from papers $674, a fewer number of papers than the year before; and you had from the sale of stamps $12,953, being a sum total of $14,812, showing a decrease in one year of $1,685. To my mind this is a painful revela tion, and it speaks volumes.

Thus, sir, does it appear from this somewhat minute survey that this Territory has gone backward in population, in agriculture, in mining, and in the Post Office. But this is not all; this is not its only retrogression; there has been a worse retrogression than any in population or agriculture or the Post Office. There has been a retrogression in republican principle. The Territory began by a recognition of human rights. As it proceeded here also was another retrogression, and it denied what it began by recognizing. Like Peter, it denied its Lord. I add, therefore, to this exhibition of the failure of this Territory, its failure in republican principles, and this I shall proceed to show by the authority of the present Governor of the Territory in his message communicated to the Legislature of the Territory under date of January 23, 1866. By this message it appears that the original organic act creating the Territory provided that the qualification of voters should be "such as shall be prescribed by the Legislative Assembly." Under the authority thus conferred, the Legislative Assembly at its first session passed a law regulating elections, which was approved November 6, 1861, providing that

"Every male person of the age of twenty-one years or upward who shall have resided in the Territory for three months next preceding any election shall be deemed a qualified voter at such election."

Here is no discrimination of color. This was the way this Territory began in 1861; but as it proceeded, the same failure which showed itself in other respects showed itself in its devotion to the principle embodied in this legislation, until at last the Legislative Assembly at its session of 1864, by an act approved March 11, 1864, declared that no person being a negro or mulatto should be a voter. The language of the statute was

"Every male citizen of the age of twenty-one years or upward, not being a negro or mulatto, shall be deemed a qualified voter."

Here, by expressed language, open and barefaced, negroes and mulattoes were put under the ban. A caste was established. A discrimination, odious, offensive, and unchristian was organized in the statutes of the Territory.

Sir, consider, that when this act was passed, in March, 1864, the country was still struggling in that terrible war involving the great question of justice to the colored race. At that moment this distant community, already aspiring to be a State in the Union, undertook to put its feet upon the colored race that had began to gather under its jurisdiction. We are told they are few in number, perhaps a hundred; but out of that hundred there are some seventy who promptly went forth as soldiers to do battle for your flag; but when they returned to their homes they found that the franchise that they had already enjoyed was taken from them; that they who had periled life for to save the Republic and to aid it in establishing the rights of all, when they once more found themselves at their own firesides were despoiled of their own. Sir, am I wrong when I say that here was a retrogression in republican principles that here was a departure from those fundamental truths which are essential to our Government. It was, I say, a departure and retrogression because this community had begun right. It began by recognizing these truths; but as if blasted by some evil genius, the same failure that attended it in population, in agriculture, in mining, and in other respects, seemed to descend upon its moral sense.

Mr. STEWART. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question?

Mr. SUMNER. Certainly.

Mr. STEWART. I would inquire of the Senator if at the time he voted for this enabling act he supposed that the laws of Colorado allowed negroes to vote.

Mr. SUMNER. If the Senator will be good

enough to wait till I come to that point I shall answer it. I would rather not answer it now, but in the proper place.

Mr. STEWART. Then I have another

question to ask, founded on that.

Mr. SUMNER. You had better, perhaps, ask me then.

Mr. STEWART. Very well.

Mr. SUMNER. I shall consider the question to which the Senator directs my attention at another place. I do not wish to avoid anything. I was now portraying the failure of this community; its fall, rather let me say. I do not use too strong language. I say it was a fall when this community, which had solemnly enacted justice, after the lapse of three years reversed its own decree, and solemnly enacted injustice. There it stands on the statute-book. You must recognize it. You cannot blink it out of sight. You cannot be insensible to it. It is a fact in the history of this Territory. No other Territory in the history of the country has ever been thus guilty. No other Territory which has risen to the height of justice has ever descended again so low. No other Territory which has undertaken to recognize the rights of man has afterward undertaken to overthrow them.

The Governor of the Territory, in the message which I hold in my hand, speaking of this question, says in language which does him honor: "It seems incredible, and were it not for the record it would be incredible, that such a measure could have been adopted at such a time."

The Governor in the same message goes on to show that these same colored men while despoiled of the elective franchise are nevertheless compelled to pay taxes to support the whole government and to support the public schools from which their children are excluded. Some of the more prosperous of them, in order to secure education for their children, have been obliged to send them to distant parts of the country, because this churlish and unjust community has denied to those children the rights of education while their parents are taxed for the support of schools. All this again is set forth by the Governor in the message which I hold in my hand, and he then adds:

"I do not propose in this connection to discuss the question of equality of race, about which so many words and so much labor have been wasted; but I submit without argument the fact that the colored people in Denver and various parts of the Territory are taxed for educating white children, while their own children are excluded from the public schools, and your action will determine how long this humiliating spectacle shall be presented to the world."

Could anything be more flagrant? And yet this community now appeals for your favor and countenance and welcome as a State.

I have alluded to the message of the Governor, I now cite another authority, which is a telegraphic dispatch from a colored citizen of Colorado, which has traveled over the wires a very long distance, as follows:

DENVER CITY, COLORADO, January 15, 1866. The law adopted by the Territorial Legislature in 1861 allowed all persons over twenty-one to vote, without distinction of color. The law passed in 1864, signed by Governor Evans, deprived colored citizens of the right at the very time when appealing to them to help save the country. The admission of Colorado under her present constitution makes that law permanent. If not admitted now, this can be corrected. WILLIAM J. HARDING, A colored citizen.

