Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. President, when this bill was considered at the beginning of the session I contented myself by simply voting for it, but only after serious reflection and after listening to all that was said on either side of the question. We are now required to reconsider our opinions. There comes to us a message from the POTUS stating in the ordinary way his objections to the passage of this bill. The message is respectful in its terms, made in pursuance of his constitutional duty, and it ought to be fairly and fully considered. There is nothing new in the message so far as argument is concerned. The statements of the message are but a resume. of the arguments already adduced in the senate, where the subject was fully and ably debated; and probably nothing is said in the message that was not more fully said in the Senate. Still, as it is the duty of the President, where he withholds his assent to a bill passed by Congress, to communicate his reasons to the body in which the bill originated, it be comes our duty to give to his reasons a respectful consideration. The only criticism I can make on, the message itself is on that part of it in which the President undertakes to warn the people of the U.S. against the dangers of the abuse of legislative power. He quotes from Judge Story that the legislative branch may absorb all the powers of the Government. He quotes also the familiar language of Mr. Jefferson, that 170 tyrants are more dangerous than one tyrant. I do not think that there is any occasion for such a warning, because I am not aware that in this bill Congress has even assumed any doubtful power. The President himself admits that Congress has absolute legislative power over this District, as full power as any State Legislature could have, unrestrained by a constitution. The power of Congress over this Dis: trict is without limit, and therefore in prescrib:ing who shall vote for mayor and city council of this city it cannot be claimed that we usurppower or exercise a doubtful power. The only question is as to the discretionary exercise of a clearly admitted power. So far as the President's argument as to the dangers from the legislative powerisconcerned, I submit that there can be but little danger from Congress; for our acts are but the reflection of the will of the people. This body the most permanent branch of the legislative authority is but twice removed from the will of the people. We are elected by members of the State Legislatures, who are elected annually or biennially by the people of the respective States, and 1/3rd of this body is changed every 2 ears, so that after all it represents the popu ar will of the States who send us here. The HoRep is more directly the representative of the people, being immediately elected by them. The recent acts of Congress at the last session, those acts upon which the President and Congress separated, were submitted to the people, and after a very full canvass and a very able one, in which great numbers of speeches were made on both sides and documents were circulated, the people, who are the common masters of the President and Congress, decided in favor of Congress. Unless, therefore, there is an inherent danger from a republican Government, resting solely upon the will of the people, there is no occasion for the warning of the President. Unless the judgment of one man is better than the combined judgment of a great majority, he should have respected their decision, and not continue a controversy in which our common constituency have decided that he was wrong. I have not seen any effort on the part of this Congress to unreasonably curb the Executive or to assume any doubtful authority. For the last 20 or 30 years, and ever since the time of General Jackson, there has been a growing feeling in this country that the danger of an undue increase of executive power was the imminent one. The President was not only using his share of the legislative power, because by his veto he controls at least 1/3rd of the legislative power, but he was greatly increasing his power by the use of the executive patron age. There has been no time in the history of our Government when the executive patronage has been used to a more dangerous extent than it has been within the last 6 months. Usu ally the controversy arises within a party: the President selects agents within his party to administer the executive functions; but by the singular position of events now, the President oes outside of the political party which elected im, goes beyond those who contributed to his election, and selects agents outside of that or to perform nearly all the executive nctions of the Government. But it is not necessary to pursue this matter; I wished simply to refer to it. The language of the message, as I have said, is courteous: I wish the President in his verbal speeches had always been as courteous and kind in his remarks about Congress as he has been in his messages. If so, it would probably have tended to prevent a great deal of the bitterness of feeling that may have been shown in the recent canvass. But to come to the question itself: the 1st objection made by the President is that the people of this District are opposed to this measure. If this were a question whether one mill or 2 mills or ten mills on the dollar should be levied on their property, I would say that we ought to defer to the wishes of the people of the District. If it were a question whether a new courthouse should be built, or any question affecting alone the people of this District, the people of the District ought to be consulted. When the President says that in local matters we o: to defer to the people of this District, I think he is right. Congress has never been as liberal to the people of the District in conferring political power as I think it ought to have been., My impression has been for years that we ought to form a legislative assembly, or something in the nature of a legislative assembly, in this District, and confer upon it full Tower over local affairs, and many of the laws introduced here and passed, on the motion of the District Committee, ought to be passed by their local authorities; and whenever such a proposition is made here I shall be most ready to vote for it. Indeed, the growing wants of 100,000 souls, the wealth that is accumulating here, the industries that are being built up, the railroads that have been and are being constructed here, all demand