Mr. FARNSWORTH. I did not expect, Mr. Speaker, when I came into the House today to trouble the House with any remarks at the present time. I do not now propose to reply to the Gentfrom NewJersey, Mr. every logical, or cumentative, cleRaoru, sainngabtloe speech he as mic. I shall not attempt to make his contradictions harmonize, nor to answer in detail the points which he made. The gentleman champions the white soldiers of the U.S. e says we ought not to inflict upon them the injustice and disgrace of giving to the colored men of the country the elective franchise. I believe it is the 1st time I ever heard that gentleman champion the soldiers of the Army of the U.S. If I recollect right, during the last 2 years at all events, that gentleman has been one of the fore most of his party in doing all in his power to embarass the operations of the Army of the U.S and the soldiers of the Republic. He has done what he could to prevent the Government of the U.S. from sending reenforcements and additional arms to relieve and assist our armies in the field and with the bulk of his party, among other things which I now recollect, he voted against the passage of the bill in this House providing for a speedy trial of those guerrillas among the rebels who were shooting our poor soldiers in the back as they were dragging themselves away from the battlefield wounded, marking their footsteps with their blood and if I am not mistaken, the gentleman, with the rest of his part in the State of NewJersey, refused to give tot c white Soldier who had left his native State and gone into the field, periling his life in defense of his country, the right to vote even as to who should represent that State in the Congress of the U.S. Perhaps that is the reason why we have had so many of that persuasion in this House. Now the gentleman invokes the white soldier and protests against this injustice which would be done him. Sir, it is not the white soldier who objects to clothing the black man with the elective franchise. It is not the white man who has fought shoulder to shoulder with the black I man upon the field who objects to these people. Not he. The objection comes from the Gentfrom NewJersey, and such as he, who have o posed the war and the soldiers, white. One of the gentlemans contradictions I may perhaps point out here. After citing the decrees and laws of Greece and Rome, and of the old Mosaic dispensation, and, for aught I know, the laws of the Chocktaws, Semine les, Pottawato mics, and Cherokees, to prove that the proper condition of the negro was a state of slavery that he was happier and more contented and better in every respect in such a condition, the gentleman finally sums n his speech by telling this House that we have a ready conferred upon the blacks more benefits than we have upon all the rest of mankind, namely, libertythat greatest, best of all blessings which can be conerred upon man, freedom! Well, is it so? Is it true that freedom is a boon and a blessing to black men? Why, then, did not the gentleman and his party sooner vote to confer that blessing upon them? Why did the steadily and persistently oppose the amendment of the constitution which I would confer the blessings of freedom on these people? Then they argued that it was no blessing, that it was a curse ratherit was an injury. Turning the black man away from the roof of his master without the kin protection and guidance of his l owner was no boon, as these gentlemen argued then, but rather a curse. Well sir, if freedom is a blessing and a boon, if freedom is the high est right that anian possesses, then is the right to rotcct that freedom a high and divine and ho y right. It has been said that the right to vote is not a natural right. I confess that I cannot see what it is not. It is truly said that the right of self defense is the 1st law of nature. ie right to vote, the ballot, is the free mans defense; and if his right to freedom is an inalienable and natural right, then, too, is the right to protect that freedom an inalienable and natural right. The Gentfrom NewJersey says that at the time of the organization of this Government and the adoption of the Federal constitution black men were not regarded as citizens; that this is a white mans Government and that the fathers who established it had no intention of making a Government for black men. I take issue with the gentleman there. I say that our fathers made this Government for men; not for black men or white men, not for AngloSaxons, not for Irishmen, or Germans, or Americans merely, but they made it for men. I take issue with him, 06, liiliis assertion that blacks were not regarded at that time as citizens, and had no part nor lot in the DeclarIndep. Upon this subject of the DeclarIndep and the understanding and design of the fathers who framed I It, want to call the attention of the House to what Thomas Jefferson said on this subject. It will be recollected, I have no doubt, y most of the members of the House, if not by all, that shortly after the revolutionary war Mr. Jefferson used this language: “Let it over he the boast of America that the rights for which she has contended are the rights of human nature.”, What did he mean by “the rights of human nature 1” I suppose the Gentfrom NewJersey would say he meant white human nature, the nature of men with fair skins and blue eyes. But we are not left in the dark as to the meaning of Mr. Jefferson in using this phrase. I find in Jeffersons works, volume one, page 185, this language used by him in reference to slavery: "But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have. it is necessary to exclude all further impo boast of this country, he said, should be that the rights for which she fought were the rights of man, no matter what his color or clinic or condition. Why, sir, it was not until afew years ago that our Government refused to issue passports to colored American citizens traveling abroad do scribing them as citizens of the U.S. I well recollect to have seen an original passport issued to the servant of John Randolph when traveling abroad, describing him as a “citizen of the U.S.” It was not until we had taken our departure from the doctrines of the fathers, long and ion after the constitution was made, that the infamous doctrine crept in that the black man had no “human nature, ” had “no rights which white men were bound to respect, ” and that none but white men could be citizens of the U.S. It is an infamous, a mean, a narrow, a devilish doctrine. Mr. Speaker, there are somethings said by gentlemen upon the other side of the House which deserve only to be answered by ridicule, for they are ridiculous. Among them is this everlasting cry of negro equality and, that it is necessary to have discriminating laws to oppress the black man in order to prevent his rising to an equality with the white, then it is rather a confession of his superiority than of his inferiority. If you are afraid he will rise, should he have a fair chance, to an equality with the white man, and beat him in the competition for a Government as ours, and therefore you must oppress him still more by discriminating legislation in order to