Mr. TRUMBULL. If the Senator from Massachusetts has the territorial statute by him I wish he would read it. I do not understand that any negro ever did vote in Colorado, and I do not understand that there ever was a law of that Territory declaring that "any person" should vote. My information in regard to it is that the right of voting was confined to citizens, and they held in Colorado that a negro was not a citizen. That is not my opinion, but that was their opinion, and in point of fact no colored person ever did vote there. The language is not, according to my information, as the Senator reads it. I wish he would read the exact language if he has the statute.

Mr. SUMNER. He quotes it precisely, and he gives it the interpretation I do. As he quotes it the word "citizen" is not there, and it reads thus:

"Every male person of the age of twenty-one years or upward who shall have resided in the Territory for three months next preceding any election shall be deemed a qualified voter at such election."

Mr. TRUMBULL. I have not the statute, but my information is that the word used was "citizen."

Mr. HOWARD. What was the date of the statute?

Mr. SUMNER. November 6, 1861, and it was passed in pursuance of the organic act. I have already referred to it amply; I do not wish to take up too much time in this discussion. So the Senate will see that the question presented by my friend from Illinois did not arise there. There was no question of citizenship. The language was broad and general; it was applicable to every male person of the age of twenty-one years or upward, and was the statute which in 1864 was reversed.

In further exhibition of the retrograde spirit which prevails in this Territory, I shall read a brief extract from a letter which I hold in my hand from a gentleman well known to my colleague, who left Massachusetts to make a home in Colorado-Hon. Rodney French. My colleague knows him as an excellent person, devoted to human rights, hating slavery, anxious for freedom everywhere and always. He is now at home in Massachusetts, and he writes me as follows under date of April 18-you will perceive that it is a very recent letter:

"The only colored man in the Territory who dared to offer to vote against the constitution was shot down dead like a dog in the street the other day, and no more notice taken of it by the authorities than if he had been a beast. I sincerely hope and trust the motion to reconsider may not prevail."

And now, sir. we are asked to admit this Territory thus deficient in population, thus deficient in agricultural resources, thus failing in mining resources, thus failing in the Post Of fice. We are asked to admit this Territory with a constitution denying human rights. Will you admit it? Will you by any such vote interfere, as you surely will, with that just influ ence which you ought to exercise in the reconstruction of the States lately in rebellion? You have in those States this same question, shall the word white" be allowed to continue in constitutions and statutes? And how can you insist that it shall be excluded from constitutions and statutes there, when you receive into the Union this new community with a constitution which tolerates this principle of exclusion? I have already said that you have complete control of the whole question; it is within State out if you please; you may admit it if your absolute discretion; you may shut this you please; but I call upon you to exercise that discretion so that human rights may not fail. Do not tell me that Connecticut failed to overthrow this proscription. Sir, do not imitate Connecticut. If you recognize this proscription, you will be as bad as Connecticut.

And now, sir, what is the argument, if argument it be called, which is brought forward in favor of the admission of this community as a State of the Union? I know of but one, unless there be another which occurs in a whisper and not in debate, to which before I close I may refer. I know of but one argument which has been adduced in debate, and that is founded on the enabling act of March 21, 1864, which is entitled "An act to enable the people of Colorado to form a constitution and State government, and for the admission of such State into the Union on an equal footing with the original States." If I understand the argument, it is that Congress by this statute pledged itself in advance to admit this community as a State into this Union; that we are bound by this statute so that we cannot escape this obligation; that, in short, we are tied up

by this statute. This is a strong assumption; but I believe it is an accurate statement of the position of the other side.

Now, sir, I think I can easily show that this is a great mistake. I may remind you in the first place that the President to whom this question was naturally submitted first, in a message to the Senate has expressly stated to you that in his opinion the new constitution which is now before the Senate was not formed in pursuance of the enabling act. In that message he sets forth the character of this enabling act, shows that there was an attempt to form a constitution in pursuance of it which failed, and that there was another constitution formed by political bodies independent of the enabling act, which he has submitted to your consideration. Of this second constitution he says:

"The proceedings in the second instance for the formation of a State government having differed in time and mode from those specified in the act of March 21, 1864, I have declined to issue the proclamation for which provision is made in the fifth scction of the law, and therefore submit the question for the consideration and further action of Congress."

Thus, sir, the President did not feel authorized to issue his proclamation in pursuance of this enabling act declaring Colorado a State in the Union; he referred the question to you, and you must decide it; and here, again, Í shall read another dispatch from the same telegraphic correspondent that I read from before, as follows:

"DENVER CITY, COLORADO, January 18, 1866. "Please contradict in the newspapers the stories so industriously published at the East that the recent bastard State movement was in compliance with the terms of the enabling act. Not one single condition of the enabling act was observed, and many of its provisions were clearly violated, particularly that one which says the State constitution should accord with the principles of the Declaration of Independence."

If we examine these proceedings in detail, we shall see clearly how they differ from the requirements of the enabling act. In short, they are inconsistent with it, or outside of it so far as to derive no support from this act. This is clear as day.

It appears that this enabling act was approved on the 21st of March, 1864. Among other things it provides in section three that the Governor shall "by proclamation on or before the first Monday of May next, order an election of representatives" "to be held on the first Monday in June thereafter throughout the Territory." You will observe that this election is to be held at a specified time, the first Monday in June. This is a fixed point.