some kind of i. legislative authority, and I am perfectly willing to give that local legislative authority to the people of the District. But that is not the question here. This is a question as to who shall vote. This is pecu liarly a question for Congress to determine. Even in a State it is not left to the local Legislature to determine who shall vote. The Legislature of Ohio does not prescribe the qualifications of a voter in that State. I believe in no State of the Union can the Legislature prescribe the qualifications of a voter. The prescription of who shall vote is the highest act of power in any government. It is an act of the people. After it is once fixed it is only by a change of the Constitution that the subject can be reached. The people themselves, through a convention duly elected, prescribe who shall vote; and even if legislative power should be conferred upon the people of this District no authority would be given to them to say who should vote. That must be fixed by the supreme legislative authority, and in the District it is admitted to be in Congress. Now that the white people of this District should meet together. say that other people, equally interested with them, shall not vote is an assumption of authority not justified by reason., What right have the white people of this District to say that the negroes shall not vote, any more than the negroes have to say that the whites shall not vote, except that they are the most numerous? The result was, when they called an election, not in pursuance of a law, not in accordance with law, but without law, to determine who should vote, as a matter of course a great many people remained away, and only those voted who were in favor of excluding the negroes from voting. I do not pay the slightest attention to this vote of the people of the District. We are bound to legislate for them ourselves. We prescribe who shall vote in this District. It is a power clearly conferred upon us; and in the exercise of that power I felt bound to take the broadest democratic rule, to give to every one affected by the legislative authority of this District a right to vote directly or indirectly..So far as the families, the women and children, are concerned, we know that they are represented by their husbands, by their parents, by their brothers, by those who are connected with them by domestic ties; but so far as the black people of this District are concerned, we knew that the white people generally were hostile to them; jealous of them; generally had a feeling of strong prejudice ainst them. Now to say that the white people of this District o.for the black people was simply saying that the black people had no rights whatever which the white people were bound to respect. It has been the history in all Governments in all struggles for liberty that the persons in possession of power have always been the last to share it with the others. If it is left to the governing classes of England they will not extend the elective franchise to the masses of the people of England. A controversy is going on, memorable in its character, at this moment in England. A very small proportion of the white male citizens in England vote; and the struggle now there is, not for universal suffrage, but it is a struggle of a class to get into the favored class. A singular spectacle is presented of men of intelligence, of the highest merit, of education, who have graduated at their colleges, being excluded from the right to vote because they have not property. Every person would say that such men, graduates of colleges, men of intelligence, ought to vote; but they cannot in England extend the franchise by any general rule without reaching the body of the people; and when that proposition is there made it is met by the very same arguments that are here adduced by the POTUS It is objected that it is dangerous to go down to a lower grade in society, because you thereby admit to the polls ignorant people unfit to exercise political power. One of the expressions used. the President is almost in the very words uttered by a member of the British Parliament recently, that it would not do to trust the people to levy taxes, because they did not own. property to be taxed. That has been the common argument with which universal suffrage has been resisted in all Governments. In our own country our institutions are founded mainly upon those of England, and it took more than 100 years to establish in this country the right of general or univer sal suffrage; and even now in the State of Massachusetts, which is considered one of the most democratic or republican of States, they exclude a portion of their people because they cannot read or write. It seems to me that now, when we are founding a basis for civil society in this District, we ought to make it as exten sive as possible; we ought to give every person whose property is affected by local taxation some right to be represented in the authority which imposes those taxes. If this was a corporation and so far as the city of Washington is concerned it is but a corporation we ought to apply to that corporation, the same principle that is applied to all other money corpo rations, that every person who is interested either in the protection of his rights or in the protection o his property should have some voice, directly or indirectly, in the Government. The next objection which is urged by the President is, that it is dangerous to the rights of the whites to extend the suffrage to the negroes. That is an argument which, I think, answers itself. He admits in this message that the colored population is less than 1/3rd of the people of this District. The white people have nearly all the property; they have the control of every organ of public opinion; they have the control of every newspaper; they have control of nearly all the churches; they are intelligent; they are white; and yet it is said that 100,000 of them cannot enter into a competition with 30,000 negroes! It is simply absurd. But it is said that these negroes are igno rant. So they are. And if I could have drawn any line of distinction between those who are intelligent and those who are not intelligent I would do so. I listened with great interest to the argument of the Presiding Officer of this body on this subject. I should have been willing, for the present at least, to apply an intelligence qualification to the negro voters; but I came to the conclusion that it was impossible. You cannot draw