a, the cardinal principle
of whose Government is the equality of all men. After these black men
have so nobly fought to maintain the one and overthrow the other, when
they ask us for the necessary right of suffrage to protect themselves
against the rebels they have fought, and with whom they are compelled
to live, we coolly reply, 'This is the white man's Government.' Nay,
more, and worse, we have refused it to them, and allowed it to their
and our worst enemies, the rebels. Sir, from the dim and shadowy
aisles of the past, there comes a cry of 'Shame! shame!' and pagan
Rome rebukes Christian America.

"But not chiefly, Mr. President, do I advocate this right of the black
man to vote because he has fought the battles of the republic and
helped to preserve the Union, but because he is a citizen and a
man--one of the people, one of the governed--upon whose consent, if
the Declaration of Independence is correct, the just powers of the
Government rest; an intelligent being, of whom and for whom God will
have an account of us, individually and as a nation; whose blood is
one with ours, whose destinies are intermingled and run with ours,
whose life takes hold on immortality with ours, and because this right
is necessary to develop his manhood, elevate his race, and secure for
it a better civilization and a more enlightened and purer
Christianity."

On the 15th of February, Mr. Sumner presented a memorial from George
T. Downing, Frederick Douglass, and other colored citizens of the
United States, protesting against the pending constitutional amendment
as introducing, for the first time, into the Constitution a grant to
disfranchise men on the ground of race or color. In laying this
memorial before the Senate, Mr. Sumner said: "I do not know that I
have at any time presented a memorial which was entitled to more
respectful consideration than this, from the character of its
immediate signers and from the vast multitudes they represent. I hope
I shall not depart from the proper province of presenting it if I
express my entire adhesion to all that it says, and if I take this
occasion to entreat the Senate, if they will not hearken to arguments
against the pending proposition, that they will at least hearken to
the voice of these memorialists, representing the colored race of our
country."

Mr. Williams, of Oregon, argued in favor of the resolution reported by
the committee as the best measure before the Senate. He was for
pro