ngs
rather to the people of the United States, through their
Representatives in Congress assembled, than to the present qualified
voters of this District. Sir, the field of inquiry is much wider than
the District of Columbia, and the problem to be solved one in which
not they alone are interested. When Congress determined that the time
had come when slavery should be abolished in this District, and the
capital of the nation should no longer be disgraced by its presence,
did it pause in the great work of justice to which it laid its hand to
hear from the mayor of Washington, or to inquire whether the masters
would vote for it? It is not difficult to conjecture what the fate of
that great measure would have been had its adoption or rejection
depended upon the voters of this District.

"Shall we be told, sir, that if the Representatives of the people of
twenty-five States are of the opinion that the laws and institutions
which exist in the seat of Government of the United States ought to be
changed, that they are not to be changed because a majority of the
voters who reside here do not desire that change? Will any man say
that the voices of these seven thousand voters are to outweigh the
voices of all the constituencies of the United States in the capital
of their country? I dismiss this objection, therefore, as totally
destitute of reason or weight. It is based upon a fallacy so feeble
that it is dissipated by the bare touch of the Constitution to it.

"Whatever is the duty of the United States to do, that is for their
interest to do. The two great facts written in history by the iron
hand of the late war are, first, that the Union is indissoluble, and
second, that human slavery is here forever abolished. From these two
facts consequences corresponding in importance with the facts
themselves must result: from the former, a more vigorous and powerful
nationality; from the latter, the elevation and improvement of the
race liberated by the war from bondage, as well as a higher and more
advanced civilization in the region where the change has taken place.
It is impossible to say that the African race occupies to-day the same
position in American affairs and counts no more in weight than it did
before the rebellion. You can not strike the fetters from the limbs of
four million men and leave them such as you found them. As wide as is
the interval between a freeman and a slave, so wide is the difference
between the African rac