The Senator from Maine opposed the theory that this is a Government exclusively for white men. He remarked: "It is said that this amendment raises the general question of the antagonism of the races, which, we are told, is a well-established fact. It is said that no rational man, no intelligent legislator or statesman, should ever act without reference to that grand historical fact; and the Senator from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Cowan,] on a former occasion, asserted that this Government, that American society, had been established here upon the principle of the exclusion, as he termed it, of the inferior and the barbarian races. Mr. President, I deny that proposition as a historical fact. There is nothing more inaccurate. No proposition could possibly be made here or anywhere else more inaccurate than to say that American society, either civil or political, was formed in the interest of any race or class. Sir, the history of the country does not bear out the statement of the honorable Senator from Pennsylvania. Was not America said to be the land of refuge? Has it not been, since the earliest period, held up as an asylum for the oppressed of all nations? Hither, allow me to ask, have not all the peoples of the nations of the earth come for an asylum and for refuge? All the nations of the earth, and all the varieties of the races of the nations of the earth, have gathered here. In the early settlements of the country, the Irish, the French, the Swede, the Turk, the Italian, the Moor, and so I might enumerate all the races, and all the variety of races, came here; and it is a fundamental mistake to suppose that settlement was begun here in the interests of any class, or condition, or race, or interest. This Western Continent was looked to as an asylum for the oppressed of all nations and of all races. Hither all nations and all races have come. Here, sir, upon the grand plane of republican democratic liberty, they have undertaken to work out the great problem of man's capacity for self-government without stint or limit." Mr. Davis then made another speech in opposition to the bill. When the hour for adjournment had arrived, and Mr. Johnson interrupted him with a proposition that "the bill be passed over for to-day," Mr. Davis said, "I am wound up, and am obliged to run down." The Senate, however, adjourned at a late hour, and resumed the hearing of Mr. Davis on the following day.