ied: "He [Mr. Rogers] says this is a
white man's Government. 'A white man's Government!' Why, sir, did not
the Congress of the United States pass a law for enrolling into the
service of the United States the black man as well as the white man?
Did not we tax the black man as well as the white man? Does he not
contribute his money as well as his blood for the protection and
defense of the Government? O, yes; and now, when the black man comes
hobbling home upon his crutches and his wooden limbs, maimed for life,
bleeding, crushed, wounded, is he to be told by the people who called
him into the service of the Government, 'This is a white man's
Government; you have nothing to do with it?' Shame! I say, eternal
shame upon such a doctrine, and upon the men who advocate it!

"What should be the test as to the right to exercise the elective
franchise? I contend that the only question to be asked should be, 'Is
he a man?' The test should be that of manhood, not that of color, or
races, or class. Is he endowed with conscience and reason? Is he an
immortal being? If these questions are answered in the affirmative, he
has the same right to protection that we all enjoy.

"I am in favor, Mr. Speaker, of making suffrage equal and universal. I
believe that greater wisdom is concentrated in the decisions of the
ballot-box when all citizens of a certain age vote than when only a
part vote. If you apply a test founded on education or intelligence,
where will you stop? One man will say that the voter should be able to
read the Constitution and to write his name; another, that he should
be acquainted with the history of the United States; another will
demand a still higher degree of education and intelligence, until you
will establish an aristocracy of wisdom, which is one of the worst
kinds of aristocracy. Sir, the men who formed this Government, who
believed in the rights of human nature, and designed the Government to
protect them, believed, I think, as I do, that when suffrage is made
universal, you concentrate in the ballot-box a larger amount of wisdom
than when you exclude a portion of the citizens from the right of
suffrage.

"I grant, sir, that many of the colored men whom I would enfranchise
are poor and ignorant, but we have made them so. We have oppressed
them by our laws. We have stolen them from their cradles and consigned
them to helpless slavery. The shackles are now knocked from their
limbs, and they emerge from the hous