Then, again, by another provision it is declared that "in case a constitution and State government shall be formed for the people of said Territory of Colorado, in compliance with the provisions of this act, the said convention forming the same shall provide by ordinance for submitting said constitution to the people of the said State for their ratification or rejection at an election to be held on the second Tuesday of October, 1864."

There again you have another fixed date, containing a limitation in time. The constitution was to be submitted at a specified date; the representatives to the convention were to be chosen at a specified date. Then the last section of this statute provides for the admission of Colorado as a State into the Union. How? "In pursuance of this act;" in no other way. Thus the State, in order to claim any benefit under this act, must comply with all the conditions of the act; its representatives must be chosen at the time mentioned and the constitution must be accepted by the people at the time mentioned, and everything must be "in pursuance of this act." Those conditions failing, the act fails.

Now, sir, what occurred? The Governor, in pursuance of this act, did call together a convention at the day specified, and that convention did submit a constitution to the people which, at the day specified, was voted on and rejected. At that vote there were for the constitution 1,520 votes only. Against it there were 4,572 votes. When that constitution was rejected

the enabling act expired; it was functus officio; it had been acted upon and under. There was nothing more to be done in pursuance of it. But, sir, the next year certain parties desirous to galvanize this small community into a State, through political conventions or caucuses, acting through the committees of the different parties, got together a convention which proceeded to adopt a constitution which, after being submitted to the people, was adopted by a vote of 155 majority, and you have now the question before you whether that constitution, adopted under such circumstances, shall be recognized by the Senate. Surely not in virtue of the enabling act, because in reality nothing had been done under this act.

I have said that the enabling act had expired. It is in vain for Senators to cite it on this occasion. You cannot invoke it. These parties can claim nothing under it. It is like an obsolete statute which we read in the statute-book, but which we never undertake to adduce for authority. It stands as a monument showing what Congress had required, and showing also what this community had failed to perform. In adducing it, you bring authority against the present pretension, for you show clearly that this pretension had no foundation in this statute.

act.

But, sir, even assuming that the enabling act was in a condition to be employed for the organization of this Territory, which I insist that it was not, then it is my duty to go further and show you that these parties, as this colored telegraphic correspondent from Denver says, did not in any respect comply with the enabling Why, sir? By the enabling act the convention was to be called by the Governor. How was it called? By the executive committees of political parties, being so many caucuses. Such was the origin of the convention which is to give you a new State. What authority for that do you find in the enabling act? Be good enough, if you please, to point out a single word which can justify any such transaction. And yet we have been gravely told that this strange anomalous hocus pocus was by virtue of the enabling act. As if in every respect it was not plainly inconsistent with the enabling act.

Still further, in the second place, the enabling act declares that "the constitution shall be republican in form." This is a fundamental condition. I submit with confidence that a constitution which denies the first principle of human rights cannot be republican in form. Do not tell me that there are States in this Union which have such constitutions. That is no answer. We are not called to sit in judgment on those constitutions; we have no power to revise them; we are not to vote upon them; but here in this case we are called to sit in judgment upon this constitution, to revise it, and to vote upon it. You are to declare by your votes whether a constitution which tramples upon the principle of human equality is republican in form. I insist that it is not.

Still further, this enabling act declares that "the constitution shall not be repugnant to the principles of the Declaration of Independence. I ask you, what is the first principle of the Declaration of Independence? Is it not in solemn words that all men are created equal, and that all just government stands on the consent of the governed? Does any one deny that these are the words? You know them by heart; your children learn them in their earliest infancy; and whatever is done in this Territory is to be brought to these words as to a touchstone. This is a requirement of the enabling act. Therefore do I say that even if you insist that the enabling act is an authority for this proceeding, then do I reply, that this community has not in any respect brought itself within its terms. It has not complied with its terms either of principle or of proceeding. The proceedings were not according to the enabling act; the principles are in defiance of the enabling act. Tried by either standard, the whole effort must miserably fail.

But it is sometimes said that there is an inconsistency in opposing the admission of this State into the Union at this time when we voted

for the enabling act; and my friend from Nevada put me a question a few moments ago whether at the time of the passage of the enabling act it was supposed here in the Senate that colored persons exercised the elective franchise. Now, sir, as to the question of inconsistency

Mr. TRUMBULL. Before the Senator proceeds to that point, as I asked him a question a moment ago whether colored persons ever voted in Colorado, and as I stated that I had been informed that they did not vote there, and that the act under which he supposed they voted was confined to citizens, and that the term "citizen" was construed in Colorado not to embrace colored persons, I desire to read the statute. He read from what purported to be the law of Colorado; but I find, on an examination of the statute which I hold in my hand, that the right of suffrage was confined to eiti

zens.

Mr. SUMNER. Do you refer to the organic statute?

Mr. TRUMBULL. I refer to the statute of Colorado, which the Governor professes to interpret in his communication from which the Senator from Massachusetts read, in which he says that all persons twenty-one years of age being males were entitled to vote. Such was not the law of Colorado.

Mr. SUMNER. Have you the statute? Mr. TRUMBULL. I have the statute before me and I will read it. What he has quoted is true; but it is only a part, and it misled the Senator from Massachusetts. I will read the

section:

"That every male person of the age of twenty-one years or upward, belonging to either of the following classes, who shall have resided in the Territory for three months next preceding any election, and ten days in the township, precinct, or ward, in which ho offers to vote, shall be deemed a qualified voter at such election:

1. Citizens of the United States.

"2. Persons of foreign birth who have declared their intention to become citizens conformably to the laws of the United States on the subject of naturalization.' "3. Persons of Indian blood who have been declared by treaty to be citizens of the United States.'

