following classes: those who have
been in the military service of the United States, those who can read
and write, and those who possess $250 worth of property.

Mr. Yates, of Illinois, addressed the Senate for three hours on the
pending amendment of the Constitution. On the 29th of January
preceding, Mr. Yates had proposed a bill providing that no State or
Territory should make any distinction between citizens on account of
race, or color, or condition; and that all citizens, without
distinction of race, color, or condition should be protected in the
enjoyment and exercise of all their civil and political rights,
including the right of suffrage.

This bill Mr. Yates made the basis of his argument. His reason for
preferring a bill to a constitutional amendment was presented as
follows: "There is only one way of salvation for the country. Your
amendments to the Constitution of the United States can not be
adopted. If we have not the power now under the Constitution of the
United States to secure full freedom, then, sir, we shall not have it,
and there is no salvation whatever for the country. Let not freedom
die in the house, and by the hands of her friends."

[Illustration: Hon. Richard Yates.]

Mr. Yates maintained that the constitutional amendment abolishing
slavery gave to Congress power to legislate to the full extent of the
measure proposed by him. "Let gentlemen come forward," said he, "and
meet the issue like men. Let them come forward and do what they have
by the Constitution the clear power to do, and that is a _sine qua
non_ in order to carry into effect the constitutional prohibition of
slavery. As for me, I would rather face the music and meet the
responsibility like a man, and send to the people of the State of
Illinois the boon of universal suffrage, and of a full and complete
emancipation, than meet the taunt of Northern demagogues that I would
force suffrage upon North Carolina, and Tennessee, and Delaware, while
I had not the courage to prescribe it for our own free States. Sir, it
will be the crime of the century if now, having the power, as we
clearly have, we lack the nerve to do the work that is given us to
do.

"Let me say to my Republican friends, you are too late. You have gone
too far to recede now. Four million people, one-seventh of your whole
population, you have set free. Will you start back appalled at the
enchantment your own wand has called up? The sequences of your own
teachings a