History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States

by William Horatio Barnes

"The principles involved in the arguments put forth on the other side of the House are not alone destructive to the rights of the defenseless, intelligent, and patriotic colored men of this District, but they militate with a double effect and stronger purpose against the poor whites of the North and of the South, against the German, the Irishman, and the poor and oppressed of every race, who come to our shores to escape the oppression of despotic governments, and to seek the protection of a Government the true theory of which reposes in every citizen a portion of its sovereign power. Against this attempt to deny or abridge in any way the rights of the weak, the poor, and the defenseless, and to transfer the governing power of the nation to the favored classes, to the rich and the powerful, and thus change the very purpose and principles of our republican system, I protest in the name of constitutional freedom, and in behalf of equal rights and equal laws.

"I protest against this stealthy innovation upon popular rights, in the name of the toiling millions of the land; and I warn the House and the country of the untold mischief and disaster which must come to distract and divide the republic in the future, if we follow the pernicious and destructive doctrines founded upon either the prejudices of class, caste, wealth, or power. I protest in the name of a constituency whose early history was a sublime and persistent struggle against the prejudices of pampered and arrogant ruffianism at home, and the worse than ruffian spirit of the Administrations of Pierce and Buchanan, and the Democratic traitors who at that time constituted a majority of this House, and were engaged in preparing the nation for its harvest of blood. We must go back to the spirit and purposes of the founders of our Government. We must accept the grand logic of the mighty revolution from which we are now emerging. We must repudiate, now and forever, these assaults upon the masses of the people and upon the fundamental principles of popular rights. I accept in their full force and effect the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and by constitutional amendment and law of Congress I would stamp them with irrevocable power upon the political escutcheon of the new and regenerated republic. I would avoid the mistakes of the past, and I would spurn that cringing timidity by which, through all history, liberty has been sacrificed and humanity betrayed.

"Sir, I hesitate not to say that if we do not gather up, in the process of national reconstruction, the enduring safeguards of future peace, we shall be false to our history and unmindful of the grand responsibilities now devolving upon us. The establishment of impartial suffrage in this District will be a fitting commencement of the work. It will be hailed by the friends of freedom every-where as a return to a policy of national justice too long delayed. In behalf of the State I have the honor to represent, and upon whose soil this contest for a larger liberty and a nobler nationality was first submitted to the arbitrament of arms, I hail this measure with feelings of satisfaction and pride. It is the legitimate result of the courage and fidelity of the hardy pioneers of Kansas in 1856, who dared to face the blandishment of power and the arrogance and brutality of slavery when compromisers trembled, and Northern sycophants of an oligarchic despotism, then, as now, scowled and fretted at the progress of free principles."

Mr. Johnson, of Pennsylvania, after having adduced a variety of arguments against the bill, finally said: "Sir, we hear a tremendous outcry in this House in favor of popular government and about the guarantee of the Constitution of the United States to the several States that they shall have republican governments. How are the poor people of this District to have a republican form of government if gentlemen who have come to this city, perhaps for the first time in their lives, undertake to control them as absolutely and arbitrarily as Louis Napoleon controls France or Maximilian Mexico? Gentlemen ask, What right have they to hold an election and express their sentiments? What right have they to hold such an election? Surely they ought to have the right to petition, for their rulers are generally arbitrary enough.

"Mr. Speaker, it seems to me ridiculously inconsistent for gentlemen upon this floor to prate so much about a republican form of government, and rise here and offer resolution after resolution about the Monroe doctrine and the downtrodden Mexicans, while they force upon the people of this District a government not of their own choice, because the voter in a popular government is a governor himself. But, sir, this is only part of a grand plan. Gentlemen who dare not go before their white constituents and urge that a negro shall have a vote in their own States, come here and undertake to thrust negro suffrage upon the people here. Gentlemen whose States have repudiated the idea of giving the elective franchise to negroes, come here and are willing to give the suffrage to negroes here, as if they intended to make this little District of Columbia a sort of negro Eden; as if they intended to say to the negroes of Virginia and Maryland and Delaware, 'You have no right to vote in these States, but if you will go to Washington you can vote there.' I imagine I can see them swarming up from different sections of the country to this city and inquiring where the polls are. Agents, men and women, such as there are at work in this city, will no doubt be at work in these States, telling them to pack their knapsacks and march to Washington, for on such a day there is to be an election, and there they will have the glorious privilege of the white man. Sir, all this doctrine is destructive of the American system of government, which recognizes the right of no man to participate in it unless he is a citizen, which secures to the citizen his voice in the control and management of the Government, and prevents those not citizens from standing in the way of the exercise of his just rights.

"This Government does not belong to any race so that it can be divested or disposed of. The present age have no right to terminate it. It is ours to enjoy and administer, and to transmit to posterity unimpaired as we received it from the fathers."

Mr. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, then addressed the House: "When we emancipated the black people, we not only relieved ourselves from the institution of slavery, we not only conferred upon them freedom, but we did more, we recognized their manhood, which, by the old Constitution and the general policy and usage of the country, had been, from the organization of the Government until the Emancipation Proclamation, denied to all of the enslaved colored people. As a consequence of the recognition of their manhood, certain results follow in accordance with the principles of this Government, and they who believe in this Government are, by necessity, forced to accept those results as a consequence of the policy of emancipation which they have inaugurated and for which they are responsible.

"But to say now, having given freedom to them, that they shall not enjoy the essential rights and privileges of men, is to abandon the principle of the proclamation of emancipation, and tacitly to admit that the whole emancipation policy is erroneous.

"It has been suggested that it is premature to demand immediate action upon the question of negro suffrage in the District of Columbia. I am not personally responsible for the presence of the bill at the present time, but I am responsible for the observation that there never has been a day during a session of Congress since the Emancipation Proclamation, ay, since the negroes of this District were emancipated, when it was not the duty of the Government, which, by the Constitution, is intrusted with exclusive jurisdiction in this District, to confer upon the men of this District, without distinction of race or color, the rights and privileges of men. And, therefore, there can be nothing premature in this measure, and I can not see how any one who supports the Emancipation Proclamation, which is a recognition of the manhood of the whole colored people of this country, can hesitate as to his duty; and while I make no suggestion as to the duty of other men, I have a clear perception of my own. And, first, we are bound to treat the colored people of this District, in regard to the matter of voting, precisely as we treat white people. And I do not hesitate to express the opinion that if the question here to-day were whether any qualification should be imposed upon white voters in this District, if they alone were concerned, this House would not, ay, not ten men upon this floor would, consider whether any qualifications should be imposed or not.

"Reading and writing, or reading, as a qualification, is demanded, and an appeal is made to the example of Massachusetts. I wish gentlemen who now appeal to Massachusetts would often appeal to her in other matters where I can more conscientiously approve her policy. But it is a different proposition in Massachusetts as a practical measure. When, ten years ago, this qualification was imposed upon the people of Massachusetts, it excluded no person who was then a voter. For two centuries we have had in Massachusetts a system of public instruction open to the children of the whole people without money and without price. Therefore all the people there had had opportunities for education. Now, why should the example of such a state be quoted to justify refusing suffrage to men who have been denied the privilege of education, and whom it has been a crime to teach? Is there no difference?