CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



155 



have in this respect violated this condition pro- 

 ,1 in ilir riiahling act. They have done 

 Iv what other Territories have done thus 

 TilVre i> no case in which, when pa--in;r 

 from a territorial condition intotliat of :i State, 

 opic dt' a Territory have incorporated in 

 their constitution a provision granting to col- 

 people or Indians the right to vote. So 

 9 respects onr previous history and our 

 previous legislation, this principle is a com- 

 plete anomaly, and I for one do not feel that 

 wo ought at this critical moment, when public 

 interests of the greatest magnitude are pressing 

 upon u-. to delay the admission of these two 

 Territories into the Union as States on account 

 of any such abstraction as here stares us in 

 the face. 



" These Territories have fairly and substan- 

 tially complied with all the conditions imposed 

 upon them. We have not imposed upon them 

 the condition which is now insisted upon. "We 

 have omitted it ; wo have waived it by the 

 enabling act and by the passage of the bills 

 during the last session; and it strikes me as 

 being a departure from that uberrima fides 

 which should govern the action of Congress in 

 its relations with the Territories of the United 

 States and their people now to insist upon this 

 new condition. We are bound, as I have said, 

 by good faith, by the legislation which we have 

 passed, upon the compliance of these people 

 with the terms we have prescribed, to permit 

 them to enter the Union. 



" The Senator from Missouri has resorted to a 

 principle in his amendment which to my mind 

 is rather a dangerous one. He makes the ad- 

 mission of the colored man to the elective fran- 

 chise a fundamental condition to the admission 

 of the Territory of Nebraska as a State, and 

 irrevocable. There is no mistaking the lan- 

 guage of his amendment. It says: 



That this act shall not take effect except upon the 

 fundamental condition that wit'hin the State of Ne- 

 braska there shall be no denial of the elective fran- 

 chise or of any other right to any person by reason 

 of race or color, and upon the further condition that 

 this fundamental condition shall be submitted to the 

 voters of the Territory at an election to be held on 

 the 1st day of next. 



" I shall not deny that under the clause of 

 the Constitution which authorizes Congress to 

 admit new States, it is competent for them to 

 prescribe conditions for their admission. The 

 power is given to us in the broadest terms. 

 We may admit upon condition, or we may admit 

 absolutely without condition. I can entertain 

 no doubt about the power to prescribe condi- 

 tions for the admission of a new State ; but it 

 must be understood at the same time that the 

 only conditions which it is possible in the nature 

 of things for Congress to prescribe are condi- 

 tions precedent, to be performed not after the 

 people have become a State of the Union but 

 before they have become such. They are mere 

 "h-tucles thrown in the way of the enjoyment 

 of the full and complete rights of the State. 



" The thing which Congress is authorized to 



d<>, the great object to be attained, is dingle 

 and indivisible, and that is the adiniwion of 

 tin- State into the Union. It cannot escape 

 the attention of the Senator from Missouri or 

 the Senator from Massachusetts, that after the 

 compliance of the people of a Territory with 

 a condition precedent, such as this present 

 amendment is in legal t-tl'ect, it is entirely 

 competent for the people of the State, after 

 they have become rach, to annul and set aside 

 this condition or rather the thiriL' which has 

 been accomplished by the performance of the 

 condition precedent. In other words, no one 

 will deny that after the Territory has come 

 into the Union and been vested with all the 

 powers, privileges, and franchises belonging to 

 a State of the Union under the Constitution, it 

 is entirely competent for the people of that 

 State to undo what they did as the people of 

 the Territory; and in the present instance, if 

 they saw fit to do so I have no apprehension 

 that they would it would be perfectly compe- 

 tent, I say, for them to call together a conven- 

 tion and declare that none but white persons 

 shall bo allowed to exercise the elective fran- 

 chise. The people of Nebraska in twenty- 

 four hours after they shall have been admitted 

 under this constitution, with this amendment 

 attached to it, might assemble in convention 

 and repeal that clause of their constitution 

 which gave to the colored man the right to 

 vote. Can anybody doubt it? The right to 

 regulate the franchise is a political right which 

 has ever belonged to the States as corporations. 

 It is indubitably one of the reserved rights of 

 the States, and thus far Congress has not at- 

 tempted to interfere with it. Every State, 

 from the old thirteen inclusive down to the 

 last new State admitted into the Union, has 

 ever exercised this right, and there are now 

 not less than ten free States of this Union 

 whose constitutions or laws exclude the colored 

 man from the exercise of the precious privi- 

 lege. I refer to this fact, not in justification 

 of the exclusion of colored men from this great 

 right, but as a fact showing what has been up 

 to this moment, undoubtedly and indisputably, 

 one of the reserved rights of the States." 



Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, said : " My friend 

 from Michigan I think he is right tells the 

 honorable member who offered this amendment 

 and tells the Senate that practically it is of no im- 

 portance. It professes to be a condition upon 

 which the State of Nebraska will be permitted 

 to come into the Union; but when she does 

 come into the Union, if she comes at all, she 

 can disregard the condition. As the condition 

 relates to the franchise, he says, and says prop- 

 erly, that the moment the State is in she may 

 get clear of the condition by the exercise of 

 what he says is her admitted power of regulat- 

 ing the franchise for herself. Who concurs 

 with him? All of his party ? We know they 

 do not. The mover of the proposition insists 

 that it is not only to be made a condition pre- 

 cedent to the admission of Nebraska into the 



