Formerly I felt it my duty to remind you of the position, the responsibilities, the powers, and the prerogatives of a State in this Union. I held up before you what you would convey to this small community, if you invested it with the character of a State. I showed you that you would impart to it a full equality in this Chamber with the largest States in the Union,--with New York, with Pennsylvania, with Ohio, with Massachusetts,--and that, in the exercise of this constitutional equality, Senators from this small community, on all questions of legislation, of diplomacy, and of appointments, might counterbalance the Senators of one of these large States. Assuming that this small community was already a State in the Union, I had no criticism to make on that equality of power; but I did present to you as an unanswerable argument, that a community so small in the proper attributes of a State should not be admitted to the enjoyment of that high equality. Permit me to say, Sir, that you cannot adequately consider this case without giving some attention to the present condition of the country. We are, happily, at the close of a long, bloody, and most expensive war, throughout which there was one question dominating all others: it was the question of justice to the colored race. And now, Sir, that the war is closed, and our soldiers are no longer in the tented field, that same question enters perpetually into your debates, challenging decision; it is before you at every stage of legislation. With this question staring you in the face, what do we behold? A small community in a remote part of the country, petty in population,--even according to the statements of its friends not amounting in numbers to more than twenty-five or thirty thousand people, according to the statements of others even as few in numbers as ten or fifteen thousand,--with agricultural products already diminishing, with mining resources that during the last two or three years have been constantly failing, with accounts at the Post-Office which during the past year have been reduced,--we have this small community coming forward and asking admission to equality as a State in the Union, with a constitution that tramples on human rights. This new candidate, pressing for recognition, holds up a constitution excluding all persons from the electoral franchise who are not white; and the question before you is, whether this small body, so slender in every respect, of such inferior condition, and with a declaration of human inequality in its constitution, shall be admitted to the equality of States in this Union. You are not obliged to admit it. Your discretion is ample. The language of the Constitution is plain: “New States _may_ be admitted into this Union,”--not must, but “may.” You may admit, or you may reject. Therefore, when called to act, you must exercise your discretion. You cannot decline to exercise it. You must bring