a foreigner to vote without his being naturalized; I think a state may authorize a civilized Indian to vote; but certainly it is going a great way to assume, that when he has simply adopted the habits of civilization you are to allow him to vote, without defining what shall be considered an adoption of the habits of civilization. If he is not taxed, you cannot enumerate him; you cannot even count him in making up the sum of population; and yet he can vote. You give him the right of suffrage, and you do not even enumerate him as one of the population of the state. That is carrying the thing a great way. But if he is a foreigner inhabiting the country, you must enumerate him; and if the state chooses, it may confer on him the right of suffrage; but the right conferred in Massachusetts cannot be carried by the same man to Virginia, unless he has taken the oath of allegiance. It is a citizenship of the United States, and not of a particular state, that confers on him the right of suffrage. If he be a citizen of the United States, then he may be a citizen of any one of the states, and must stand upon the same footing in Virginia that a native son of Massachusetts would stand. I understand that clause of the constitution quoted by my friend from Tennessee, to mean that Virginia cannot make a distinction between the adopted and native born citizens of Massachusetts; that she cannot confer a privilege on the senator from Massachusetts, and deny the same privilege to a citizen of that state, who has been naturalized under the laws of Congress, though he was born in France, or Spain, or Ireland. If he be a citizen of the state, without regard to birth, he carries with. him all the privileges of any other citizen. No distinction is to be made in Virginia between citizens of Massachusetts, of native or of foreign birth. That is what I understand by it. In other words, Virginia cannot say that the native born citizens of Massachusetts shall vote, and that the adopted citizens, if they are citizens of the United States, made so under the act of Congress, shall not vote; but if they be simply and alone authorized to vote by the laws of Massachusetts, then they do not carry that local right to any one of the other states: that is not being a citizen. The right of voting and the rights of citizenship are two things separate and distinct. The right of suffrage does not necessarily involve the right of citizenship. The right of citizenship does involve the right to vote, because that is a right which belongs to every citizen, and cannot be taken from one class and denied to another classthat is all. You cannot deny the naturalized citizen the right of suffrage, and give it solely to the native citizen. One single state might do it, but still that naturalized citizen, if he went to any other state, would not carry with him that disability to the state in which he went. It is a disability which simply attaches to him in his locality. Mr. STUART. If I understand the senator from Mississippi-and I really wish to understand him on this point-I quite agree with him. My position is, that every state has a right to say who shall exercise the right of suffrage. Mr. BROWN. Certainly. Mr. STUART. Now, sir, if a man is a citizen of the United States by naturalization, and has certain rights in Massachusetts, he does not carry with him into Mississippi any of those rights, unless Mississippi chooses to give them to him. I mean the right of suffrage. Mississippi may say that, of the two men going from Massachusetts, one a natural born citizen, and the other a naturalized citizen, the one who is a citizen by birth may vote in Mississippi; and the other, who is a naturalized citizen, shall not. I think it is competent for Mississippi to say so. Mr. BROWN. Then we differ. I hold that, if they are citizens, you have no right to apply the rule; otherwise, it will not make them equal. But they must be citizens of the United States. As to what may constitute, in the technicalities of local law, citizenship in a state, that is a different matter. But when a man is a citizen of the United States, native-born or naturalized, I hold, if he and a native-born citizen pass from one state into another, the state into which they go has no right to make distinctions between them on account or their birth. That is my doctrine. If they are citizens of the United States, one native-born and the other adopted according to law, and pass from Massachusetts to Virginia, I maintain that Virginia cannot then make a distinction between them. She must treat them alike. But I did not rise to discuss the question. I only wanted to sound. my friend from Texas, and I am sorry I have been betrayed an inch beyond that to know what he thought of letting Indians vote. ENGLISH BILL. SPEECH IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, APRIL 29, 1858, ON MR. PRESIDENT: I desire, in a few words, and without making a speech, to assign the reasons why, if we are ever brought to a vote, I shall record mine in favor of this proposition. I must say, in the outset, that I do not like it; there are a great many reasons why I do not; but as I have brought my mind to the conclusion to vote for it, I shall not assign the reasons why I do not like it, but rather assign the reasons which influence me to vote in its favor. The first is this: that we settle this question; and better on these terms, than leave it open. I can see, if left open, that it is to be made the fruitful source of discontent and strife, and of political turmoil perhaps for years to come. I can see how, in very many ways, it may