George F. Hoar

On the other hand, in the Senate, where there is no cloture rule, any single member, or at best, a very few members, can defeat an Appropriation Bill and compel an extra session by exercising their right of uncontrolled debate.

But the one thing I have never consented to is that a man shall be kept out of this country, or kept in a position of inferiority, while he is in it, because of his color, because of his birthplace, or because of his race.

I would deal with the Negro or the German or the Frenchman or the Italian on the same principle.

But they did not mean that the accident of birthplace, or the accident of race, or the accident of color, should enter into the question at all.

It was never their purpose to declare that ignorance or vice or want of experience of the institutions of a country should not disqualify men from a share in the Government.

This our fathers meant to lay down as the fundamental law of States and of the United States, having its steadfast and immovable foundation in the law of God.

My own endeavor, during my long public life, has been to maintain the doctrine of the Declaration of Independence, which declares the right of every man to political equality by virtue of his manhood, and of every people to self-government…

They received what I had to say, although they knew I differed from them on some of the gravest matters which concerned the State, and had been an anti-slavery man from my youth, with a respect and courtesy which left nothing to be desired.

They are our kindred; bone of our bone; flesh of our flesh; blood of our blood, and whatever may be the temporary error of any Southern State I, for one, if I have a right to speak for Massachusetts, say to her, 'Entreat me not to leave…

Now, my friends, we cannot afford to live, we don't wish to live, and we will not live, in a state of estrangement from a people who possess these qualities.

We may well take pattern from them in some of the great virtues which make up the strength, as they make the glory, of Free States.

But I am bound to say, indeed it is but to repeat what I have said many times, that my long conflict with their leaders has impressed me with an ever-increasing admiration of the great and high qualities of our Southern people.

Under the Constitution every State can prescribe its own qualifications for suffrage, with the single exception that no State can deny or abridge the right of a citizen of the United States to vote on account of race, color or previous…

When that was withdrawn the negro and carpet- bag majority was powerless as a flock of sheep before a pack of wolves to resist their brave and unscrupulous Democratic enemy, however inferior the latter in numbers.

President Grant gave the influence and authority of his Administration toward maintaining in power the lawfully chosen Republican State Governments.

I incline to think that a large number of the men who got political office in the South, when the men who had taken part in the Rebellion were still disfranchised, and the Republicans were still in power, were of a character that would not…

If they had been met cordially by the communities where they took up their abode they would have brought to them a most valuable quality of citizenship.

I myself, although I have always maintained, and do now, the equal right of all men of whatever color or race to a share in the government of the country, felt a thrill of sadness when I saw the Legislature of Louisiana in session in the…

They could not endure that men, some of whom had been bought and sold like chattels in the time of slavery, and others ready to sell themselves, although they were freemen, should sit to legislate for their States with their noble and…

In some parts of the South there were men as ready to murder a negro who tried to get an office as to kill a fox they found prowling about a hen roost.

They thought it like a fight for life with a pack of wolves.

But they had persuaded themselves to believe that a contest for political power with a party largely composed of negroes was a contest for their civilization itself.

With the exception of Reverdy Johnson of Maryland there is no record of a single manly remonstrance, or expression of disapproval from the lips of any prominent Southern man.

The proof in the public records of those public crimes is abundant.

It was not wholly unnatural that the men who, in dealing with each other, were men of scrupulous honor and of undoubted courage should have brought themselves to do such things, or at any rate to screen and sympathize with the more hot…