Those classes only can vote; and the Senator will see that the Governor by quoting only the first line " every male person of the age of twenty-one years or upward," without quoting the rest of the section, which goes on to declare "belonging to the following classes," misled him, and that the right of suffrage was confined to citizens of the United States and foreigners who had declared their intention to become citizens.

Now, sir, I will not be understood as saying that in my opinion a colored person is not a citizen. I believe he is; but such was not the understanding in Colorado, and no colored person ever did vote there, as I am informed by persons from the Territory; and certainly they could not vote unless they were citizens.

Mr. SUMNER. The Senator will indulge me in saying that I do not think his statement alters the case.

Mr. TRUMBULL. That may be, but it is best to be right.

Mr. SUMNER. I submit that the statement of the Senator does not alter the case. Clearly it is best to be right. In the first place, I have followed the message of the actual Governor of the Territory. I felt that I could not follow better authority. I hold his message as communicated to the Legislature now in my hand. Mr. STEWART. Now let me put my question.

Mr. SUMNER. Very well.

Mr. STEWART. At the same time with the passage of the Colorado enabling act a bill was passed for the admission of Nevada. I want to ask the Senator if he voted for the enabling act of Nevada. This enabling act provided in the same manner that persons allowed to vote on the question of organization should be the same as those who voted for members of the Legislature, &c., in the Territory. I wish to state for the information of the Senator that in the fall of 1861 Nevada passed a law excluding negroes from suffrage, and it was on the statute-book in 1864 and had

been during all that period from 1861 up to 1864. Hence I infer that it makes very little difference as to the principle upon which Congress acted at that time whether there was any provision in the laws of Colorado expressly prohibiting negro suffrage, because if there had been that could have been no objection as it was no objection in the case of Nevada. Congress, then, in March, 1861, authorized the Territory to be organized into a State and authorized them to confine the voting population to whites in making that organization, and did not require the extension of suffrage to the negro. At the same time, it is true, it said that the constitution formed should be in accordance with the Declaration of Independence, but it authorized a particular class of persons ganize it, being white persons alone, confined to them. By construing that act in connection with the Nevada enabling act and the laws of Nevada, Congress provided that the State should be organized by whites alone and said that was in accordance with the Declaration of Independence.

to or

Mr. SUMNER. Now, I will proceed to answer, as I was trying to do when I was interrupted by the Senator from Nevada, the Senator from Illinois; but the Senator from Nevada will allow me to say that I think it would have been better and more according to parliamentary rules if he had reserved his question until I had answered the Senator from Illinois. I think his question has nothing to do with that. Has it anything to do with the subject?

Mr. STEWART. If you get at the substance I shall be satisfied.

Mr. SUMNER. As to the question of the Senator from Illinois, I have this to say: the Governor of the Territory, whose message I hold in my hand, does not put upon the statute the interpretation which the Senator does. I have great respect for the opinion of my friend from Illinois, as he knows, but on this matter I submit that the Governor of the Territory on the spot, in a formal communication to the Legislature, is a better authority even than my honorable friend.

Mr. TRUMBULL. Better than the statute?

Mr. SUMNER. I am coming to that. That brings me then to the statute, and he says the statute enumerates as the first in the class citizens of the United States, and my honorable friend himself is obliged to confess that in his opinion colored persons are citizens of the United States. He does not doubt it. If he did, it would be my duty to remind him of that opinion given by the Attorney General of the United States in the winter of 1861-62, only a few months after the adoption of this territorial statute, declaring that all colored persons are citizens of the United States. I refer to that opinion with something more than respect, I refer to it with reverence. I do think, humbly speaking, that that opinion was one of the most remarkable and one of the grandest acts in the history of the late Administration. I do not doubt that hereafter when the annals of these times come to be written, the historian will dwell with honest pride upon that opinion where one man as it were reversed the whole policy of the State. By that opinion he fixed the law of this country forever: that all colored persons are citizens of the United States; and that opinion was emphatically the law of this distant Territory. It was the law of Colorado. The Senator from Illinois does not doubt it. Therefore when the Territorial Legislature inserted the words "citizens of the United States," it did not alter the case by a hair's breadth. The language was positive that all persons could vote without distinction of color. The Senator is informed that no colored persons did vote. I have been informed the contrary. But I insist that, beyond all question, by the territorial statute colored persons were allowed to vote.

And this brings me to another question. When at a later day, in 1864, the enabling act was brought into the Senate, that act recognized positively the existing territorial statutes

regulating the franchise. Here are the precise words:

"That all persons qualified by law to vote for representatives to the General Assembly of said Territory at the date of the passage of this act, shall be qualified to be elected; and they are hereby authorized to vote for and choose representatives to form a convention under such rules and regulations as the Governor of said Territory may prescribe."

Therefore, sir, do I say that at the date of the enabling statute all persons in the Territory, without distinction of color, were entitled to vote. They all had the electoral franchise constitutionally and legally. Is there any one who can doubt it? The Senator from Illinois cannot doubt it. He knows full well that that is the Constitution and the law of the land. They were all entitled to vote at the date of that enabling statute. I err when I say "at the date of that enabling statute." There was something like deception, if not fraud, that occurred between the passage of that statute in this Chamber and its approval by the President. The enabling act for the admission of Colorado passed this body, as I find by the Globe, February 24, 1864. This ill-omened territorial statute to which I have referred, which undertook to introduce the principle of exclusion, bears date March 11, 1864; that is, it was passed subsequent to the passage of the enabling act in the Senate. Therefore, when that enabling act passed this body, according to all the information in our possession and according to the principles of the Constitution as expounded by the Attorney General, all colored persons were entitled to vote.