endanger, seriously endanger, the perpetuity of the government itself. As long as the question is kept open it must continue to irritate the feelings of the people of the two sections of the Union. Until this question is settled, you cannot begin to have a reconciliation on that great controversy which has been going on for years and years between the North and the South. This question is a thorn which rankles in the side of the nation. You must extract it, or you can have no permanent peace. If I had no other reason for going for this bill, I would do it for that and that alone. It is a peace measure; it brings healing upon its wings; it brings the different sections of the country in closer neighborhood, in better fellowship. How much is there in the bill to forbid our taking it? First, it is said by some of those who vote against it, that it is a submission of the Lecompton constitution to the people of Kansas. And then again, others vote against it because it is not a submission. I mean to state my own views with perfect candor and with entire fairness. I do not understand it to be the submission of the constitution to the people, but I do understand this to be true, that you submit collateral questions-the land question, and others involved in the Kansas ordinance to the people of Kansas; and that if in voting upon those questions they choose to determine that they will not come into the Union under the Lecompton constitution, they have the right to do it. They pass no judgment directly at the polls on the constitution, one way or the other, but each voter can control his own vote by his own reasons; and if he chooses, under cover of voting to sustain the ordinance, to vote against the whole constitution and against coming into the Union, he can do so; and if a majority take the view of the subject, the state is not in the Union. That much in fairness and candor, for thus stands the question, if I properly comprehend it. Now what just ground have we southern men to object to that? What just reason is there for our opposing it? We took the ground in the beginning, and maintain it now, that we would not and will not sustain a submission of this constitution to the people under the circumstances of its coming here. But we took the ground at the same time that we would not sanction this ordinance, making, as it did, exorbitant land demands upon the government, and setting up other pretences which had not been tolerated in the admission of other new states. From the beginning, the friends of the Lecompton constitution struck at that ordinance, determined not to receive it, and not to give it their sanction. The original Senate bill declared that it was no part of the constitution, and could not be so recognised by Congress. After we made that declaration, I apprehend, if the bill had passed, it would have rested with Kansas to decide whether she would organize under the constitution or not; whether she would come into the Union or be considered a member of it. You had stricken off her ordinance. You chose not to regard it as a part of the constitution. But did Kansas so regard it? She did not. You struck it off without her consent. She thought it a material part of her proposition. Then was she in the Union? She was not, until, either by silent acquiescence in your action, or by some positive declaration of her own, she placed herself into the Union. I hold that if you had passed the regular Senate bill, and Kansas had refused to organize a state government under the Lecompton constitution, and under that bill, there would have been no power in this government to force her, and therefore that she would not have been in the Union. She would not, because you had not met her proposition, and she had not accepted yours. Your minds had not agreed. She would not accept the proposition you had sent to her. You had changed her proposition so far as to strike off her ordinance, and she had not agreed to have it stricken off. Then it rested with her to say whether she was in the Union or not; and what does this proposition amount to? It simply declares that Kansas may determine for herself whether she is in or out of the Union -a right which she had without your saying so; and which she would still have, whether you said so or not. You do not, by this declaration, confer any right on Kansas. You simply recognise a right which already exists, and which, if she chose, I repeat again, she could have exercised without your consent, just as well as with it. When this debate first opened, the senator from Michigan [Mr. Stuart] employed this language on this point: "They," meaning the people of Kansas, "are arming; they are determined to resist an admission under this constitution, by any and every power with which God has clothed them; and yet we are to sit here and say, 'we admit you into the Union of the United States.' As well might you take a prisoner, under the sentence of a court of justice, handcuffed, with your officers surrounding him, by force to the prison, and say to him, there is no coercion; we admit you into the penitentiary.' I thought then, sir, and so declared, that there was no power to force Kansas into the Union. If she proposes to come in, and you accept her upon the terms which she proposes, then she is in, and she cannot recede. But if she proposes to come in, and you alter her proposition, then it depends upon her to say whether she accepts or rejects the alteration. That right, I repeat again and again, she has, whether you admit it or not. To reduce it to a simple question of law, suppose you and I, Mr. President, have dealings in