the nation,
one in which the American people have an interest, as indirectly, at
least, touching the country at large. What the National Congress
pronounce here as a matter of right or expediency, or both, touching a
question of popular rights, may have an influence elsewhere for good
or for evil. We can not well justify the denial of the right of
suffrage to colored citizens on the protest of the voters of the
corporation of Washington. We may not think fit to grant it simply on
the prayer of the petitioners. Our action should rest on some
recognized general principle, which, applied to the capital of the
nation, would be equally just applied to any of the political
communities of which the nation is composed."

In closing his speech, Mr. Morrill remarked: "In a nation of professed
freemen, whose political axioms are those of universal liberty and
human rights, no public tranquillity is possible while these rights
are denied to portions of the American people. We have taken into the
bosom of the Republic the diverse elements of the nationalities of
Europe, and are attempting to mold them into national harmony and
unity, and are still inviting other millions to come to us. Let us not
despair that the same mighty energies and regenerating forces will be
able to assign a docile and not untractable race its appropriate place
in our system."

Mr. Willey's amendment, proposed when the subject was last considered
in the previous session, six months before, being now the pending
question, its author addressed the Senate in favor of some
restrictions upon the exercise of the elective franchise. "There ought
to be some obligation," said he, "either in our fundamental laws in
the States, or somewhere, by some means requiring the people to
educate themselves; and if this can be accomplished by disqualifying
those who are not educated for the exercise of the right of suffrage,
thus stimulating them to acquire a reasonable degree of education,
that of itself, it seems to me, would be a public blessing."

"I am against this qualification of reading and writing," said Mr.
Wilson; "I never did believe in it. I do not believe in it now. I
voted against it in my own State, and I intend to vote against it
here. There was a time when I would have taken it, because I did not
know that we could get any thing more in this contest; but I think the
great victory of manhood suffrage is about achieved in this country."

"Reading and writing