I have been reminded by Senators that there is an inconsistency in having sustained the enabling act and now in opposing the admission of this State. Sir, permit me to say, there is no such inconsistency; because at the time when that act passed the Senate, by that very enabling act all colored persons were entitled to vote. But I might go still further, and remind the Senate that it appears by the Globe, which I have before me, that this enabling act passed the Senate without discussion and without a division. It does not appear who was present in the Senate at the time it was acted upon. For myself, I may say I have no recollection of the vote that was taken, but I do have a distinct recollection that I was informed that in the Territory of Colorado all persons, without distinction of color, were allowed to vote; and a recurrence to the statute which has been adduced on this occasion will show that I was right. It is vain for the Senator from Illinois to remind us that in Colorado they did not consider colored persons citizens of the United States. Constitutionally and legally they were citizens, and there was no power in Colorado to deny them that citizenship. It was because there was no power there to deny them that citizenship that they undertook to set it aside by positive legislation. Mr. President, I have already said too much on this matter.

Mr. STEWART. How was it about Nevada? Mr. SUMNER. I beg the Senator's pardon; I have no recollection of the Nevada case. I do not know whether I voted on it or not, and I consider the question as absolutely irrelevant. I am speaking now on the case of Colorado.

Mr. STEWART. Mr. SUMNER. ator can proceed.

Mr. President

When I am done the Sen

The PRESIDING OFFICER, (Mr. ANTHONY in the chair.) The Senator from Nevada must not interrupt the Senator from Massachusetts unless he yields the floor.

Mr. SUMNER. If there were a question here in regard to Nevada I should certainly meet it but there is no such question now. It is enough for us to deal with the case of Colorado.

I was saying, sir, I have already occupied too much time, more than I intended; but there is one other circumstance to which I ought to call attention before I close. It is the anomalous condition of the several counties of Mexican population bordering on New Mexico, and

are

which, as I understand, have, if I may so express myself, been carved out of New Mexico. Those counties contain, according to the esti mates of different persons, from six to eight thousand persons, chiefly agricultural. They are farmers. I understand that those people re discontented at finding themselves embraced within the limits of Colorado. They do not speak English. They are Spanish in descent, and they are unwilling to be swept under a jurisdiction which is to them, in many respects, alien. They long to be back in New Mexico. During the last session of Congress a proposi tion was brought forward in the other House to reannex them to New Mexico. A proposi tion to the same effect has already been announced in the other House during this session by the Delegate from New Mexico. I have conferred with him on that subject this morning. I learned from him something of the discontent of these Mexicans; and I am assured from other sources that, should Colorado now be received as a State in this Union, so that the condition of these people would be permanently fixed as a part of the State, such is their yearning to get back to their Spanish kindred that they would move in a body to find themselves again within the borders of New Mexico, which is to them country and home, for which they have a sentiment of abiding attachment.

I have said that this Mexican population is estimated variously at from six to eight thousand, being an essential part of the population of Colorado. Imagine it withdrawn from this floating, failing population which I have already described to you, and how small does it become; why, sir, one of my informants, this morning, who has lived for several years in that part of the country, gave me as his opinion that at present the whole population of Colorado, including these Mexicans, was not more than fifteen thousand, and that if these Mexicans should be withdrawn, you would have this community shrunk to a population of seven thousand. I make no statement to that effect. I merely mention this as a suggestion which has come to me from persons familiar with this part of the country. It may at least help to put you on your guard against investing this petty community with the high prerogatives of a State. It may show you again how its popu lation may melt under the State prerogatives, which you promise it.

Mr. President, such is the case against the admission of Colorado as a State into this Union. I do not see how you can admit it into the Union as a State without, in the first place, injustice to its own population, at this moment unable to bear the burdens of a State government; secondly, without injustice to the other States of the Union which ought not to find themselves voted down in this Chamber by two Senators from this small community; and, in the third place, without sacrificing principle which at this moment is of incalculable importance to the peace of the Republic. In other times we have caught the cry, No more slave States. There is another cry which must be ours, No more States recognizing Inequality of Rights. Against all this I hear a whisper, not an argument. It is whispered

that we need two more votes on this floor. Sir, there is something that you need more than two more votes. It is constancy in the support of that great principle which is now essential to the tranquillity of the Republic. Better far than any number of votes will be loyalty to this great cause. Tell me not that it is expedient to create two more votes in this Chamber. Permit me to say nothing can be expedient that is not right. If I were now about to pronounce the last words that I could ever utter in this Chamber, I would say to you, Senators, do not forget that right is always the highest expediency. You can never sacrifice the right without suffering for it.

