My argument is, that, if, to carry out the prohibition of Slavery, and to complete the duty of Abolition, it shall be regarded necessary to confer the franchise, it is within the power of Congress so to do. And now I ask my honorable friend to give the Senate the benefit of his opinion on this precise point. If Congress, under the Constitutional Amendment, can secure equality of civil rights, may it not, _a fortiori_, secure equality in political rights, under the same clause? I do not ask the Senator whether in his opinion it may under that clause confer equality in civil rights. I assume that it can, and the Senator knows well that the Senate has acted accordingly. Senators all about me assume that power; and now I ask the Senator, as a Constitutional lawyer to whom we refer daily, whether, if you can do the one, you cannot do the other? Mr. Johnson replied at once: “I answer that in the negative very decidedly, and have only time to give a few reasons for it.” * * * * * The following remarks, sketched for a speech on the veto of the Civil Rights Bill, and not delivered, are presented here in illustration of opinion at that time. If I have not taken part in this debate, it is not from lack of interest in the question, but because on other occasions I have expressed my views on our duty to maintain the freedmen in their rights, civil and political, and since the cause, in the hands of the able Chairman of the Judiciary Committee [Mr. TRUMBULL], needed no assistance from me. I cannot disguise my joy that a measure like that now pending should receive the support it does. This is an augury for the future. If I were disposed to despair on other questions, I should take heart, when I see how Senators, once lukewarm, indifferent, or perhaps hostile, now generously unite in securing protection to the freedman by Act of Congress.