March 8th, Mr. Dixon, from the Committee, reported the bill without amendment. March 17th, the bill was taken up and amended in unimportant particulars. May 6th, it was again taken up, when, after an amendment moved by Mr. Dixon, Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, moved to amend the bill in the first section by inserting the word “white” before the word “male,” so as to confine the right of voting in Washington to white male citizens. Mr. Sumner said at once, “I hope not.” Mr. Cowan then spoke in favor of his amendment. May 12th, Mr. Cowan remarked that the bill “would have the effect, in some cases, of admitting negroes to the right of suffrage, which, I may say, is obnoxious to the vast bulk of the people of the Border States.” Mr. Harlan would vote for Mr. Cowan’s amendment, “first, because it is manifest to the Senate that the bill, without that provision in it, cannot now become a law.” Mr. Willey, of West Virginia, spoke elaborately against colored suffrage, winding up with this interrogatory: “Shall we, without any petitions from the people of this District, without anything before the Senate to indicate that this bill, in any of its parts, is required by the people of this District, undertake to say, of our own volition, that we will impose upon them a provision which is odious to them, and will, in my estimation, be disastrous in its results, not only here, but in its influence on popular opinion everywhere in this nation?” Mr. Sumner followed. MR. PRESIDENT,--Slavery dies hard. It still stands front to front with our embattled armies, holding them in check. It dies hard on the battle-field. It dies hard in the Senate Chamber. We have been compelled during this session to hear various defences of Slavery, sometimes in its most offensive forms. Slave-hunting has been openly vindicated. And now, to-day, the exclusion of colored persons from the electoral franchise, simply on account of color, is openly vindicated, and the Senator from West Virginia, newly introduced into this Chamber from a State born of Freedom, rises here to uphold Slavery in one of its meanest products. MR. WILLEY. Mr. President, I cannot pass that assertion without giving it an unequivocal, categorical denial. I have not vindicated Slavery in any of its aspects. I said to the Senator, what perhaps he did not hear before, that, when he has liberated by the sweat of his brow as many slaves as I have, he can get up and make such a remark in regard to me.