The debate was continued by Mr. Rogers of New Jersey, in the opposition, by Mr. Russell Thayer of Pennsylvania, who made an uncommonly able speech in its favor, and by Mr. Eldridge of Wisconsin, who tersely presented the objections entertained by the Democratic party to such legislation. There were some apprehensions in the minds of the members on both sides of the House that the broad character of the bill might include the right of suffrage, but to prevent that result Mr. Wilson moved to add a new section declaring that "nothing in this Act shall be so construed as to affect the laws of any State concerning the right of suffrage." Mr. Wilson said that the amendment he proposed did not change his own construction of the bill; he did not believe the term "civil rights" included the right of suffrage; he offered it simply from excessive caution, because certain gentlemen feared trouble might arise from the language of the bill. The amendment was unanimously agreed to, not one voice on either side of the House being raised against it. Mr. Bingham, Mr. Raymond and other prominent members of the House, to the number of forty in all, debated the bill exhaustively. It was passed by 111 _yeas_ to 38 _nays_. The bill reached the President on the 18th of March (1866), and on the 27th he sent to the Senate a message regretting that it contained provisions which he could not approve. "I am therefore constrained," he said, "to return it to the Senate, in which it originated, with my objections to its becoming a law." The President stated that by the first section the Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people called gypsies, as well as the entire race designated as black,--people of color, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of African blood,--"are made citizens of the United States." The President did not believe that this class possessed "the requisite qualifications to entitle them to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States." He sought to raise prejudice against the bill because it proposed "to discriminate against large number of intelligent, worthy and patriotic foreigners, in favor of the negro, to whom, after long years of bondage, the avenues to freedom and intelligence have now suddenly been opened." "It is proposed," he said, "by a single legislative enactment to confer the rights of citizens upon all persons of African descent born within the extended limits of the United States, while persons of foreign birth who make our land their home must undergo a probation of five years, and can then only become citizens of the United States upon the proof that they are of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed towards the good order and happiness of the same."