Months have passed since the application of Colorado was presented to Congress, with a constitution disregarding that vital principle which constitutes the essential element of republican government, without which a republican government is a name and nothing more. For months representatives of Colorado have struggled to triumph over this benign principle. Meanwhile the popular voice has been heard, sounding in the ears of members of Congress, and still the efforts of these representatives of Colorado are continued. I regret this much. I regret that they did not return home and crown their labors by making the new State an example to the country. On this occasion I shall sustain the veto of the President. I must do this, because I agree with him, that Colorado should not now be admitted as a State. There are reasons assigned by the President which are applicable and sufficient. There is at least one other assigned by him which is inapplicable, and, of course, insufficient. When he objects to the reception of a new State with so small a population as Colorado, to exercise equal power, legislative, diplomatic, and executive, with New York, in this Chamber,--and when again he objects to this new State on the ground that the people there are not yet ripe and ready for the responsibilities of a State government,--clearly, in these two cases he has reason on his side. All that he says is at once applicable and sufficient. But I must be pardoned, if I cannot adopt his other reason,--that we should not undertake to admit new States while our late Rebel States are still unrepresented in Congress. This reason is obviously inapplicable, and, of course, insufficient. He might as well object to the validity of elections because criminals have not been let out of the prisons and penitentiaries to vote. States hardly yet washed clean from the blood of rebellion cannot expect to be received instantly into the great copartnership of the National Government. For the present, the business must be done by the loyal members.