said District of Columbia are
hereby empowered and required to open polls, at all the usual places of
holding elections, on the first Monday of April next, and receive the vote
of every free white male citizen above the age of twenty-one years, having
resided within said District for the period of one year or more next
preceding the time of such voting for or against this act, to proceed in
taking said votes, in all respects not herein specified, as at elections
under the municipal laws, and with as little delay as possible to transmit
correct statements of the votes so cast to the President of the United
States; and it shall be the duty of the President to canvass said votes
immediately, and if a majority of them be found to be for this act, to
forthwith issue his proclamation giving notice of the fact; and this
act shall only be in full force and effect on and after the day of such
proclamation.

Sec. 7. That involuntary servitude for the punishment of crime, whereof
the party shall have been duly convicted, shall in no wise be prohibited
by this act.

Sec. 8. That for all the purposes of this act, the jurisdictional limits
of Washington are extended to all parts of the District of Columbia not
now included within the present limits of Georgetown.

BILL GRANTING LANDS TO THE STATES TO MAKE RAILWAYS AND CANALS

REMARKS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 13, 1849.

Mr. Lincoln said he had not risen for the purpose of making a speech, but
only for the purpose of meeting some of the objections to the bill. If he
understood those objections, the first was that if the bill were to become
a law, it would be used to lock large portions of the public lands from
sale, without at last effecting the ostensible object of the bill--the
construction of railroads in the new States; and secondly, that Congress
would be forced to the abandonment of large portions of the public lands
to the States for which they might be reserved, without their paying for
them. This he understood to be the substance of the objections of the
gentleman from Ohio to the passage of the bill.

If he could get the attention of the House for a few minutes, he would ask
gentlemen to tell us what motive could induce any State Legislature, or
individual, or company of individuals, of the new States, to expend money
in surveying roads which they might know they could not make.

(A voice: They are not required to make the road.)

Mr. Lincoln c