Mr. STEWART. I submitted to the Senator from Massachusetts a question at the time when he was charging that the people of Colorado had acted in bad faith toward Congress. That was the tenor of his argument. He as

serted that at the time of the passage of the enabling act they allowed negroes to vote; that after it had passed Congress and before it was signed by the President, they repealed that law and passed a law which prohibited the negroes from voting, and that they had thereby (if there is anything in the argument) deceived Congress, and that Congress would not have acted as it did if there had been a law on the statute-book of Colorado prohibiting negroes from voting. I asked him what Congress had done at the same time in the case of Nevada, and he tells me that that is irrelevant. I say that what Congress did in the same breath, at the same time, and under the same circumstances, is some evidence of their intention at that time. Nevada, in 1861, had inserted the word "white" in fixing the That law was upon qualification of voters. her statute-book; the world knew it; and what did Congress do? On the 21st of March, 1864, the same day on which the Colorado bill was passed, Congress passed an act to enable Nevada to form a State government, and in the third section of that act provided as follows:

"That all persons qualified by law to vote for rep resentatives to the General Assembly of said Territory at the date of the passage of this act shall be qualified to be elected, and they are authorized," &c. Expressly confining it to persons who were qualified by the laws of Nevada to vote for members of the General Assembly. The laws of Nevada at that time expressly excluded negroes from voting, and therefore the organic act expressly prohibited the people of Nevada from taking the negroes into account in the organization of a State government, and gave the power to form the State government to a particular class. Congress did this on the same day that the enabling act for Colorado was passed; and now the Senator from Massachusetts would have us believe that Congress would not have passed the enabling act for Colorado if she had had such a law upon her statutebook.

Mr. SUMNER. I have not said that. It was not in my argument.

Mr. STEWART. Then there is nothing in the argument to the effect that Congress was deceived. There is nothing in the argument that Colorado changed her law. There is nothing in the argument that there was any bad faith on the part of Colorado in changing her law that influenced Congress, because Congress on the same day in acting on a like subject expressly confined the organization of a State government to the whites; selected as those who should be voters in forming the State government those who had been selected by the territorial law, and those were whites, and whites alone. Then I say that Congress, in March, 1864, were willing, at the time they extended this invitation to Colorado, that a government should be formed by the whites alone and that the negroes should be excluded; and they expressed that willingness in the case of Nevada if they did not in that of Colorado. Whether the laws as they existed in Colorado excluded them or not, they were practically excluded there, and Congress was willing that the new State should be formed exclusively on the white basis for suffrage, because on the same day it provided that another State government should be organized and that only whites should vote. The people of Nevada, supposing that it was not incompatible with the wishes of Congress to put in their constitution the same provision that they had in their laws, their laws having been by the enabling act approved and adopted as a guide for the formation of a State government, when they formed their constitution put in the word "white" the same as Colorado has done. The people of Colorado had no reason to believe that Congress would object in consequence of any action that had previously been taken by them.

Now, a question is raised whether this constitution is republican in form or not. There is much difference of opinion as to what constitutes a government republican in form. Every man has his own ideas on that subject.

years. It is a remarkably well constructed country, geologically, for mining. The veins have all the regular formations that geologists say indicate permanence. Heretofore they have had some drawbacks in mining. They were cut off from communication with the Atlantic States; they could not get machinery there, and, of course, that impeded the progress of mining, and that is held up as a reason why these people should not be admitted as a State. Last year, when I was there, there were a vast number of new mills being

Now, it is stated that Colorado is decreasing in population. Having been in Colorado last year, and knowing something of their peculiar situation, I will state again, as I have once stated, the reasons for this apparent falling off. In the first place, when the war broke out Colorado became more or less isolated from communication with the rest of the country; her mail facilities were cut off; there were hostile Indians on the plains; and she sent four thousand of her adopted sons to the war. This of course impaired her prosperity, and injured her progress to some extent, probably more so than any other Territory situated upon the western slope. She was dependent upon the East for communication and for supplies. It is a long distance from the Missouri river to the Rocky mountains, a distance of about five hundred miles, through a hostile Indian country; and during the war it was impossible for Colorado to progress as her natural resources and condition will warrant for the future. Then, they had grasshoppers there, which were a great inconvenience. They come into that country, I am told, once in ten, fifteen, or twenty years, and they remain one or two years; and I believe other parts of the country are visited by them also. They cut off the crops last year. They have never been known to exist more than two years at a time before they disappear. Every part of the country is subject to accidents which destroy the crops. The ground sometimes becomes too wet, and they have had that incon venience in Colorado.

But when Senators speak of its want of agricultural resources, they are very much mistaken. Colorado is a State of vast agricultural resources. I recollect the time very well when California was pronounced to be a country unfit for anything but mining, when it was said that it had no agricultural resources; now it is universally admitted to be equal, if not superior, to any State in the Union in an agricultural point of view alone. Its amount of rich agricultural lands is equal to any State in the Union. When, I first went to Nevada it was supposed that there were not three hundred acres of agricultural land there; now there is an active, large population cultivating the lands there, and doing it profitably. I was told that none of the country, or comparatively very little of it, could be cultivated, but every year proves that it is a much better country for agricultural pursuits than was at first supposed. The first thing that a person visiting the western country, and passing through Colorado, will be struck with, is the vast amount of fine agricultural land there. I do not believe it is true, as stated by the surveyor general, that crops cannot be raised in that country without irrigation. Certainly some kinds of crops will need irrigation; but there are a great many crops that can be raised without it, when they understand the seasons better, and understand the country better. It is a State that is going to be not much inferior to many of the western States in agricultural resources.

