Mr. Sumner. Is it not time to begin?
Mr. Lane. It is perhaps time to begin; but we should have begun when we passed the Enabling Act, and the vigilance of the Senator from Massachusetts should not have slumbered on that occasion.
Mr. Sumner. It did not, as I shall show you presently.
Mr. Trumbull also insisted that in good faith Congress was committed to the people of Colorado by the Enabling Act. In the course of reply, Mr. Sumner said:—
…
What I did say, however, was this: that on that occasion the suggestion was made, which my excellent colleague made to-day, that I was guilty of inconsistency; and I said that then and there I answered that argument. My colleague, not being here, did not hear the answer, and therefore to-day, without knowing the facts, he has revived the charge.
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I showed you, that, when the Enabling Act was pending in the Senate, all persons, without distinction of color, were authorized to vote. That was my answer before; it is my answer now. Therefore, Sir, do I say that I did not vote with any idea that there could be a discrimination founded on color; on the contrary, I voted with the positive conviction that all possibility of such discrimination was excluded,—and, still further, knowing that this Act contained words in themselves an antidote to any such wrong:—
“The constitution, when formed, shall be republican, and not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and the principles of the Declaration of Independence.”