ge of the bill would work toward the people of his
State, he said:

"If I believed that the matter of suffrage was the only mode to help
the negro in his elevation, and the only safeguard to his protection,
or guarantee to his rights, I would be willing to give it to him now,
subject to proper qualifications and restrictions. But I am honest in
my conviction that, uneducated and ignorant as he is, a slave from his
birth, and subject to the will and caprice of his master, with none of
the exalted ideas of what that privilege means, and with but a faint
conception of the true position he now occupies, the negro is not the
proper subject to have conferred upon him this right. I believe if it
is given to him, that in localities where his is the majority vote,
parties will spring up, each one bidding higher than the other for his
ballot, and that in the end the negro-voting element will be
controlled by a few evil and wicked politicians, and as something to
be bought and sold as freely as an article of merchandise. I am
satisfied of another fact, from my experience of the Southern negro,
that if they are ever allowed to vote, the shrewd politician of the
South, who has been formerly his master, will exert more influence
over his vote than all the exhortations from Beecher or Cheever.

"It is a notorious fact that the Southern planter maintained his
political influence over the poor white man of the South, because the
poor white man was dependent on him for his living and support. And
you will find, when it is too late, that the Southern planter will
maintain the same political influence over the poor, uneducated,
ignorant, and dependent African, even to a greater extent than he
formerly exercised over what used to be called the 'poor white trash.'

"Mr. Speaker, let us not, because we have the majority here to-day,
pass upon measures which, if we were evenly divided, we would hesitate
to pass. Let us not, because we are called radicals, strike at the
roots of society, and of the great social and political systems that
have existed for over a century, and attempt to do in a day, without
any preparation, what, to do well and safely, will require years of
patience on the part of the freedmen, and earnest, honest exertions to
elevate, improve, and educate on our part. Let us look at this
question as statesmen, not as partisans. Let us not suppose that the
parties of to-day will have a perpetual existence, and that because
the