favor was 37; those opposed were 10. There were only three absentees.
Even those Republican senators who had given strong evidence of
sympathy with the Administration did not unite with the Democrats on
this issue. Mr. Cowan declined to vote, while Messrs. Dixon,
Doolittle and Norton voted in the affirmative. The public opinion of
the country unmistakably sustained this legislation--the purpose to
extend protection to the freedmen being deep-set and all-pervading
among the men of the North who had triumphed in the war. When the
bill reached the House it was referred to the Select Committee on
Freedmen's Affairs, of which Mr. Thomas D. Eliot of Massachusetts was
chairman. It was promptly reported and came to a final vote on the 6th
of February, when it was passed on a call of yeas and nays by 136 to
33. It was a clear division upon the line of party, the nays being
composed entirely of Democrats, with the possible exception of Mr.
Rousseau of Kentucky, who had been elected with the aid of Republican
votes.

One of the most striking speeches made in the House upon the subject
was by Mr. Ignatius Donnelly of Minnesota. He had carefully prepared
for the debate and dwelt with great force upon the educational feature.
"Education," said he, "means the intelligent exercise of liberty; and
surely without this liberty is a calamity, since it means simply the
unlimited right to err. Who can doubt that if a man is to govern
himself he should have the means to know what is best for himself, and
what is injurious to himself, what agencies work against him and what
for him? The avenue to all this is simply education. Suffrage without
education is an edged tool in the hands of a child,--dangerous to
others and destructive to himself. Now what is the condition of the
South in reference to all this? I assert that it is such as would
bring disgrace upon any despotism in Christendom. The great bulk of
the people are rude, illiterate, semi-civilized: hence the Rebellion;
hence all the atrocious barbarities that accompanied it. . . . I
repeat, the condition of the South in this respect would be shameful
to any semi-civilized people, and is such as to render a republican
government, resting upon the intelligent judgment of the people, an
impossibility."

It is worthy of remark that the question so cogently presented and
enforced by Mr. Donnelly--that of the connection between education and
suffrage--disclosed the general fact t