prevent that, then he is superior to the white man and not his inferior. I am inclined to think it is true that if we confer upon the black man the right to vote and the right to hold office, we will be more likely to have other men sent to Congress than some who have held seats here and even if it were true that they would send one of their own race here, I would still vote for it. For on the whole, however my reputation for good taste might be called in question by some, I would prefer to sit by the side of Fred. Douglass in this Hall rather than by the side of Fernando Wood, for instance. [Laughter] I believe it is not out of order “tficall names in this case, and if there is any offense I will answer for it “ to Fred. Douglass. Negro equality” is the everlasting skeleton which frightens some people. There is a class of men; and they mostly vote the Democratic ticket, who are afraid, if we confer. a the negro equal rights and privileges with themselves, t cre will no longer be left any race or class of men in the U.S. who will be their inferiors, and I think they are right about that. It is very natural for men to look down upon some one; almost everyman refers himself to others, and thinks at least that he is superior to some other man in many respects. hat is a natural element in a mans nature, that of selflove. Men are very fond of considering themselves a little elevated above somebody else, and if we confer upon the black race the right to vote and hold o cc equally with these men there will be nobody left for them to look down upon and say “ You are beneath me.” and the Gentfrom NewJersey [Mr. Roosas] refers to another bugbear with which to scare ignorant people, that of amalgamation. He recites the statutes of various States against the intermarriage of blacks and whites. Veil, sir, while I regard that as altogether a matter of taste, and neither myself nor my friends require any restraining laws to relevant us from committing any error in that iroction, still, if my friendfrom NewJersey and his friends are fearful that they will be betrayed into forming any connection of that sort, will very cheer fully join with him in voting the restraining in fluence of a penal statute. I will vote to pun. t: meg?) an traveling With his master.” ish it by confinement in the State prison, or, if he pleases. by hanginganything rather than they should we betrayed into or induced to form As for my own we have no fears of that kind. Amalgamation is an outgrowth of slavery. It is where slavery has existed that you fin it, not where the negro is free and has the right of self protection. Prejudice against the black man depends very much upon the status of the black man. It is a singu or phase of character in reference to this subject. of prejudice, that the prejudice is tenfold stronger against the free black man than it is againsttIie slave. If a blackman is only a slave, and in what the gentleman NewJersey his proper condition, then he has no prejudice against him. the minds of the [people in the same coach he is a slave t knock the shackles off his limbs, clothe him well, and give him the rights of a free man, and at once arose people will turn up their noses and say, Humphl niggers iatlte cars; I wont ride with niggers. ” I recollect, some years ago, before we imd horse railroads, I used to see, in this very city, a white lady riding in an omnibus, with a poor ragged slave girl carrying her child, sitting by her side. The poor slave girl was rugged and dirty, but she was a slave. The other day I saw that same woman get up in high dudgeon and flaunt out of a street car because a respectable, tidy, welldressed, free colored woman came into the car to ride. Prejudice, after all, is not so much against color as condition. f people have no objection to riding in a carriage with a black man, if he sits forward and drives the horses. In that case he is considered as in his properposition, and there is no prejudice against associating with him; he has no bad smell. But the moment he takes a back seat, the of some people are greatly offended. This prejudice, too, has all grown out of slavery. there is no natural prejudice against color. Little children have none of it until they are told frightful stories of “horrid black men" by their nurses, to frighten them. Oppress and degrade any class of “ a long series of years, by unjust an unequal laws, and you will array against them the same)prejudice. What. should of the test as to the right to exercise the elective franchise? I contend that the only question to be asked should he, ” Is he a man? The test should be that of manhood not that of color or races or class. Is he endowed with conscience and reason? Is he an immortal being? If these questions are answered in the affirmative, then he has all those essential attributes of manhood that are possessed by the Gentfrom NewJersey, or any other man; and he has the same right to protection that we all enjoy. I am in favor, Mr. Speakerk of making I believe that the greatestwisdomis concentratedin tire decisions of the ballotbox when all citizens of a certain age vote than when only a part vote. If you apply a test founded on education or intelli gence, where will you stop? One man will say that the voter should be able to read the constitution and to write his name; another, that he should be acquainted with the history of the U.S.; another will demand a still higher degree of education and intelligence; until you will establish an aristocracy of wisdom , which is one of the worst kinds of aris tocracy. Sir, the men who formed this Government, who believed in the rights of human nature, and designed the Government to retect them, believed, I think, as I do, that when suffrage is made universal you concentrate in. the ballotbox a larger amount of wisdom than when you exclude a portion of the citizens from the right of suffrage. While it is true that we have adin this country, at some times, in some localities, and at some elections, asclass of men who are very dangerous on account of their ignorance and their passions, yet, on the whole, I think it is safer for our institutions and safer for ourselves to allow all men to vote than to establish any arbitrary tests which would exclude a part from the ballotbox. I have never heard from the other side of the House any objection to the exercise of the rightof suffrage by white men on account of theirine rance. whhen Congress passeda law by which the foreigner, ignorant as he might be of our language and our institutions, should be admitted to no rights of citizenship as a reward for one years service in the Army of the U.S., that measure had my hearty approval; and I believe that it received the approval of gentlemen on the other side of the House. The ignorance of that class was not at that time urged as an objection to conferring the franchise upon them. Now, sir, ifa foreigner, totally ignorant of our institutions hnd language, is qualified, after a years service in the Armv, to exercise the right of suffrage, I ask, in Gods name, whether the negro, a native of this country, who has been fighting for 4 years, is not equally qualified to exercise that right?