It further remains that you here in Washington shall complete this equality of rights in your common schools. You all go together to vote, and any person may find a seat in the Senate of the United States; but the child is shut out of the common school on account of color. This discrimination must be abolished. All schools must be open to all, without distinction of color. In laboring for this, you will not only work for yourselves, but will set an example for all the land, and most especially for the South. Only in this way can your school system be extended for the equal good of all. And now, as you have at heart the education of your children, that they may grow up in that knowledge of equal rights so essential to their protection in the world, it is your bounden duty here in Washington to see that this is accomplished.
Your school system must be founded on Equal Rights, so that no one shall be excluded on account of color. In this way Human Rights will be best established. And I would remind you, although this has not been effected, the victories already gained are the assurance that all that should be done will be done.
You have progressed, step by step, until you have reached your present position; and now it only remains that you should continue to the end earnest, faithful, and determined; then will the work be completed.
Returning you my sincere thanks, and offering my felicitations on this occasion, I bid you good night.
ADMISSION OF GEORGIA TO REPRESENTATION IN CONGRESS.
Speech in the Senate, April 5, 1870.
Representatives from Georgia had been admitted to seats in Congress in July, 1868, under the Act of June 25th of that year; but the subsequent action of her Legislature in expelling its colored members and filling their places with whites, and the continued outrages upon loyalists, had the effect of preventing the admission of her Senators, and in the next Congress of excluding her from representation altogether,—involving the necessity of measures for her reconstruction and admission anew. The first of these was the Act of December 22, 1869, providing, among other things, for the reorganization of the State Legislature, by reinstating its colored members in their seats and purging it of its disloyal elements. To this succeeded a bill in the same terms with the Acts for the admission of Virginia and Mississippi, which was passed in the House with the following amendment, moved by Mr. Bingham, of Ohio:—