"Taken as a class, they surely show themselves possessed of enough of the leaven of thrift, education, morality, and religion to render it safe for us to make the experiment of impartial suffrage here. Let us make the trial. A failure can work no great harm, for to us belongs the power to make any change which the future may show to be necessary. How can we tell whether success or failure shall be the fruit of a practical application of the principles upon which our institutions rest, unless we put them to a fair test? Give every man a fair chance to show how well he can discharge the duties of fully recognized citizenship. This is the way to solve the problem, and in no other way can it be determined. That success will attend the experiment I do not doubt. Others believe the result will prove quite the reverse. Who is right and who wrong can be ascertained only by putting the two opinions to a practical test. The passage of this bill will furnish this test, and to that end I ask for it the favorable consideration of this house." Mr. Boyer, of Pennsylvania, said: "The design of this bill is to inaugurate here, upon this most conspicuous stage, the first act of the new political drama which is intended to culminate in the complete political equality of the races and the establishment of negro suffrage throughout the States. Constitutional amendments with this view have been already introduced at both ends of the Capitol. The object of the leaders of this movement is no longer concealed; and if there is any thing in their action to admire, it is the candor, courage, and ability with which they press their cause. The agitation is to go on until the question has been settled by the country, and it may as well be met here upon the threshold. The monstrous proposition is nothing less than the absorption into the body politic of the nation of a colored population equal to one-sixth of all the inhabitants of the country, as the census reports will show. Four millions of the population so to be amalgamated have been just set free from a servitude, the debasing influences of which have many a time been vividly depicted in the anti-slavery speeches of the very men who are the most prominent champions of this new political gospel. "The argument in favor of the American negro's right to vote must be measured by his capacity to understand and his ability to use such right for the promotion of the public good. And that is the very matter in dispute. But the point does not turn simply upon the inferiority of the negro race; for differences without inferiority may unfit one race for political or social assimilation with another, and render their fusion in the same government incompatible with the general welfare. It is, as I conceive, upon these principles that we must settle the question whether this is a white man's government.