Mr. CRESWELL. There was no discussion; and it is therefore fair to presume that those words were used in no unusual sense. But a new state of affairs has arisen. My distinguished colleague the other day said that we ought to return to the doctrine of the fathers. "I am willing to return to that fountain of true wisdom ; and now that we have got rid of slavery, the bane and curse of this i. for so many years, I am eager to turn again to the records left us by the revolutionary sages, and to conform my practice to those great principles of liberty and universal justice which they asserted and maintained. Sir, for a vote that I gave in this body yesterday I have been censured in certain quarters. I have been charged with violating the accepted faith and traditions of M.i. I deny it. I challenge any man in Maryland or out of Maryland to show from Maryland authorities the impropriety of my vote. Maryland was one of the old 13, and her 1st bill of rights and constitution were made in the very heat and fervor of the Revolution, ay, upon the very heel of the DeclarIndep. The men who heard that glorious instrument read at the old State House in Philadelphia posted home to assemble their State convention, and to organize their State government. Influenced by the same feelings and purposes that prompted them to venture all in the effort to assert their liberties, they proclaimed to the world what they believed to be the genuine principles of republican government. The convention met on the 14th of Au gust, 1776; many of the best men in the State were there: Dent, Mackall, Bowie, Hammond, Worthington, Ridgeley, Stevenson, Archer, Tilghman, Chase, i and Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, held seats in that body. This convention, so constituted and animated, organized a State ."upon the most enlarged views. hat said they in regard to the right of suffrage? The bill of rights, adopted November 8, 1776, declared in its 5th section — “That the right in the people to Legislature is the best security of liberty and the foundation of all free government. For this purpose elections ought to be free and frequent, and every man having property in a commoninterest with and an attachment to the community ought to have a right of suffrage.” Mark you, “every man;” not white men only, but “every man;" and that God made men of diverse colors they well knew, because at that time the African had been held in bond age in Maryland for more than a century. Men still live who have heard their fathers say that they have seen, under that provision of the Bill of Rights, enforced by a subsequent provision in the body of the Constitution, white men vote side by side with negro men without a question being asked or a doubt o: %. same convention, in the body of the conarticipate in the y stitution adopted on the 8th November, 1776, inserted the provision following: “All free men above21 years of age, having a freehold of 50 acresof land in the county in which thcy offer to vote and residing therein, and all free men having property in this State above the value of 30 pounds current money, and having resided in the county in which they offer to vote one rwighhotleoyfesaurffnreaxgteipnretcheedeinlegctthioeneolef cdteioleng, ashteasllfohrasvuecah county.” That continued to be the law of Maryland down to the year 1810, when the constitution was amended so as to confine the suffrage to white men. At the same time the Legislature saw proper to manumit the white race from the property qualifications that at that time oppressed them. It was enacted that from and after the year 1810 no man should be excluded from the right to vote or should be prevented from holding any office by reason of the want of any property qualification, thus declaring forever in favor of manhood suffrage. Now, sir, why was that? That was a depart: ure from the fathers in one respect toward freedom, but in the other toward slavery. They enfranchised the white man; they riveted more tightly the shackles of the black man. It was done because meanwhile cotton, as they believed, had become king. It was done because the inventions of Whitney and others had enabled the cotton growers to manipulate their product, so successfully as to make it with slave labor the most profitable staple of the continent, and slave, ay, negro culture, thence forth became as much a business as cotton culture; and even Maryland and Virginia, from their former condition of active hostility to slavery, as evinced by the sentiments of their representatives in the Convention which formed the Constitution of the U.S. in 1787, became from that day forth the active propa gandists of slavery. From this new stand point it may have been necessary, if slavery rather than freedom was to be preserved, to exclude the black man, whether free or slave, from the ballot box, and they did so. Avarice is insatiable, and those who prof. ited by slavery, not satisfied with their present gains, began to throw around it the protection of the State laws. In 1836 they provided by an amendment of the