your judgment to bear upon the case; you must consider well all the facts and all the elements which enter into the civilization of this candidate community; you must consider, of course, its population, its resources, and also the character of its constitution. In doing so, you can have no feeling except of kindness and sympathy for the people there. God knows that I wish them well from the bottom of my heart; there is no aspiration which I do not offer for their welfare; but on this occasion we must consider the requirements of duty. And here the way is clear. With these few words of introduction, I arrive at this proposition: that such a community as now exists in Colorado, deficient in population, declining already in agriculture, failing also in mineral resources, and with a constitution which sets at defiance the first principle of human rights, should not at this moment be recognized as a State of the Union. Mark me, if you please,--I say at this moment, and under these circumstances; for, whatever might be done at another time and under other circumstances, I insist that this thing is impossible now, when by every obligation we are solemnly bound to maintain the rights of the colored race. Oh, no! we cannot give the hand to such a community, so inferior in population and resources, with a constitution audaciously denying those rights. Thus much, Sir, I have to say by way of introduction; all this simply opens in one word the magnitude of the question, and the general principles which govern it; but before I sit down it will be my duty to consider with some minuteness the actual condition and prospects of this Territory. … Sir, consider, that, when this Territorial Act was passed, in March, 1864, the country was still struggling in that terrible war involving the great question of justice to the colored race. At that moment, this secluded people, already aspiring to be a State, undertook to put their feet upon the colored population beginning to gather under their jurisdiction. We are told they are few in number,--perhaps a hundred; yet out of that hundred are some seventy who promptly went forth as soldiers to do battle for your flag, but, returning to their homes, they found the franchise they had enjoyed taken from them,--that they who had perilled life to save the Republic and to aid in establishing the rights of all, when once more at their own firesides, were despoiled of their own. Sir, am I wrong, when I say that here was retrogression in republican principles,--that here was departure from those fundamental truths essential to our Government? It was, I say, departure and retrogression,--because this community had begun right. It began by recognizing these truths; but, as if blasted by some evil genius, the same failure that attended it in population, in agriculture, in mining, and in other respects, descended upon its moral sense.