According to the maxim in Chancery, “Whoso would have equity must do equity.” Therefore Rebels seeking amnesty must be just to colored fellow-citizens seeking equal rights.

Their adoption together is better for each, and therefore better for the country, than any separate adoption.

Kindred in object, they should be joined together and never put asunder.

Hereafter the Rebels should remember that their restoration was associated with the equal rights of all, contained in the same great statute.

Clearly, between the two the preëminence must be accorded to that for the equal rights of all, as among the virtues justice is above generosity.

And this is the more evident, when it is considered, that, according to Abraham Lincoln, the great issue of the war was Human Equality.

In the uncertainties of life, I would not defer for a day the discharge of this immeasurable obligation to fellow-citizens insulted and oppressed; nor would I postpone that much-desired harmony which can be assured only through this act of…

Earnestly, confidently, I appeal to the Senate for its votes.

Let the record be made at last, which shall be the cap-stone of the reconstructed Republic.

I make this appeal for the sake of the Senate, which will rejoice to be relieved from a painful discussion; for the sake of fellow-citizens whom I cannot forget; and for the sake of the Republic, now dishonored through a denial of justice.

I make it in the name of the Great Declaration, and also of that Equality before the Law which is the supreme rule of conduct, to the end especially that fellow-citizens may be vindicated in “the pursuit of happiness,” according to the…

I make it also for the sake of peace, so that at last there shall be an end of Slavery, and the rights of the citizen shall be everywhere under the equal safeguard of national law.

There is beauty in art, in literature, in science, and in every triumph of intelligence, all of which I covet for my country; but there is a higher beauty still in relieving the poor, in elevating the down-trodden, and being a succor to…

If you make it for a class, it is not a common school, but a separate school,--and, as I have said frequently to-day, and also before in addressing the Senate, a separate school never can be a substitute for the common school.

The common school has for its badge Equality.

The separate school has for its badge Inequality.

The one has open doors for all; the other has open doors only for those of a certain color.

That is contrary to the spirit of our institutions, to the promises of the Declaration of Independence, and to all that is secured in the recent Constitutional Amendments.

So long as it continues, the great question of the war remains still undecided; for, as I explained the other day, that transcendent issue, as stated by Jefferson Davis, and then again accepted by Abraham Lincoln, was Equality.

Only by maintaining Equality will you maintain the great victory of the war.

They do not recognize the Senators who have undertaken to speak for them as their representatives.

They insist upon their rights before you play the generous to Rebels.

They insist that they shall be saved from indignity when they travel, and when they offer a child at the common school,--that they shall be secured against any such outrage before you remove the disabilities of men who struck at the life…

Now, Sir, will you not be just before you are generous?

Or if you do not place the rights of the colored people foremost, will you not at least place them side by side with those of former Rebels?