166 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



country, and has been ever since it was found- 

 ed, in all of its churches, Republican churches, 

 and I will say Democratic churches, the Con- 

 gregational churches that prevail in New Eng- 

 land more than any other, the member of one 

 church constituting that one religious family 

 analogous to a political family who undertakes 

 to leave the church that he belongs to and go 

 to another has not even the right of expatri- 

 ation ; he must get a letter of credence, and 

 having got it he must submit it to the will of 

 the church that he desires fellowship with, and 

 get the vote of that church to admit him. That 

 is the New Testament as it is understood in 

 Vermont, and I think rightly, and it rests upon 

 that infinite and persistent common sense that 

 all human history has proved to be wisest and 

 best, that every people and every church, every 

 little community in regard to its own particu- 

 lar affairs must decide what persons other than 

 itself are to be received into it, and become a 

 part of it. And I think at this day that the 

 Constitution of Massachusetts itself undertakes, 

 through the political opinions of those who are 

 voters there and their political action, to settle 

 not only the age as to voting but the quality 

 and condition of the man who shall vote, that 

 he must possess certain qualities that he can 

 not outgrow by the mere lapse of time, that 

 he must be in a particular condition of worldly 

 estate ; he must not be a pauper, that he must 

 be in a particular condition of mind, he must 

 not be what the majority of the people con- 

 sider to be insane ; that he must not have been 

 convicted of some crime, that he must possess 

 this, that, and the other quality. Where did 

 the people of Massachusetts get the right to im- 

 pose any such conditions upon a human being ? 

 Any one coming there has a right to judge as 

 well as they, is the argument of my friend from 

 Massachusetts, but that gives away the whole 

 case of every government and turns the whole 

 world into one hotch-potch ; and the ladies 

 and gentlemen in the galleries, on that doc- 

 trine, have got the same right to come down 

 here and vote and discuss that we have, be- 

 cause when we set up an arbitrary exclusion 

 and say nobody shall come in here and argue 

 and talk and vote, unless he has the certificate 

 of some State or something of that kind, what 

 are you going to do with human rights in a 

 case of that kind ? The argument goes to the 

 destruction of all order and government from 

 the top to the bottom. 



" Sir, in what I have said I do not wish to 

 be understood as saying that this bill in regard 

 to the condition of affairs is politic or impolitic. 

 That is not the question. I only undertook to 

 defend the right of the people of the United 

 States to determine for themselves according 

 to their own honest judgment of their own in- 

 terests, consistent with justice to others, who 

 shall enter into their borders, who shall com- 

 pose a part of their people. That is all." 



Mr. Teller, of Colorado : " As I understand 

 the Senators from Massachusetts, who seem 



to be the principal opponents of this bill on 

 this floor, take the position that the bill is 

 contrary to equity, a violation of fundamental 

 principles, a violation of the rights of man 

 that are recognized in the Declaration of In- 

 dependence and that have been recognized by 

 the Republican party in its history always. 

 Mr. President, if that is true, I should feel 

 very loath myself to vote for it unless the 

 evils were of such magnitude as to render it 

 necessary that I should, in the language of 

 the country, go back upon my record. 1 am 

 like the Senator from Kansas ; I do not yield 

 in my devotion to these principles to any- 

 body. The belief in the right of all men to 

 labor and eat the bread they have earned by 

 their labor is not a new-born thing with me, 

 But I do not understand that any such thing 

 exists. I understand that this is a right which 

 is recognized by every nation in the world, and 

 by everybody in the world almost, unless it 

 may be the Senators from Massachusetts, a 

 right that was recognized in the Constitution 

 of Massachusetts in 1780, when they declared 

 in so many words for this kind of legislation. 

 I have it right here, and I will call the atten- 

 tion of the Senate to it : 



The end of the institution, maintenance, and ad- 

 ministration of government is to secure the existence 

 of the body-politic, to protect it, and to furnish _ the 

 individuals who compose it with the power of enjoy- 

 ing, in safety and tranquillity, their natural rights and 

 the blessings of life ; and whenever these great ob- 

 jects are not obtained the people have a right to alter 

 the government, and to take measures necessary for 

 their safety, prosperity, and happiness. 



"That has been the doctrine of all liberal- 

 minded men everywhere at all times. There 

 have been, I will admit, a few people who have 

 risen to the dignity of writing upon this ques- 

 tion, who have occasionally asserted, as was 

 said here the other day, that the human race is 

 one family, and that the same obligations on 

 the part of the Government of this country 

 exist toward the people of any other country 

 that exist with reference to its own citizens ; 

 but they are numerically so small and so insig- 

 nificant that they have never impressed those 

 ideas upon the body-politic of any nation in 

 the world. It can not be, Mr. President, that 

 one nation will legislate for the interest of all 

 mankind. They will legislate for the interest 

 of their own people first, and that is what they 

 ought to do. 



"In 1880 the Republican party assembled 

 in convention at Chicago, a convention com- 

 posed of the leading minds of the Republican 

 party. Presiding over that convention was the 

 Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Hoar), and 

 we appointed at that convention our repre- 

 sentative men on a committee to go out and 

 bring back a declaration of our principles. We 

 expected to promulgate those principles and 

 go to the people and demand their suffrage, 

 and we declared in our platform for this kind 

 of legislation and we pledged ourselves to work 

 for this kind of legislation. Did the Senator 



