an opportunity of testing her readiness in debate with Judge
Sears. Of this occasion a correspondent says:

DISCUSSION AT OSKALOOSA.--_To the Editor of the Kansas State
Journal_: For the first time during the canvass for Universal
Suffrage, the opponents of the two wrongs, "Manhood Suffrage" and
"Woman Suffrage," met in open debate at this place last evening.
The largest church in the place was crowded to its utmost, every
inch of space being occupied. Judge Gilchrist was called to the
chair, and first introduced Judge Sears, who made the following
points in favor of Manhood Suffrage:

1st. That in the early days of the Republic no discrimination was
made against negroes on account of color.

He proved from the constitutions and charters of the original
thirteen States, that all of them, with the exception of South
Carolina, allowed the colored freeman the ballot, upon the same
basis and conditions as the white man. That we were not
conferring a right, but restoring one which the fathers in their
wisdom had never deprived the colored man of. He showed how the
word white had been forced into the State constitutions, and
advocated that it should be stricken out, it being the last relic
of the "slave power."

2d. That the negro needed the ballot for his protection and
elevation.

3d. That he deserved the ballot. He fought with our fathers side
by side in the war of the revolution. He did the same thing in
the war of 1812, and in the war of the rebellion. He fought for
us because he was loyal and loved the old flag. If any class of
men had ever earned the enjoyment of franchise the negro had.

4th. The Republican party owed it to him.

5th. The enfranchisement of the negro was indispensable to
reconstruction of the late rebellious States upon a basis that
should secure to the loyal men of the South the control of the
government in those States. Congress had declared it was
necessary, and the most eminent men of the nation had failed to
discover any other means by which the South could be restored to
the Union, that should secure safety, prosperity, and happiness.
There was not loyalty enough in the South among the whites to
elect a loyal man to an inferior office.

Upon each one of these points the Judge elaborated at length, and