reference to an estate, and we agree upon the terms; I draw the bond or the deed, and attach to it a memorandum, or condition, or ordinance, explaining what I understand to be the meaning of the paper, how I expect to see it executed, and send it to you, and you sign it, but strike out the memorandum, or condition, or ordinance: I ask any lawyer whether the contract is binding on me until, either by silent acquiescence, as by proceeding to execute it, or by some positive declaration, I make it my own deed? Just so with Kansas. She sent you a constitution; she sent along with it her ordinance, the memorandum which explained the reasons why, and the terms upon which, she proposed to enter into the bargain, and become a member of the Union. You choose to strike the ordinance out; you choose to strike it from the constitution. Then I hold, as a simple legal proposition, she had a right "you have changed the terms upon which I propose to come in: I will not come in; I choose entirely to recede from the proposition. It does not depend on you, sir, as one of the contracting parties, to say whether she shall recede or not; the right exists independent of you. If you meant to bind Kansas absolutely, you should have accepted her proposition in totidem verbis. You could not strike out what you did not like, stand by what you did like, and still insist that Kansas was bound by her proposition. to say, But, Mr. President, how am I to understand senators? The senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas], who has just closed his speech, opened the session with an argument in favor of submitting this constitution to the people of Kansas for their reception or rejection; yesterday, in a colloquy with the senator from Ohio [Mr. Pugh], he said no state ought to be admitted until she has the requisite population to entitle her to one representative, and he repeated the declaration, with some qualification, to-day. Now, what does the bill before us propose? According to the argument of the senator from Michigan [Mr. Stuart] yesterday; according to the argument of the senator from Illinois to-day; according to the argument of nearly all the gentlemen on the other side, this bill proposes to send back the constitution, and give the people of Kansas an opportunity to accept it or reject it, as they choose. It is true, the honorable senator from Illinois says you put them under some sort of compulsion; but he does not pretend to deny that they will have the power to reject, under this submission, if they choose to do it. Then, if they do, what follows, according to this bill? That they shall not come into the Union until they have the ninety-three thousand four hundred and twenty population requisite to entitle them to one representative under the existing ratio. And yet, Mr. President, when both these propositions are before us, one to submit the constitution for rejection or submission, as gentlemen argue, and the other to reject the state entirely until she has the requisite population-they being, in plain English, the two propositions of the senator from Illinois himself, embodied in the same bill-he rejects them both. In the name of popular sovereignty, he rejects two of his own propositions, either of which he thinks would be just to the people. Under this bill, as I have admitted, and as other senators have claimed in broader language than I have, the people of Kansas may, if they choose, accept or reject the Lecompton constitution. The senator thinks they ought to have a right to reject it or accept it; or, if that be denied them, that the people be authorized to form a state constitution only when they have the full ratio of representative population. Very well; this bill takes both horns of the dilemma; and yet the senator rejects it. For myself, I am free to say, I hope the people of Kansas will, if this bill passes, adhere to their ordinance, and insist on remaining out of the Union. If they come in they must come in under the Lecompton constitution; if they stay out they must stay until they have the population to entitle them to one representative in Congress. That suits me. I close in with that offer. But, says the senator from Illinois, this land grant is a bounty held out to the people of Kansas to accept this constitution a bribe, as it has been elsewhere termed. How, sir? It reduces the amount of the grant claimed in the ordinance by more than twelve million acres. The senator from Michigan, in a carefully prepared table, which he introduced into his speech delivered on December 23d last, shows that the whole grant was upwards of sixteen million acres; that the railroad grant alone was upwards of seven millions. I understand from the senator from Missouri [Mr. Green], who brought forward this bill, that he has had a calculation made, and that the grant proposed for all pu poses is about four million acres. And yet when you reduce the grant from sixteen millions to four millions, the senator from Illinois comes forward, and says that is a bribe held out to these people to accept the constitution. It is a queer way of bribing them to offer twelve million acres of land less than they claimed in their ordinance. Mr. President, so far as I am concerned, I am willing to deal fairly with this young state. I have dealt, so far as my vote went, fairly with other states in reference to these grants; but I never saw the moment, from the first introduction of this constitution down to the present time, when I would have conceded to Kansas all that the ordinance attached to her constitution claimed for her. She had no right to set up any |