The same objection was made to the proposition that colored people should ride in the horse-cars; and I was gravely told that white people would not use the cars, if they were opened to colored people. The proposition prevailed, and you and others know whether any injury therefrom has been done to the cars. Then, again, when it was proposed to give the ballot to all, it was announced that it might be correct in principle, but that it was not practical; and I, Sir, was seriously assured by an eminent citizen that it would bring about massacre at the polls. Now that it is proposed to apply the same principle to the schools, we are again assured, with equal seriousness and gravity, that, though correct in principle, it is not practical. Sir, I take issue on that general proposition. I insist that whatever is correct in principle is practical. Anything else would make this world a failure, and obedience to the laws of God impossible. The provision which my friend would strike out is simply to carry into education the same principle which we have carried into the court-room, into the horse-car, and to the ballot-box: that is all. If there be any argument in favor of the provision in these other cases, allow me to say that it is stronger in the school-room, inasmuch as the child is more impressionable than the man. You should not begin life with a rule that sanctions a prejudice. Therefore do I insist, especially for the sake of children, for the sake of those tender years most susceptible to human influence, that we should banish a rule which will make them grow up with a separation which will be to them a burden: a burden to the white; for every prejudice is a burden to him who has it; and a burden to the black, who will suffer always under the degradation. With what consistency can you deny to the child equal rights in the school-room and then give him equal rights at the ballot-box? Having already accorded equal rights at the ballot-box, I insist upon his equal right in the school-room also. One is the complement of the other. It is not enough to give him a separate school, where he may have the same kind of education with the white child. He will not have the same kind of education. Every child, white or black, has a right to be placed under precisely the same influences, with the same teachers, in the same school-room, without any discrimination founded on his color. You disown distinctions of sect: why keep up those of color? A great protection to the colored child, and a great assurance of his education, will be that he is educated on the same benches and by the same teachers with the white child. You may give him what is sometimes called an equivalent in another school; but this is not equality. His right is to equality, and not to equivalency. He has equality only when he comes into your common-school and finds no exclusion there on account of his skin.