COLORED SUFFRAGE IN WASHINGTON.

REMARKS IN THE SENATE, ON BILLS TO AMEND THE CITY CHARTER, MAY 12, 26, 27, 28, 1864.

FEBRUARY 13th, Mr. Harlan, of Iowa, asked, and by unanimous consent obtained, leave to bring in a bill to amend section five of an Act entitled "An Act to continue, alter, and amend the charter of the city of Washington," approved May 17, 1848, and further to preserve the purity of elections and guard against the abuse of the elective franchise, by a registration of electors for the city of Washington, in the District of Columbia; which was read the first and second time, and referred to the Committee on the District of Columbia.

March 8th, Mr. Dixon, from the Committee, reported the bill without amendment.

March 17th, the bill was taken up and amended in unimportant particulars.

May 6th, it was again taken up, when, after an amendment moved by Mr. Dixon, Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, moved to amend the bill in the first section by inserting the word "white" before the word "male," so as to confine the right of voting in Washington to white male citizens. Mr. Sumner said at once, "I hope not." Mr. Cowan then spoke in favor of his amendment.

May 12th, Mr. Cowan remarked that the bill "would have the effect, in some cases, of admitting negroes to the right of suffrage, which, I may say, is obnoxious to the vast bulk of the people of the Border States.” Mr. Harlan would vote for Mr. Cowan's amendment, "first, because it is manifest to the Senate that the bill, without that provision in it, cannot now become a law." Mr. Willey, of West Virginia, spoke elaborately against colored suffrage, winding up with this interrogatory: "Shall we, without any petitions from the people of this District, without anything before the Senate to indicate that this bill, in any of its parts, is required by the people of this District, undertake to say, of our own volition, that we will impose upon them a provision which is odious to them, and will, in my estimation, be disastrous in its results,

not only here, but in its influence on popular opinion everywhere in this nation?"

Mr. Sumner followed.

R. PRESIDENT,- Slavery dies hard.

MR. stands front to front with our embattled armies,

holding them in check. It dies hard on the battle-field. It dies hard in the Senate Chamber. We have been compelled during this session to hear various defences of Slavery, sometimes in its most offensive forms. Slavehunting has been openly vindicated. And now, to-day, the exclusion of colored persons from the electoral franchise, simply on account of color, is openly vindicated, and the Senator from West Virginia, newly introduced into this Chamber from a State born of Freedom, rises here to uphold Slavery in one of its meanest products.

MR. WILLEY. Mr. President, I cannot pass that assertion without giving it an unequivocal, categorical denial. I have not vindicated Slavery in any of its aspects.. I said to the Senator, what perhaps he did not hear before, that, when he has liberated by the sweat of his brow as many slaves as I have, he can get up and make such a remark in regard to

me.

MR. SUMNER. I said, Sir, that the Senator vindicated Slavery in one of its meanest products. I repeat what I said. The Senator has spoken, I do not know how long by the clock, to vindicate an odious prejudice bequeathed by Slavery, having its origin in Slavery, and in nothing else. Had Slavery never existed among us, there would have been no such prejudice as that of which the Senator makes himself the representative. Far better would it be for that Senator, who comes into this Chamber as the representative of a new-born free State, had he surrendered generously to the sentiment in which West

Virginia had its birth. But, instead, he comes forward and labors with unwonted earnestness to perpetuate at the national capital an odious feature derived from Slavery. The Senator says he has not vindicated Slavery. If he has not used the word, he has vindicated the thing, in one of its most odious features. He seeks to blast a whole race merely on account of color. Would he ever have proposed such injustice, but for the prejudices nursed by Slavery? Had not Slavery existed, would any such idea have found place in a Senator naturally so generous and humane? No, Sir, -he spoke with the voice of Slavery, which he cannot yet forget. He spoke under the unhappy and disturbing influences which Slavery has left in his mind.

Now, Sir, I am against Slavery, wherever it shows itself, whatever form it takes. I am against Slavery, when compelled to meet it directly; and I am against Slavery in all its products and its offspring. I am against Slavery, when encountering the beast outright, or only its tail. The prejudices of which the Senator makes himself the representative to-day, permit me to say, are nothing but the tail of Slavery. Unhappily, while we have succeeded in abolishing Slavery in this District, we have not yet abolished the tail; and the tail has representatives in the Senate Chamber, as the beast once had.

We have been reminded that we are engaged in a fearful conflict. The Senator has reminded us of it. Senators nearer to me have reminded us of it. This is too true; and now, as that conflict lowers, I invoke the spirit of our fathers. They went forth to battle with the Declaration of Independence on their lips, solemnly declaring that all men are born equal, entitled

to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They introduced no discrimination of color into that sacred text, nor into the contemporary Articles of Confederation, nor into the Constitution of the United States, which was the work of their hands. I am content to be guided by their example. As they went forth to meet the enemy, they placed themselves under the protection of the God of Justice. Let us imitate them.

I had not intended to say a word on this occasion; but I could not listen to the remarks of the Senator, so harsh and unfeeling toward a whole race, belonging to the human family, like himself, without interposing a solemn protest.

Since this debate began, I have sent to the Law Library for a volume containing the authoritative words of a distinguished Southern jurist, a slaveholder, with regard to the electoral franchise. It has been a question, in what States, at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, colored persons enjoyed this franchise. I say nothing now about the more northern States; but there is a State, sometimes referred to, with regard to which there is peculiar evidence: I mean North Carolina. The enjoyment of the electoral franchise by colored persons in that State for a long time after the Constitution is not a matter of doubt. Her most eminent magistrate, the late Mr. Justice Gaston, accomplished as a jurist and as a man, whom I remember well in most agreeable personal intercourse, laid down the law of his State in emphatic words. Pronouncing the opinion of the Supreme Court of North Carolina in the case of The State v. Manuel, in 1838, he said:

"Slaves manumitted here become freemen, and therefore, if born within North Carolina, are citizens of North Carolina;

and all free persons born within the State are born citizens of the State. . . . . The Constitution extended the elective franchise to every freeman who had arrived at the age of twenty-one and paid a public tax; and it is a matter of universal notoriety, that, under it, free persons, without regard to color, claimed and exercised the franchise, until it was taken from free men of color a few years since by our amended Constitution." 1

There is still another case, that of The State v. Newsom, which was decided in 1844, where the Supreme Court of North Carolina, after citing the opinion of Judge Gaston from which I have just read, proceeds:

"That case underwent a very laborious investigation, both by the bar and the bench. . . . . The case was brought here by appeal, and was felt to be one of great importance in principle. It was considered with an anxiety and care worthy of the principle involved, and which gave it a controlling influence and authority on all questions of a similar character." 2

Therefore not hastily or carelessly did the Supreme Court of North Carolina declare colored persons to be voters under the State Constitution.

Such was the constitutional law of North Carolina, fashioned by our fathers under the influence of the Declaration of Independence. Sir, I am content with that law. I do not think the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. CowAN], though he represents a Northern State, can mend that law from a Slave State. Nor do I think that any of us on this floor can feel humbled, if our judgment is postponed to that of Judge Gaston of North Carolina, who did not hesitate to declare posi25 Iredell, R., 253.

14 Devereux and Battle, R., 25.