As to its mineral resources they are certainly remarkable. It bears the marks of a permanent mineral country. The veins are proper fissure veins, well defined, such as have been

worked in other countries for thousands of

road, notwithstanding hostile Indians were scattered all the way from Atchison to Denver. The country really appeared to be pushing forward, notwithstanding the difficulties, notwithstanding supplies had been cut off, with remarkable energy, and with very fine prospects. Now that the war is passed; now that this new machinery is coming in, and one year of crops, I believe Colorado is to be one of the most prosperous Territories in the whole country, and will make a very prosperous State. It will not be a year from now until every one will be willing that Colorado shall come in; but as they have come here now with a constitution every way unexceptionable, as we formerly understood constitutions to be, every way unexceptionable as constitutions were understood to be at the time they formed it, not having any intimation from Congress that it would not be accepted, and having been invited to come here by Congress, and having had the question of population passed upon, it seems to me hard for those people to be sent back, to be turned away on the ground that they have not population enough, when there has been a standing invitation before them to come with what population they have. It is hard for them to be turned away because they have had a failure of in concrops sequence of grasshoppers. It is hard for them to be turned away because they were delayed in getting transportation in consequence of Indians, for a short period. All of these em barrassments have now been removed, and they are on the high road to prosperity. It seems to me it is unnecessary, after they have gone to all this trouble of organization and have organized a government and sent men here entirely unexceptionable, to send them back. I do not see any good reason for it. Gentlemen may complain of them now, but I assure you that Colorado one day will be classed among the large States. There will be very many States in ten years from now that will be casting a smaller vote that Colorado, and will be more unequally represented. Yes, sir, in five years from now there will be a large number of States that will have a larger representation, in proportion to population, in this body than Colorado, because she has great resources. She is on the great line of overland travel. The Pacific railroad is going toward your borders and will soon help her. I think her situation is such and the eircumstances are such that it would not be good faith now to turn her away.

I did not intend to make any remarks on this subject, but I deemed it due to say thus much, and I hope Colorado will be admitted.

Mr. GUTHRIE. When this matter was under discussion before I made up my mind that Colorado ought not to be admitted as a State; that she had not the population nor the ability to sustain a State government; that she could not demand, from the amount of her population, to be placed on an equal footing with the other States. She has not popu lation enough to entitle her to a Representative in the other House. If she should be admitted, she would be entitled to two Senators here, which would be greatly in disproportion, and overbalancing with another small State the popular majority of the large States in this body. I thought it was not best for Colorado that she should come in and undertake the burdens of a State government at this time. I still think so after listening to all that I have heard. I have no doubt that she

has less population now than she had even at the time that the enabling act was passed. There was then a great outcry about gold there, and miners rushed there from all parts of the country because they desired to search new fields. They leave those places as soon as they find they are disappointed and rush to some other point. I have no doubt there is less population there now than there was in the beginning; and I feel very sure that she will not come as California did when she was admitted, and when she had such a great population. I do not believe that the people are able, from the production of the soil and the mines, to retain a population there that can support a State government.

I have no feelings of prejudice against Colorado or any of the northwestern States. They are peopled principally by the frontiers and from the frontiers with some adventurous spirits from the original States. They are a hardy, adventuresome people, but they are not attached to the soil, and they never will be until the country has become old and those born and residing there have learned to like the country.

I am opposed to the admission of Colorado for these reasons, and not for the reasons given by the gentleman from Massachusetts. I should not object to her Constitution because it had the word "white" in it in relation to voters. I do not believe that black people are citizens of the United States even though they are born here. That may come from my western residence and western prejudice and having been raised in a slave State. I am willing to admit that there is something that grows up in the feelings and habits and thinking of people who are raised in slave States and have acquired all their ideas from there, and that there is something strange in the fury gentlemen get into about equal suffrage and equality and all that. I hope the very best will come from the emancipation of the negroes-the best for them and for the whites-but I have not the absolute faith of those who have been missionaries in the cause, and started and originated it, and have brought themselves into conspicuous places in this Government and before the world as the advocates of that policy. I do not enter into any sympathy with them on that point, and I am not moved to act upon this subject by their

reasons.

I think we could increase the number of votes in the Senate very legitimately by admitting those southern Senators who have been here for almost four months knocking at our doors and seeking admittance. I do not believe a tithe of what has been said about the discontent of the South. I believe if we had admitted them in the first month of the session they would have been more contented, more harmonious, and more in union with us than they are now; and I believe the longer we delay it the greater will be the difficulty to be overcome. I am not surprised that gentlemen of the North who have been preaching in favor of the freedom of the negroes, and have formed characters and habits upon it, feel rather hostile to us who have been in slave States; but I think they will have to abate somewhat of their opinion, and their estimate of the southern people, before we can get together again. I hope they will take occasion to revise their opinions, and search their own hearts, and their own bosoms, to know how much of it is prejudice, and how much has been partisanship. In fighting this great battle they think they have been fighting for hu manity and the freedom of the negro and the great name they are to make in history. If we were to sit down and take an account of the benefits and advantages they have brought upon the negro population, I think the balance would be greatly against them at this time, and they would have to draw upon the future for the great advantages that are to result from their measures. I hope that profits will accrue from them. I think it is better for the African that he should be governed by the people where he lives, who know his habits, and understand all about him. It is better for him, and I think

it is better for the whites, that we should settle this matter, settle this question of government, and let them be governed at home. It is not at all surprising that the negroes were misled by this sound of freedom and liberty, and supposed they were to live idly without labor and without work, and somebody was to support them. We know that to a great extent they did obtain those ideas. They are now abandoning them to some extent, and going to work. They are likely, in many places in the South, to prove a useful and industrious population, and add to the productions of the soil. I hope the very best from it. I think slavery being abolished, all sides should act in harmony, subdue their prejudices, if they have any, and come together united as far as we can for the interests of the country.

