ve-market existed in the capital, it was because
a majority of the people of the United States were willing. So soon as
the nation became anti-slavery, the "peculiar institution" could no
longer exist in the District of Columbia, although it might still
survive in other localities.

The General Government having become completely disenthralled from the
dominion of slavery, and a wide-spread opinion prevailing at the North
that all loyal men should enjoy the right of suffrage, the members of
the Thirty-ninth Congress convened with a sense of duty impelling them
to begin the great work of political reform at the capital itself.
Hence Mr. Wade, as we have seen, on the first day of the session,
introduced "Senate bill Number One," designed, as its title declared,
"to regulate the elective franchise in the District of Columbia." In
the House of Representatives, on the second day of the session, Mr.
Kelley introduced "a bill extending the right of suffrage in the
District of Columbia." This bill was referred to the Judiciary
Committee.

In the House of Representatives, on the 18th of December, Mr. Wilson,
chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, reported a bill extending
the right of suffrage in the District of Columbia. The bill provided
that from all laws and parts of laws prescribing the qualification of
electors for any office in the District of Columbia, the word "white"
should be stricken out; also, that from and after the passage of the
bill, no person should be disqualified from voting at any election
held in the District of Columbia on account of color; also, that all
acts of Congress, and all laws of the State of Maryland in force in
the District of Columbia, and all ordinances of the cities of
Washington and Georgetown inconsistent with the provisions of the
bill, should be repealed and annulled.

This bill was made the special order for Wednesday the 10th of
January.

Mr. Wilson, of Iowa, whose duty it was, as chairman of the Judiciary
Committee, to report the bill, opened the discussion by speaking as
follows in favor of the measure:

"Can we excuse ourselves in continuing a limitation on the right of
suffrage in the capital of the republic that has no justification in
reason, justice, or in the principles on which we profess to have
based our entire political system? Upon this question there seems to
have been but little difference of opinion among the men who laid the
foundation and built the superstr