not ready to believe that those men who have laid
down their lives in the battles of the late revolution, who came from
their homes like the torrents that sweep over their native hills and
mountains, those men who gathered round the sacred precincts of the
tomb of Washington to uphold and perpetuate our proud heritage of
liberty, intended to inflict upon the people of this District, or of
this land, the monstrous doctrine of political equality of the negro
race with the white at the ballot-box.

"No such dogma as this was ever announced by the Republican party in
their platforms. When that party met at Chicago, in 1860, they took
pains to enunciate the great principle of self-government which
underlies the institutions of this country, that each State has the
right to control its own domestic policy according to its own judgment
exclusively. I ask the gentlemen on the other side of the house to
allow the people of the District of Columbia to exercise the same
great right of self-government, to determine by their votes at the
ballot-box whether they desire to inaugurate a system of political
equality with the colored people of the District.

"Self-government was the great principle which impelled our fathers to
protest against the powers of King George. That was the principle
which led the brave army of George Washington across the ice of the
river Delaware. It was the principle which struck a successful blow
against despotism, and planted liberty upon this continent. It was the
principle that our fathers claimed the Parliament of England had no
right to invade, and drove the colonies into rebellion, because laws
were passed without their consent by a Parliament in which they were
unrepresented.

"I am here to-day to plead for the white people of this District, upon
the same grounds taken by our fathers to the English Parliament, in
favor of self-government and the right of the people of the District
to be heard upon this all-important question. Although we may have a
legal yet we have no moral right, according to the immutable
principles of justice, and according to the declaration of Holy Writ,
that we should do unto others as we would they should do unto us, to
inflict upon the people of this District this fiendish doctrine of
political equality with a race that God Almighty never intended should
stand upon an equal footing with the white man and woman in social or
civil life."

Mr. Farnsworth, of Illinois, repl