should have been written, “All white men are created equal;” and the Puritan fathers should have endered their gospel, “God hath made of one blood all white men, ” and instead of a democracy they should have set up an aristocracy to be transmitted as an inheritance to their posterity. Sir, our power over the question of suffrage in this District is ample, unquestioned, and we have seen that the objections to its exercise are untenable; but the question returns, shall the right be extended to the negro, and if so, upon what principle, or upon the prescription of what particular formula? It becomes important 1st to consider the right of suffrage, whether an absolute right or as incident to citizenship. On this question the public mind is divided between universal suffrage, manhood suffrage, and impartial suffrage, and perplexed with questions of sex as well as of race and color. I glance only at each. Universal suffrage is affirmed by its advocates as among the absolute or natural rights of man, in the sense of mankind, extending to females as well as males, and susceptible of no limitation unless as opposed to child or infant. It is supposed to originate in rights independent of citizenship; like the absolute rights of liberty, personal security, and possession of property, it is natural to man. It exists, of course, independent of sex or condition, manhood or womanhood. To admit it in the adultand denyitto theyouth would be to abridge the right and ignore the principle. Now, sir, in practice its extension to women would contra vene all our notions of the family; “put asun der” husband and wife, and subvert the fundamental principles of family government, in which the husband is, by all usage and law, human and divine, the representative head. Besides it ignores woman, womanhood, and all that is womanly; all those distinctions of sex whose objects are apparent in creation, essential in character, and vital to society, these all disappear in the manly and impressive demonstration of balloting at a popular election. Here maids, women, wives, men, and husbands promiscuously assemble to vindicate the rights of human nature. Moreover, it associates the wife and mother with policies of state, with public affairs, with making, interpreting, and executing the laws, with police and war, and necessarily disseverates her from purely domestic affairs, peculiar care for and duties of the family; and, worst of all, assigns her duties revolting to her nature and constitution, and wholly incompatible with those which spring from womanhood. Besides, the ballot is the inseparable concomitant of the bayonet. Those who practice the one must be prepared to exercise the other. To introduce woman at the polls is to enroll her in the militia, to transfer her from the class of non-combatants to the class of combat ants. “Manhood suffrage, ” to define it, is simply to state the conditions of manhood, the state of an adult male grown to full size and strength. Its opposites are “childhood, ” “womanhood.” In most nations, for purposes of war, it is a male person between the ages of 18 and 45 years. Among the civilians it was from 14 to 25. The condition of manhood, as defined by the lexicographers, is purely physical development, in distinction from moral and intellectual. In this sense the common law had no standard. It is impossible to conceive of a law that would meet in practice the individual cases as they would arise on the principle of physical development. The condition of manhood varies in individuals, and is developed at different periods. The fatal objection to “manhood suffrage” is that the right is based on physical development, like arms bearing, while the act. necessarily implies intelligence, discretion, intellectual development. The peculiar character, the genius of republicanism is equality, impartiality of rights and remedies among all the citizens, not that the citizen shall not be abridged in any of his natural rights. The man yields that right to the nation when he becomes a citizen. The republican guarantee is that all laws shall bear upon all alike in what they enjoin and forbid, grant and enforce. This principle of equality before the law is as old as civilization, but it does not prevent the State from qualifying the rights of the citizen according to the public necessities. The American principle favors the right of suffrage for the ol.citizen of full age, supposed to be based upon the law and usage that at this age he becomes free of the tutelage of family and is free to manage his own affairs. The exceptions orule are of persons noncomposmentis, persons deemed infamous from trea son, felony, or other high crimes, persons supported at the public charge, and ignorant persons, and those of African descent, The rule is in harmony with the idea of g. regovernment and Christian civilization. ome of the exceptions are ill timed, illogical, and unjust. Poverty is in no just sense a disofact. On the contrary, society may doubtless protect, itself by depriving those of political power who have proved faithless to it or made war upon it. In a country where the means of education are accessible to all, or should be, and a knowledge of the Government important, it cannot be a grievance that the State should impose the rule of intelligent suffrage. The exceptional fact which stands out in flagrant violation of the common rule of suffrage is that which denies the right to the citizen of African descent on account of his ItaCC. At the formation of the national Constitution in only one of the States was the negro exclu ded from the exercise of the right on account of his race or color. SCarolina excluded the negro; in the other States the exclusion was confined to condition, and the colored freeman was an elector. In most of the States the negro is now excluded; in some of them he is admitted upon exceptional terms; in others upon terms of impartiality with the whites. The proposition of the bill is to restore the American rule of suffrage at the national capital, to place it upon the