MR. COWAN. I beg the honorable Senator’s pardon. I would not diminish his stature an inch or half an inch, nor take a hair from his head; and he weighs one hundred and forty pounds, if you please. Is that equality? The honorable Senator from Massachusetts is largely learned; he has traversed the whole field of human learning; there is nothing, I think, that he does not know, that is worth knowing,--and this is no empty compliment that I desire to pay him now; and he is so much wiser than I am, that at the last elections he divined exactly how they would result, and I did not. [_Laughter._] He rode triumphantly upon the popular wave; and I was overwhelmed, and came out with eyes and nose suffused, and hardly able to gasp. MR. SUMNER. You ought to have followed my counsel. MR. COWAN. Why should I not? What was Providence doing in that? If Providence had made me equal to the honorable Senator, I should not have needed his counsel, and I should have ridden, too, on the topmost wave. [_Laughter._] January 9th, the amendment of Mr. Gratz Brown was rejected,--Yeas 8, Nays 24. The Senators voting in the affirmative were Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, Mr. Edmunds, of Vermont, Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, Mr. Grimes, of Iowa, Mr. Howe, of Wisconsin, Mr. Morgan, of New York, Mr. Poland, of Vermont, and Mr. Sumner. Mr. Edmunds then moved the following amendment:-- “That this act shall take effect with the fundamental and perpetual condition that within said State of Nebraska there shall be no abridgment or denial of the exercise of the elective franchise or of any other right to any person by reason of race or color, excepting Indians not taxed.” It will be observed that this differs from Mr. Sumner’s in not requiring the submission of the fundamental condition to the voters of the Territory. This amendment was lost by a tie-vote,--Yeas 18, Nays 18. At the next stage of the bill, being again moved by Mr. Edmunds, it was adopted,--Yeas 20, Nays 18. The bill was then passed by the Senate,--Yeas 24, Nays 15. * * * * * In the other House, the proviso adopted by the Senate was changed, on motion of Mr. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, so as to require that the Legislature of the State should by a solemn public act declare consent to the fundamental condition, and the bill was then passed,--Yeas 103, Nays 55. In this amendment the Senate concurred. February 8th, the bill was again passed in the Senate, by a two-thirds vote, over the veto of the President,--Yeas 31, Nays 9; and February 9th, in the other House, by a two-thirds vote,--Yeas 120, Nays 44. And so the bill became a law.[49] Colorado was less fortunate.[50]