erry of Connecticut,
Goldthwaite, Gordon, Hamilton of Texas, Hamlin, Kelly,
Lewis, Morrill of Vermont, Oglesby, Pease, Robertson,
Saulsbury, Schurz, Stevenson, Stockton, and Thurman--25.

So the motion was not agreed to.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. CLAYTON in the chair.)--The question
is on the amendment of the Senator from California [Mr.
SARGENT], upon which the yeas and nays have been ordered.

Mr. BAYARD.--Mr. President, it would seem scarcely credible that
in the Senate of the United States an abrupt and sudden change in
so fundamental a relation as that borne by the two sexes to our
system of Government should be proposed as an "experiment," and
that it should be gravely recommended that a newly organized
Territory under act of Congress should be set aside for this
"experiment," which is in direct, grossly irreverent disregard of
all that we have known as a rule, our great fundamental rule, in
organizing a government of laws, whether colonial, State, or
Federal, in this country.

I frankly say, Mr. President, that which strikes me most forcibly
is the gross irreverence of this proposition, its utter disregard
of that Divine will by which man and woman were created
different, physically, intellectually, and morally, and in
defiance of which we are now to have this poor, weak, futile
attempt of man to set up his schemes of amelioration in defiance
of every tradition, of every revelation, of all human experience,
enlightened as it has been by Divine permission. It seems to me
that to introduce so grave a subject as this, to spring it here
upon the Senate without notice in the shape of an amendment to a
pending measure, to propose thus to experiment with the great
laws that lie at the very foundation of human society, and to do
it for the most part in the trivial tone which we have witnessed
during this debate, is not only mortifying, but it renders one
almost hopeless of the permanence of our Government if this is to
be the example set by one of the Houses of Congress, that which
claims to be more sedate and deliberate, if it proposes in this
light and perfunctory way to deal with questions of this grave
nature and import. Sir, there is no time at present for that
preparation which such a subject demands at the hands