I think it is far more to the advantage of this country that we should admit the southern States and admit their representatives than that we should take in this new State that is not able to support a State government, in my judgment, and which will find it exceedingly onerous, as many of these States have already found it to be. I shall vote against this reconsideration as I voted against the admission of this State before, but not for the reasons given by the Senator from Massachusetts. The Senator intimates that perhaps some have changed their minds because they want a few more votes in this body. I wish the Senator had changed his mind before he led the onslaught upon the New Jersey Senator when they wanted but one. [Laughter.]

Mr. NYE. Mr. President, I was absent when this subject was discussed before, and hence I had no opportunity to cast my vote for this bill. If I had been here, I should of course have voted for the admission of Colorado. The permission to Colorado and the State that I have the honor in part to represent to form States was given at the same time, and the laws by which we were to be admitted are the same except in the change of the names of the Territories. The Senate will bear in mind that at the time this permission was given the Government was casting about to see where it could gain corresponding strength against the weakness incident to the rebellion. It occurred, and I think wisely, to the Congress of the United States that if the process of making new States could be successfully carried out on the more distant portion of the continent it would strengthen us in that direction and make a counterbalancing power to the southern element that was flying off. I think they acted wisely; and I think, as a matter of sound governmental policy, that we should have continuous States across this continent; and I shall not stop to inquire fractionally whether these persons who desire to take upon themselves the burden of a State government are correct or not. I satisfy myself with the answer they have given that they are willing to assume that responsibility. They are the judges, and not the Senator from Kentucky, or the Senator from any other State. They know best their ability, and knowing it, act in their good judgment as seemeth best to them.

I have seldom differed with the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, and whenever I do, I differ with great diffidence, for I know his power, and I expect to feel it if I differ from him; but, sir, feeling a little of that strength at this present moment that the stripling of Israel did when he warred with the giant of Gath, I venture upon the forbidden ground.

It seems to me that he hardly treated this question with his usual fairness in the commencement of his argument to-day. I knew when he commenced that somebody was to be slaughtered, but who or how I did not know till I saw him plant his artillery upon the back of the distinguished Senator from Ohio [Mr. WADE] from the committee on the conduct of the war, and fire at one of the Senators-elect from Colorado. I could hardly then see its relevancy; and why he should take one of the distinguished gentlemen selected from that State to represent it in the Senate, I hardly

knew; and yet it soon came out. He was going to attack the veracity of this little pamphlet which I hold in my hand-a candid, truthful statement of the condition of Colorado, giving facts and figures, which, with all the research of the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, he will pardon me for saying he has not shaken in a single portion. He has not carried, with all his artillery, an outpost, or driven in a sentinel set by the distinguished gentlemen who compiled this pamphlet. Against what he called assertion he brings in what he calls fact. The honorable Senator need not have gone out of this pamphlet to find just what he read as an overthrow of the whole thing. There it is, within five lines of where he was reading, and they cite the very authority that the distinguished Senator said was melted down by a single breath of the distinguished surveyor general of Colorado. They quote the surveyor general of Colorado.

But the difficulty lay here: my friend, who was not reared upon agricultural plains or mountain heights, but always breathed the purer air of bricks and mortar in Boston and the larger cities of Europe, had yet to learn that there was a difference between agricultural and pastoral lands. Sir, that difference has existed ever since the old poet sang. That difference has existed always. The difference is this: our agricultural lands produce the cereals, the vegetables, and the grains; the pastoral lands produce grasses upon which herds and flocks feed, on the mountain-side where the plow could not be held.

The distinguished Senator seems hardly willing, when he is driven from that point, to let the population of Colorado alone, and seems to convey the idea that as the report upon the conduct of the war had said something about the testimony of one of the witnesses, therefore the population that he represents must necessarily be bad. In a word, he made out this fact, taking his own assertion to prove it, that the population, the mining interest, the agricul tural interest, and every interest in Colorado was dwindling and dwarfed to such an extent that I hardly thought it magnanimous in the giant of this Senate to hit it another blow; and yet, after all, Colorado survives.

I am not going to busy myself or detain the Senate by a detailed account of Colorado. Her history is as patent to all this Senate and the country as the history of Massachusetts. It has been written in much shorter time and in as indelible characters. In 1858 Colorado was an unbroken, untrodden wilderness, if plains can be called a wilderness. In 1858 the discovery of gold was made, and from that time to the present-and I challenge the gentleman to show to the contrary-no Territory within the boundaries of this Government has made more manly, more permanent, and more enduring strides than the Territory of Colorado. Sir, Colorado was in existence before Nevada

was born. Her hills and her mountains were populated thickly by the intelligent, energetic, persevering men of the East and of all climes. In 1864, when the very atmosphere was thick with the elements of dissolving empire, Congress gave Colorado and Nevada a chance to set their stars amid the galaxy of the older, not brighter, stars. Colorado fell into this mistake: she nominated her State officers to run at the adoption of her first constitution. That will kill any Territory. We tried it once in the Territory where I live, and the constitution was beaten, as it always will be if you arouse the jealousies of contending political factions. That is the reason why Colorado was not within the letter of this enabling act. We tried the experiment in Nevada before the enabling act came, and we had learned a lesI remember well writing a letter to Governor Evans, who was Governor in a neighboring Territory, warning them not to fall into that error, but they did not heed it.

son.

Now, sir, what is the true policy of this Government? These Territories are costly incumbrances. They make, if I may use the expres sion, as large drafts upon the Treasury of this