Constitution — “That the relation of master and slave in thisState shall not be abolished unlessa bill so to abolish the same shall be passed by a unanimous vote of the membersof each branch of the General Assembly, and shall be published at least 3 months before baynew election of delegates, and shall be confirmed a unanimous vote of the membersof eachbranch of the General Assembly at the next regular constitutional session after such new election, nor then without full compensationto the masterfor the prop erty of which he shall thereby be deprived.” This was a declaration to the people of Maryland: slavery shall be continuous, perpetual; it shall be the absorbing interest within the limits of the State; and no matter what may be the convictions of the people in regard to it, or what may be the manifest interest of the majority, you shall not abolish it without a unanimous vote of both Houses of 2 consecutive Legislatures—an absolute impossibility as men are constituted. Thus justice, blind and robbed of her scales, was forced to wield her sword in the interest of her enemies. But that is not all. In the constitution of 1851, article 3, section 43, they imposed an absolute prohibition.?'. all legislative action for the abolition of slavery, in these words: "The Legislature shall not passany law abolishing the relation of master or slave, as it now exists in this State.” Finally, they went so far as to say that no slaveholder, no matter what might be his views of duty or propriety, should be allowed to man umit his slaves; and after having built up all these legal fortifications around their pet interest they actually aided to organize rebellion and civilWar against this great Government, in order that they might witness the apotheosis of, their grand idea and construct upon the ruins of free institutions a Government with its foundation based upon the corner stone of slavery. After that came the deluge; and the men who fought to obliterate all sentiments of liberty from the human heart were themselves swept out of place, and many of them for their impi ous rashness paid the penalty with their lives. I believe, sir, the hand of God was guiding the whole movement. Once admitted that slavery and property qualifications are forever abolished, and there can be no reason assigned why “every man having a common interest with and an attachment to the community” ought not to be remitted, according to the Bill of Rights of 1776, to the right of suffrage. The time has come whenevery man, declared to be a citizen of the U.S., of proper age and having the qualifications applicable to other citizens, must, if we intend to stand upon a RFG, be allowed to express his political sentiments through the ballot box. Now, sir, I come to the .propounded by the other Senfrom Wisconsin, [Mr. DooLITTLE.] He made the point upon my friendfrom Vermont that the people of a State might restrict the exercise of the right of suffrage. I admit it; but I assert that it must be by all the people; and now, that slavery is abolished, black citizens are a part of the people; and if there is a State within this Union with a constitution adopted by a majority of only a part of its people, I contend it is not republican in form. The white citizens of a State have no right thus to exclude the black citizens of a State from the exercise of political power any more than the black citizens have to exclude the white; and when a State is in that position, it is the duty of Congress, as much as anything can be its duty, to see that that State has a RFG. Not only does this duty apply to States which are under the ban of rebellion, but to all States. The Constitution says that “the U.S shall guaranty to every State in this Union a RFG;” and hence, if by the force of events, or by any combination of circumstances, any State is in this Union without having given at some time of its history, either in the formation and adoption of its constitution or subsequently, to every citizen having the common qualifications, a right to speak with regard to its form of government, I pronounce it to be antirepublican. I do not mean to say that every woman or every child or every criminal or traitor must vote. There must be certain obvious rules governing this matter. If the right of suffrage is committed generally to the males, then confine it to the males. If it be desirable to exclude children or criminals or traitors, let them be excluded as incompetent or danger ous characters to the State. But I do say that no principle ever embodied in the organic law by the founders of our Government can be cited to justify the Congress of the U.S. in allowing any State to retain a form of government which disfranchises all of a class of citizens by reason of race or color; and when gentlemen in Maryland talk about making a new constitution I, contend that they must submit it to every citizen having these common qualifications; and if they deny that, I shall be one of Maryland's sons to come to the Congress of the U.S and ask that that constitution shall not be recognized.