ns
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."

The President sought to impress upon Congress, in strong language, the
injustice of advancing four millions of colored persons to citizenship
"while the States in which most of them reside are debarred from any
participancy in the legislation." He found many provisions of the bill
in conflict with the Constitution of the United States as it had been
hitherto construed, and argued elaborately against its expediency or
necessity in any form. "The white man and the black race," said the
President, "have hitherto lived in the South in the relation of master
and slave,--capital owning labor. Now suddenly the relation is changed
and as to the ownership, capital and labor are divorced. In this new
relation, one being necessary to the other, there will be a new
adjustment, which both are deeply interested in making harmonious. . . .
This bill frustrates this adjustment. It intervenes between capital
and labor and attempts to settle questions of political economy through
the agency of numerous officials, whose interest it will be to foment
discord between the two races, for as the breach widens their
employment will continue and when the breach is closed their occupation
will terminate."

"The details of this bill," continued the President, "establish for the
security of the colored race safeguards which go infinitely beyond any
that the General Government has ever provided for the