Show me a creature, with lifted countenance looking to heaven, made in the image of God, and I show you A MAN, who, of whatever country or race, whether browned by equatorial sun or blanched by northern cold, is with you a child of the…

And so, as God linked the national welfare with national duty, you cannot deny these rights without peril to the Republic.

By the same title that we claim Liberty do we claim Equality also.

The two are necessary to begin and complete the circle of American citizenship.

They are the inseparable organs through which the people have their national life.

They are the two vital principles of republican government, without which, government, although republican in name, cannot be republican in fact.

These two vital principles belong to those divine statutes graven on the soul of Universal Man, even of the slave who forgets them, and of the master who denies them, and, whether forgotten or denied, more enduring than marble or brass…

Last Friday this Senate solemnly declared, that, under the Constitutional Amendment abolishing Slavery, it had power to decree the equal rights of all persons everywhere throughout the United States, without distinction of color.

Do I understand my friend as insisting that the denial of the franchise is consistent with a republican government?

But that is the question, whether they were left to deny suffrage to any freeman on account of color.

If that be the question, then the point is against my friend; for both South Carolina and Virginia did deny the suffrage to the free negroes on account of color only, at the time when the Constitution was made, and when it was adopted.

My conclusion is, that a mistake was made in recognizing a Constitution as republican that permitted Slavery.

I know of no way to get rid of it except by Constitutional Amendment.

I think another mistake was committed in leaving each State to so far abridge the right of suffrage as to change, in theory, the republican form.

It is a question of theory with regard to republican government, and I say that the Constitution must be interpreted according to this theory.

But our fathers did not deal with it in the Constitution as a question of theory, but as a question of fact.

The practical point is, Did our fathers concede to any State the power of disfranchising citizens on account of color?

The question is, whether you are allowed to disfranchise freemen on account of color,--whether you are allowed to deny freemen rights as citizens.

The exception was slaves, who were not regarded as members of the “body politic.” They were treated as minors, or as women, represented by their masters.

But every freeman, no matter what his color, was recognized as entitled to all the privileges of citizenship; he was one of the sovereigns.

It was not slaves only that were disfranchised, but I have shown that free negroes were also disfranchised.

It is sufficient to control my own action, that I believe by the letter, and even spirit of the Constitution, the suffrage was placed exclusively under the control of State action.

I think that the error of so placing it is as clear as the error made in tolerating Slavery.

To rid ourselves of the evil, however, we must amend the Constitution.

I insist that a State is not authorized, under the Constitution, to make any exclusion on account of color.