There are some other questions affecting suffrage, too, to which my attention has, from circumstances, been particularly attracted. There are in the Northwest several Territories organized under public law with defined boundaries. They have been filled up with the elect of our citizens--the brave, the enterprising and intelligent young men from all the States. Many of the veterans of the late war have sought under our beneficent homestead law new homes in the West. Several of these Territories have been for years possessed of population, wealth, and all the requisites for admission as States. When the Territory of Indiana took the census which was the basis for its petition for admission to the Union we had less than 64,000 people; we had only thirteen organized counties. In the Territory of South Dakota there are nearly half a million people. For years they have been knocking for admission to the sisterhood of States. They are possessed of all the elements of an organized and stable community. It has more people, more miles of railroad, more post-offices, more churches, more banks, more wealth, than any Territory ever possessed when it was admitted to the Union. It surpasses some of the States in these particulars. Four years ago, when a President was to be chosen, the Committee on Territories in the Senate, to meet the objection of our Democratic friends that the admission of Dakota would add a disturbing element to the Electoral College, provided in the Dakota bill that its organization should be postponed until after the election; now four years more have rolled around, and our people are called again to take part in a presidential election, and the intelligent and patriotic Dakota people are again to be deprived of any participation. I ask you why this is so? Is not the answer obvious? [Cries of "Yes!"] They are disfranchised and deprived of their appropriate influence in the Electoral College only because the prevailing sentiment in the Territory is Republican. [Cries of "That's right!" "That's the reason!"] The cause of Washington Territory is more recent but no less flagrant. If we appropriately express sympathy with the cause of Irish home rule, shall we not also demand home rule for Dakota and Washington, and insist that their disfranchisement shall not be prolonged? [Applause.] There is a sense of justice, of fairness, that will assert itself against these attempts to coin party advantage out of public wrong. The day when men can be disfranchised or shorn of their political power for opinion's sake must have an end in our country. [Cheers.] I thank you again for your call, and if you will observe the arrangement which has been suggested I will be glad to take each of you by the hand. I know that some of you are fasting, and therefore we will shorten these exercises in order that you may obtain needed refreshments. [Cheers.]