CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



105 



Inth.v The honorable Senator from 



MMMehoMtti i-< largely Icarm-d ; ho has trav- 

 ersed t!i>' whole tield of liniiiaii learning; there 

 'liiiir, 1 think, that lie does not know that 

 Mowing and thisi* no empty conipli- 

 iliat I de-ire to j)iiy him now and ho is 

 li wiser tlian I am that at the last elec- 

 he divined exactly how they would result 

 ! diil n>t. Hi- rode triumphantly upon the 

 (tdpiilar wave, and I was overwhelmed end 

 came out, with eyes and nose suffused and hardly 

 able to Rasp." 



Mr. Simmer: "You ought to have followed 

 my counsel." 



Mr. Cowan: "Why should I not? What 

 was Providence doing in that? If Providence 

 had made me equal to the honorable Senator I 

 should not have needed his counsel, and I should 

 have ridden, too, on the topmost wave. If 

 Providence rules the world, if Providence is act- 

 ing in all these things, I should like to ask my 

 honorable friend what Providence has been 

 <!oing about this negro business for the last ten 

 thousand years. As far as we can go back they 

 have been terribly neglected; and even to-day 

 in Africa, where they live, what is their con- 

 dition ? I suppose that Dr. Livingstone is au- 

 thority, an orthodox gentleman, a clergyman, a 

 kind of divine man who goes over there moved 

 by the most benevolent purposes, and he gives 

 the most terrible account of those people, who 

 are free, one would think, there if anywhere, to 

 act according to the dictates of Providence and 

 to carry out the will of Providence, if He had 

 any especial will in this matter. 



"There was another gentleman who went 

 there through terrible tribulation and suffering, 

 a certain Mr. Baker, who had a wife lovely be- 

 yond her sex ; I think enduring beyond any of 

 the sex of whom I have ever read. She accom- 

 panied Mr. Baker, and they gave us accounts of 

 these people in Africa. 



" If the honorable Senator now insists upon 

 the equality of men, the actual equality of men 

 I do not mean their equality as to personal 

 rights ; I agree to that ; they all have a per- 

 sonal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 

 happiness; I think that is all true but if this 

 equality is to extend everywhere, if they have 

 a riirht to govern, if they have a right to be 

 equal socially, I should like to know, if Provi- 

 dence rules the world and if Providence is over 

 all, as He unquestionably is, how the honorable 

 Senator explains the condition of Africa to-day. 

 How can that be done? His ancestors and my 

 ancestors, thousands of years ago, perhaps, be- 

 fore development had progressed as it has to 

 end in such specimens as we are of the stock 

 from all we can learn I am apprehensive perhaps 

 that they were not in a much better condition 

 than the negroes of Africa. We cannot tell ex- 

 actly that they were. Their history is lost in 

 the mists of remote antiquity; but if they did 

 work themselves on, if they did work them- 

 selves up and produced such a result as we see 

 in the United States of America, as we see in 



France, as we gee in England, a* wo see M the 

 result of the race everywhere, I should like the 

 honorable Senator to explain why it wo that 

 the race in Africa during these thou-andi of 

 years did not imike the same progress. Can tin.- 

 honorable Senator tell why they never invented 

 an alphabet! Can he tell why they never built 

 a city, why they never had a nationality, why 

 they never had a history, why they never had 

 traditions, why they never had a literature, 

 why they never had any thing of that kind which 

 characterizes the man of progress, the civilized 

 man ? All that has been going on under the 

 eye of Providence ; but Providence now, at 

 the prompting of Massachusetts philanthropy, 

 I suppose, has waked up to the necessity of, at 

 a single bound, lifting this barbarous people 

 upon the same elevation with the advanced 

 races in the struggle of civilization." 



Mr. Howard, of Michigan, said : " Mr. Presi- 

 dent, although I have already addressed the 

 Senate on this subject at greater length than I 

 expected to do when the discussion commenced, 

 I shall further ask their indulgence for a few 

 minutes while I state some of the views I en- 

 tertain. I do not believe that, under the Con- 

 stitution, Congress has any authority to im- 

 pose conditions, in the nature of fundamental 

 conditions, interfering with the political rights 

 and powers of a State, as conditions of the ad- 

 mission of new States. Here is the point I 

 take, and upon this ground I propose to stand, 

 no matter whether the condition may relate to 

 negro suffrage, to white suffrage, to female suf- 

 frage, or any matter or thing over which a State 

 in the Union has jurisdiction and control in vir- 

 tue of its being a State of the Union." 



Mr. Kirkwood, of Iowa, followed, saying: 

 " I am in favor of the admission of Nebraska, 

 pure and simple, without conditions or qualifi- 

 cations. But it is said that we ought not to do 

 this thing because we voted a few days ago 

 and yesterday in a particular way touching the 

 condition of affairs in this District. I cannot 

 see the force of that reasoning. The Constitu- 

 tion of the United States confers upon us the 

 government of this District, and in passing the 

 suffrage bill for this District we did what we 

 believed to be for the best interests of the Dis- 

 trict. I never believed that this District was 

 created and the control of it given to us for the 

 purpose of making it an instrument on which 

 to try experimental legislation. In the State 

 where I live there are a great many people who 

 believe that the prohibition of the sale of ar- 

 dent spirits is just as important as the giving of 

 suffrage to the blacks in that State. Suppose 

 that we hero, in legislating for this District, 

 should deem it to he important to prohibit the 

 sale of ardent spirits in the District, would that 

 become a rule by which we should be open to 

 act when legislating for all the Territories and 

 for the admission of new States? I cannot 

 look upon it so. One-third of the population 

 of this District consists of colored people, many 

 of them wealthy, paying taxes; they were lia- 



