But I can see no reason why a discrimination of color should be made in the bill, or in our proceedings.

If white persons are kept out of their rights, so are colored persons; and I would ask my friend from Ohio, Which has been kept out the longest?

I am for the rights of both, to the end that we may have at last in the national capital Equality before the law.

But I know no way so effective as to set an example of justice and humanity.

If we sanction slave-hunting, if we disregard the rights of colored persons, if we treat them as inferior in condition, unhappily, Sir, there are others who will follow our example, and add a vindictive cruelty.

Therefore, insisting upon the rights of colored persons here, I insist upon their rights everywhere.

Nor do I see how I can abandon their rights here without abandoning them everywhere.

We are Senators of the United States, bound to consider the whole country in all its extent, and to do nothing here which shall do mischief elsewhere; nor can we yield to any local pressure, or any imagined local interests, and thus forget…

It is vain to say that this measure is temporary; for, in plain terms, it undertakes to amend the charter of Washington.

And yet on these grounds we are asked to abandon the present assertion of the rights of colored persons.

If the bill conferring these rights can pass, so also can the present measure.

If it be practical to assert these rights on one bill, it is equally practical to assert them on another, where such assertion is germane.

For myself, I will not sanction injustice; nor will I miss any opportunity of asserting the rights of an oppressed race.

I may be alone; but, to the extent of my powers, I mean to be right.

Would he have been the author of such a brutality, had the woman been white?

No; because she was black, he thus insulted human nature, and performed an act never to be read without a blush that he is a member of the human family.

Is it by keeping alive this odious discrimination of color, by imparting to it the sanction of law, by investing it with the authority of this Chamber?

I appeal to you, Senators, as men of humanity, do not continue a discrimination, which, proceeding from this Chamber, must exercise a far-reaching influence.

It is not simply the question of a few voters more or less in the District, but it is a question of human rights everywhere throughout this land, involving the national character and its good name forevermore.

But the Senator thinks that I am not logical, because I quote an outrage in Tennessee having its origin in the prejudice of color, and insist that here in this Chamber we shall not found legislation on a prejudice of color.

I insist, Sir, that you cannot sanction injustice here, especially you cannot sanction a prejudice founded on color, without quickening that prejudice, and sustaining it, wherever it now unhappily exists throughout our whole country.

In my judgment, a tax on books is less defensible than a tax on wheat or on corn.

I believe books are the staff of life; and I believe that our country would do itself honor, if at this moment, when imposing a heavy tax upon all things, it deliberately exempted books.

It will not add sensibly to the Treasury, but it will impose a burden upon knowledge.

I venture to say, that, in point of principle, few questions of equal importance have arisen on this bill.