The bill for Impartial Suffrage in the District of Columbia concerns directly some twenty thousand colored persons, whom it will lift to the adamantine platform of Equal Rights. If regarded simply in its influence on the District, it would be difficult to exaggerate its value; but when regarded as an example to the whole country, under the sanction of Congress, its value is infinite. In the latter character it becomes a pillar of fire to illumine the footsteps of millions. What we do here will be done in the disorganized States. Therefore we must be careful that what we do here is best for the disorganized States. If the bill could be confined in influence to the District, I should have little objection to an educational test as an experiment. But it cannot be limited to any narrow sphere. Practically, it takes the whole country into its horizon. We must, therefore, act for the whole country. This is the exigency of the present moment. Now to my mind nothing is clearer than the present necessity of suffrage for all colored persons in the disorganized States. It will not be enough, if you give it to those who read and write; you will not in this way acquire the voting force needed there for the protection of Unionists, whether white or black. You will not secure the new allies essential to the national cause. As you once needed the muskets of blacks, so now you need their votes,--and to such extent that you can act with little reference to theory. You are bound by the necessity of the case. Therefore, when asked to open suffrage to women, or when asked to establish an educational standard for our colored fellow-citizens, I cannot, on the present bill, simply because the controlling necessity under which we act will not allow it. By a singular Providence, we are constrained to this measure of Enfranchisement for the sake of peace, security, and reconciliation, so that loyal persons, white or black, may be protected, and that the Republic may live. Here, in the national capital, we begin the real work of Reconstruction, by which the Union will be consolidated forever. The amendment of Mr. Dixon was rejected,--Yeas 11, Nays 34. The Senators voting in the affirmative were Mr. Anthony, Mr. Buckalew, Mr. Dixon, Mr. Doolittle, Mr. Fogg, Mr. Foster, Mr. Hendricks, Mr. Nesmith, Mr. Patterson, Mr. Riddle, and Mr. Willey. The bill then passed the Senate,--Yeas 32, Nays 13. On the next day it passed the other House, and, being vetoed by President Johnson, it passed both Houses by a two-thirds vote, so that it became a law.[75] PROHIBITION OF PEONAGE. RESOLUTION AND REMARKS IN THE SENATE, JANUARY 3, 1867. January 3d, in the Senate, Mr. Sumner introduced the following resolution:--