Mr. WADE. That may be in the future; and if the people were laboring under oppression from any source whatever; if they were laboring under any great disadvantage in consequence of being a Territory that would be a strong reason in my mind for, her admission as a State. But we all know that these Territo ries are the very ets of the Government, the most favored war 5of the Government. They hardly ever ask anything that is not granted. We have always dealt with the Territories in the most generous manner, giving them land, furnishing them buildings to set up their governments upon, paying their officers, doing almost anything that they have asked of us. We have paid their jurors and done everything to enable them to carry on their administration at our expense and at their will. Indeed, the condition of a Territory under the guardian ship of the U.S. is, in my judgment, better for the masses of the people than when they form a State government. There always is an ambition to be a State. It furnishes many honorable and high offices, and gentle men are ambitions to hold them, and rightly, too. I do not blame them for that; but for that reason there is always a tendency to brin in Territories as States before perhaps the res. interests of the people require it. But as to this enabling act, I was endeavoring to show why it was that with so small a populatinn we anted the enabling act, and I a explained that it was because we believed, or [as one member of the committee believed, from what we learned from the delegation from there, and from the best lights we could get, that the population was much greater than it appears now it was then, and we expected a most rapid increase of population. We have been disappointed in that. From the votes taken there it seems that the population since 1860 has rather been decreasing than otherwise. There do not seem to be so many inhabitants there now as there were when we passed that enabling act. Well, sir, they voted on the subject 5 they gotup a constitution which in my judgment is a very good one, with one exception. We looked it all over, and there arg no objections to it that I know of except the they inserted the word “white” in it. The people voted upon it. We enabled them to do so, arid they ot together and voted against it by an overwhelming majority, nearly 3 to one; and they were wise in doing so in my judgment, considering how few people there were there and how their interests were affected in carrying on a State government alad for other reasons satisfactory to them. When a legal vote was taken under the enabling act, pursuing this purpose, they voted it down. We supposed that after thatthe enabling act was {unctus officio; that it was dead; that it had been operated under and defeated by the people. The people themselves felt conscious of that because they applied to us last winter again for another enabling act; but the comm.itteethought, I believe, that it was a little capricious Indiam to vote down the constitution made for them under the enabling act and then come here the very next car, wrthout any very considerable changein their circumstances thatwe could see, and ask us over again to give them another. we would not do that. We thought that we would wait until something transpired there to change the condition of things, since they have exreesed themselves so emphatically on this subject.