a line and say that a man who can read and write shall vote, and that a man who cannot read and write shall not vote. It is an uncertain test, a dif ficult test to be applied in any Government. It is unjust here, because by your laws you have prevented this class from learning to read and write. The mere habit of reading and writing is no test of intelligence. It is true a man who can read and write has opportunities of acquiring intelligence which one who cannot read or write has not; but it is no sufficient test upon which to base the great right of suffrage. The very difficulty of drawing a line compelled us either to exclude the whole black population in this District from all right to vote or else to extend it to all alike without distinction of race or color. I, think, therefore, the Senate of the U.S. did perfectly right when they abolished all distinctions upon this subject, and as a general rule allowed every head of a family or every male citizen to exercise the elective franchise. The President says this is not the time to try the experiment. I say that it is precisely the time. We have recently with great unanimity passed a constitutional amendment in which we have endeavored to persuade in a gentle way the people of the southern States to give some degree of political power or political rights to the negroes of the South. Since we have passed that amendment we cannot sit here and refuse to give to the negro population of this District some political power, as we have in a measure by our constitutional amendment bribed the people of the southern States to extend some political power to their negroes. It seems to me that now is the time, at the end of this great civilWar when general principles are discussed more than ever before, to start out upon correct principles. The President says this is not the place for this experiment. I say it is the place of all others, because if the negroes here abuse the political power we give to them we can with draw the privilege at any moment. It is always within the power of Congress to revoke this authority. "If it be shown hereafter that by their ignorance, or their folly, or their crime, they are endangering or will endanger civil society in this community, we can withdraw at any time the power which we now confer and resume our original functions. When the power is conferred by a State it cannot be withdrawn except by a change of the Constitution, but here we can withdraw it. I have always thought, and I have often been taunted for saying, that this District was the paradise of free negroes. It is the paradise of free negroes, and it ought to be. Hereto fore they were under the ban of prejudice; in the southern States the great mass of them were slaves; in the northern States they could not enjoy any rights; in the city of NewYork they were cruelly mobbed while we were in the midst of the war in which they served us faith fully as soldiers and laborers. In nearly all of the States they are now denied F.". Here political power can be conferred upon them with safety; I will say for the free negroes in this District that they will exercise their new power with reasonable moderation and intelligence. They are now making rapid prog ress in education. They are sustaining their own schools without public money, although they are taxed to maintain the schools for white children. They are building churches. They are now showing evidences of intelligence and a degree of industry and order which some classes of the white people do not. I believe they are rapidly advancing in the scale of civi lization, and that, if not now, they will soon be prepared to vote with as much intelligence as other citizens of the District. But there is another reason why we can confer this power here, even before it is conferred in the States. Here this element can do no harm. The people in this District vote simply upon municipal }. they exercise no political power; they have no voice either in the Senate or the HoRep. The questions upon which they are called to vote are simply questions of dollars and cents, money matters which affect them in common with other property holders, and upon which they will vote with as much discretion as others. I say, therefore, that this is the time and this is the very place to try this experiment. I desire for one to see it extended all over the country. I have no doubt that the people of Ohio, who have for 50 years excluded the black population from voting, will, in their own good time, and in their own way, without any interference from outsiders, allow the negro population of that State, which is very small, participation in the elective franchise, and probably place them on an equality with the whites. I have no doubt this will be done. The State, as a political community, would not allow anybody else to interfere with their power over this subject, but when the Constitution is revised in its regular course, this discrimination against our negro citizens will be removed, and it may be done sooner. Ine tice that the Democratic party, in the hope to make a popular issue, have invited the controyersy in our State by passing resolutions in their county conventions declaring that they are very much opposed to negro suffrage in Ohio. I for one am willing to accept their challenge. Our people are j, for the contest, and will not A. from the universal application of a great principle from a narrow prejudice of caste. I am willing to extend to the few negroes in the State of Ohio the elective franchise on precisely the same terms that it is now given to all other male citizens of legal age. When the question is made and we will make it in our own good time it will be carried, and then our Democratic friends, instead of appealing to the nar row prejudice against the negro, will be appealing to the negro for his vote. I have perhaps said more than it was necessary to say at this time, because I take it we have all formed and expressed by our votes our opinions on this matter, and there is but little doubt as to the result. The message of the President admits the general principle that an intelligent negro ought to vote. We say we can draw no satisfactory test of intelligence and refer a general rule applicable to white and lack. Here we differ, and I for one appeal with confidence to the sober reason of our common constituents. I believe that experience will demonstrate the wisdom of this act, as it has the kindred act of emancipation in this District.