republican principle, to make our legislation conform to the Constitutions, laws, usages, sentiments, and opinions of the people of the States at the revolutionary era of the Republic, when universal liberty was an aspiration alike of statesmen and people. In the early constitutions of the States this principle was everywhere recognized and enforced. In the State of Pennsylvania the language was this: “All free men have a right to elect officers, and be elected to office.” That of Delaware was: “Every free man hath a right of suffrage.” That of Maryland: “All free men shall have a right of suffrage.” NewYork: “Every person who is a freeman shall be entitled to vote.” NCarolina: “Every free man shall be entitled to suffrage;” and so on to the end of the chapter, with the single exception of SCarolina. The disability which attached to the African slave was because of condition, and not of race or color, and everywhere the adult freeman was deemed entitled to the exercise of the elective franchise. The disability of condition now has been abolished. In the progress of events, the development of free institutions, the expansion of the principles of popular rights, the abolition of slavery, by the providence of God we have become a nation of free men in fact as in name. The emancipated slave has become a freeman and a citizen, belongs to the body of the American people, and is no longer the subject of exclusion by either State or nation. Sir, the constitutional amendment which emancipated the slave gives Congress power to make that freedom of the slave complete. In the spirit of that provision, congress at its last session enacted that every person born in the U.S. is a citizen thereof, and entitled to protection in his civil rights. It remains now to recognize that political equality which is the common right of the American citizen. Sir, we exalt the emancipation proclamation in the scale of state papers to a place 2nd only to that of the great American DeclarIndep. To its o omnipotent we require obedience and submission. We are assured that the grandeur of its conceptions, its heroism, and elevated patriotism confer immortal renown on him whose name is most intimately associated with it; and still, sir, we hesitate to accept the logic of its results. We do not, some of us, see how it is possible to break down the partition walls of prejudice which spring from the relations of master and slave without disrupting society and introducing anarchy and violence. We do not understand how a nation can be just to all its people on principle and expect the support of “the virtuous ruling classes, ” and we do not see how we can survive without them. We have made the negro slave an American citizen, and we seem to start back from contact with him as if his touch were moral and political pollution. We have freed him and we are J.P. to know how to define him, whether a freedman, freeman, citizen, alien, or denizen. By some of us the rights incident to American citizenship are utterly denied as the result of emancipation. So long held and treated as a slave, a chattel, it is difficult to realize that he is a man, entitled to the recognition due from man to man. We are slow to confess this country his as well as ours, although native born, and speak of deportation as if the commerce and navies of the world uniting in our folly and crime could accomplish it. We are still in our sins as to the gospel of one blood for all humanity and, a common brotherhood, and cherish still the fatal delusion of antagonism of races. A statement of a plain proposition or 2 should dissipate our alarm and settle all these questions. The negro is a man now and here: after in American law, politics, society, and to be treated as such. He is a citizen, and entitled to the common rights of citizenship and to protection. We may as well comprehend the question of the negro. He will reunain here an inhabitant of this country, our country, his country, and that not at our option, but by force of laws over which we have no control. Political history discloses no folly comparable with the attempt to rid a nation by force and violence of a numerous race of people indigenous to it, as it records no usur pation or royal crime at all equal to it. The negro cannot depart if he would. He is native to this country, and may stay here and bid defiance to power to remove him. He is to be a constant element of American life, civil, political, industrial. He constitutes one 8th of our population now, and in the future his proportion will not probably be much less. The race numbers 4 millions at the present, and will soon be 30 millions too many to be immolated, if it were possible, upon the altar of our pride and our prejudice. The bond of our national unity is not expressed by epithets “rights of States, ” “State sovereignty, ” “community rights;” the fruits of such are insurrection, rebellion, civilWar; but in unity of faith in human rights, unity of spirit and purpose for the development and protection of individual rights. In such unit there is completeness and power; it links with the moral and social forces of the universe and possesses the attributes of a boundless energy. Ali attempts in this country to keep alive the old idea of orders of men, distinctions of class, noble and ignoble, superior and inferior, an tagonism of races, are so many efforts at insurrection and anarchy. In a nation of professed free men whose political axioms are those of universal liberty and human rights, no public tranquillity is possible while these rights are denied to portions of the American people. We have taken into the bosom of the Republic the diverse elements of the nationalities of Europe, and are attempting to mold them into national harmony and unity, and are still inviting other millions to come to us. Let us not despair that the same mighty energies and regenerating forces will be able to assign a docile and not untractable race its appropriate place in our system. Mr. President, I move to amend the amendment of the Senfrom WestVirginia