at last, in that very war of races which
is foolishly apprehended as the effect of giving the negro his
rights."

A serious question confronted Mr. Julian, namely: How could
Representatives from States which negroes by constitutional provision
are forbidden to enter, be expected, to vote for negro suffrage in
this District? He said: "In seeking to meet this difficulty, several
considerations must be borne in mind. In the first place, the demand
for negro suffrage in this District rests not alone upon the general
ground of right, of democratic equality, but upon peculiar reasons
superinduced by the late war, which make it an immediate practical
issue, involving not merely the welfare of the colored man, but the
safety of society itself. If civil government is to be revived at all
in the South, it is perfectly self-evident that the loyal men there
must vote; but the loyal men are the negroes and the disloyal are the
whites. To put back the governing power into the hands of the very men
who brought on the war, and exclude those who have proved themselves
the true friends of the country, would be utterly suicidal and
atrociously unjust. Negro suffrage in the districts lately in revolt
is thus a present political necessity, dictated by the selfishness of
the white loyalist as well as his sense of justice. But in our Western
States, in which the negro population is relatively small, and the
prevailing sentiment of their white people is loyal, no such emergency
exists. Society will not be endangered by the temporary postponement
of the right of negro suffrage till public opinion shall render it
practicable, and leaving the question of suffrage in the loyal States
to be decided by them on its merits. If Indiana had gone out of her
proper place in the Union, and her loyal population had been found too
weak to force her back into it without negro bullets and bayonets, and
if, after thus coercing her again into her constitutional orbit, her
loyalists had been found unable to hold her there without negro
ballots, the question of negro suffrage in Indiana would most
obviously have been very different from the comparatively abstract one
which it now is. It would, it is true, have involved the question of
justice to the negroes of Indiana, but the transcendently broader and
more vital question of national salvation also. Let me add further,
that should Congress pass this bill, and should the ballot be given to
the negroes in the sunn