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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



ence of races must be ashamed and skulk 

 from the face of the world. 



"Now, what was that great right that they 

 discovered? It was that 'all men are born 

 equal.' The black man who brushes the 

 boots of my respected friend from the Luzerne 

 district (Mr. "Woodward) is, according to that 

 doctrine, as much entitled to every right and 

 every privilege of a free man and a citizen as 

 that gentleman or myself. And whenever he, 

 or I, or any one else, undertakes to make a dis- 

 tinction between the black race and our own, 

 because of the color of the skin or the forma- 

 tion of the body, he forgets his God, and his 

 God will forget him. 



"In other words, we now propose to go to 

 universal and impartial suffrage as the only 

 foundation upon which the Government can 

 etaiid. You must build all your science of 

 government upon that foundation. When you 

 attempt to depart from it you cease to be men 

 and become tyrants, deserving the execration 

 of the human race. There is no other way 

 than by universal suffrage that you and I and 

 every man can protect himself against the 

 injustice and inhumanity and wrongs that 

 would otherwise be inflicted upon us. 



"We have reached a point in the history of 

 this nation when we can adopt that great and 

 glorious principle. We have just builded a 

 nation in whose institutions we can incorpo- 

 rate that principle. And my effort shall be to 

 prove to this House, not simply that we have 

 just reached that point, but that we have 

 reached it by means of the Constitution, not 

 by violating it, although our forefathers, who 

 proclaimed that principle and would have 

 adopted it, could not do so without violating 

 the compact which they themselves had made, 

 and which would have destroyed the great 

 Government they were then building and were 

 bound to defend. We have reached that period 

 which our fathers did not reach and could not 

 reach, when, in speaking of universal suffrage, 

 we must speak of it not as a boon, but as an 

 inalienable right, which no man dare take 

 away, and which no man can rightfully surren- 

 der. His God has forbidden it ; the science 

 of government has forbidden it. 



" Henceforth let us understand that universal 

 suffrage, operating in favor of every man who 

 is to be governed by the votes cast, is one of 

 those doctrines planted deep as the founda- 

 tions upon which our fathers laid the immortal 

 work of universal liberty, which work of theirs 

 will last just so long as that immortal doctrine 

 shall last, and no longer. 



" Whatever construction shall be given to the 

 Constitution in its present condition by this 

 Congress and those nearest, the great events 

 which have modified it will be likely to be 

 accepted through future time as its true mean- 

 ing. It is important, therefore, that the most 

 beneficent interpretation should be given to it, 

 and that it should be most liberally construed, 

 so as to secure all human rights in the changed 



condition of our country and of that instru- 

 ment which, while it, as to the old States, may 

 not be radically changed, is not so inflexible 

 as to be incapable of accommodating itself to the 

 changing necessities of humanity. 



"Before the Constitution was amended I could 

 not agree with some of my learned friends that 

 Congress could intermeddle with State laws 

 relative to the elective franchise in the United 

 States. The circumstance of slavery seemed, 

 while it was submitted to, to prevent it. Af- 

 ter the amendment abolishing slavery I still 

 doubted, and proposed a constitutional rem- 

 edy on the 5th of December, 1865, in the fol- 

 lowing words : 



All national laws shall be equally applicable to 

 every citizen, and no discrimination shall be made 

 on account of race and color. 



"Since the adoption of the fourteenth amend- 

 ment, however, I have no doubt of our full 

 power to regulate the elective franchise, so far 

 as it regards the whole nation, in every State of 

 the Union, which, when tried, I hope, will be 

 so formed as to be beneficial to the nation, 

 just to every citizen, and carry out the great 

 designs of the framers of the Government, 

 according to their views expressed in the Dec- 

 laration of Independence. 



"It cannot fail to be beneficial and convenient, 

 when we consider the trouble and inconven- 

 ience which a citizen of one State encounters 

 when he travels temporarily into another. In- 

 stead of being a brother at home, he is now an 

 alien in his native land. While he participates 

 in all the burdens and anxieties of govern- 

 ment, he is forbidden, if a non-resident, to 

 take part in selecting the magistrate who is to 

 rule his destinies for the next four years. 



" In this there is no principle of republican 

 justice. The Constitution of 1789 did not carry 

 out the principles of government which were 

 intended by the fathers when in 17T6 they laid 

 the foundations of the Government on which 

 this nation was built. Then they had been in- 

 spired with such a light from on high as never 

 man was inspired with before in the great work 

 of providing freedom for the human race 

 through a government in which no oppression 

 could find a resting-place. 



" They contemplated the erection of a vast 

 empire over the whole continent, which in its 

 national character should be governed by laws 

 of a supreme, unvarying character. While 

 municipal institutions with self-control might 

 be granted for convenience, it was never in- 

 tended that one half of this nation should be 

 governed by one set of laws and the other half 

 by another and conflicting set on the same sub- 

 ject. 



" The laws which were then intended to be 

 universal must now be made universal. The 

 principles which were intended to govern the 

 whole American nationality must now be made 

 to cover and control the whole national action 

 throughout this grand empire. Towns, cor- 

 porations, and municipalities may be allowed 



