MR. PRESIDENT,—The time has passed for argument. Nothing more need be said. I doubt if anything more can be said in the way of argument.
For a long time it has been clear that colored persons must be Senators, and I have often so declared. This was only according to the irresistible logic of the situation, to say nothing of inherent right.
If I do not discuss the question, it is partly because it is now so plain, and partly because on other occasions I have considered it at length. There is not a point in the case which I have not argued long ago. Nearly a generation has intervened since I insisted at home, in Massachusetts, that all must be equal before the law, without any distinction of color.[1] Several years have intervened since here in this Chamber I insisted on the same truth, and at the same time showed how, at the adoption of the National Constitution, colored persons were citizens according to the terms of all the State Constitutions, except that of South Carolina, and perhaps Virginia and Georgia.[2] These arguments and authorities were not answered then. They cannot be answered. It is useless to interpose ancient pretensions. They are dead beyond resurrection. It is useless to interpose the Dred Scott decision. Born a putrid corpse, this decision became at once a stench in the nostrils and a scandal to the Court itself, which made haste to turn away from its offensive offspring. By the subsequent admission of a colored lawyer to practise at its bar this decision was buried out of sight, to be remembered only as a warning and a shame.[3]
The vote on this question will be an historic event, marking the triumph of a great cause. From this time there can be no backward step. After prolonged and hard-fought battle, beginning with the Republic, convulsing Congress, and breaking out in blood, the primal truths declared by our fathers are practically recognized. “All men are created equal,” says the great Declaration; and now a great act attests this verity. To-day we make the Declaration a reality. For a long time a word only, it now becomes a deed. For a long time a promise only, it now becomes a consummated achievement. The Declaration was only half established by Independence. The greater duty remained behind. In assuring the Equal Rights of All we complete the work.
No man acts for himself alone. What he does, whether for good or evil, is felt in widening circles, according to the measure of his influence. This is true of the Senate, whose influence is coextensive with the Republic, and reaches even beyond its enlarging confines. What the Senate does now will be followed by other bodies and associations. As the greater contains the less, so does the Senate contain all these everywhere throughout the land. In other places there may be a brief struggle, but the end is certain. Doors will open, exclusions will give way, intolerance will cease, and the great truth will be manifest in a thousand examples. Liberty and Equality were the two express promises of our fathers. Both are now assured. And this is the glory of the Republic, before whose mighty presence, radiant with justice, kings and nobles must disappear as the ghosts of night at the morning sun, while the people, with new-found power and majesty, take their place.
What we do to-day is not alone for ourselves, not alone for that African race now lifted up. It is for all everywhere who suffer from tyranny and wrong,—for all everywhere who bend beneath the yoke,—for all everywhere who feel the blight of unjust power; it is for all mankind; it is for God Himself, whose sublime Fatherhood we most truly confess when we recognize the Brotherhood of Man.
A motion by Mr. Stockton, of New Jersey, to refer the credentials of Mr. Revels to the Committee on the Judiciary was, after a debate of three days, defeated by a vote of 8 Yeas to 48 Nays; and on motion of Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, Mr. Revels was thereupon, by the corresponding vote of Yeas 48, Nays 8, admitted to a seat.