secure the entire independence of the General Government from undue State influence, and to enable it to discharge, without danger of interruption or infringement of its authority, the high functions for which it was created by the people. For this important purpose it was ceded to the United States by Maryland and Virginia, and it certainly never could have been contemplated, as one of the objects to be attained by placing it under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress, that it would afford to propagandists or political parties a place for an experimental test of their principles and theories. While, indeed, the residents of the seat of Government are not citizens of any State, and are not therefore allowed a voice in the Electoral College or representation in the councils of the nation, they are nevertheless American citizens, entitled as such to every guarantee of the Constitution, to every benefit of the laws, and to every right which pertains to citizens of our common country. In all matters, then, affecting their domestic affairs, the spirit of our democratic form of government demands that their wishes should be consulted and respected, and they taught to feel that, although not permitted practically to participate in national concerns, they are nevertheless under a paternal Government, regardful of their rights, mindful of their wants, and solicitous for their prosperity. It was evidently contemplated that all local questions would be left to their decision, at least to an extent that would not be incompatible with the object for which Congress was granted exclusive legislation over the seat of Government. When the Constitution was yet under consideration it was assumed by Mr. Madison that its inhabitants would be allowed "a municipal Legislature for local purposes, derived from their own suffrages." When, for the first time, Congress, in the year 1800, assembled at Washington, President Adams, in his speech at its opening, reminded the two Houses that it was for them to consider whether the local powers over the District of Columbia, vested by the Constitution in the Congress of the United States, should be immediately exercised, and he asked them to "consider it as the capital of a great nation, advancing with unexampled rapidity in arts, in commerce, in wealth and in population, and possessing within itself those resources, which, if not thrown away or lamentably misdirected, would secure to it a long course of prosperity and self-government." Three years had not elapsed when Congress was called upon to determine the propriety of retroceding to Maryland and Virginia the jurisdiction of the territory which they had, respectively, relinquished to the Government of the United States.

It was urged, on the one hand, that exclusive jurisdiction was not necessary or useful to the Government; that it deprived the inhabitants of the District of their political rights; that much of the time of Congress was consumed in legislation pertaining to it; that its government was expensive; that Congress was not competent to legislate for the District, because the members were strangers to its local concerns; and that it was an example of a government without representation - an experiment dangerous to the liberties of the States. On the other hand, it was held, among other reasons, and successfully, that the Constitution, the acts of cession of Virginia and Maryland, and the act of Congress accepting the grant, all contemplated the exercise of exclusive legislation by Congress, and that its usefulness, if not its necessity, was inferred from the inconvenience which was felt for want of it by the Congress of the Confederation; that the people themselves, who, it was said, had been deprived of their political rights, had not complained and did not desire a retrocession; that the evil might be remedied by giving them a representation in Congress when the District should become sufficiently populous, and, in the mean time, a local Legislature; that

if the inhabitants had not political rights they had great political influence; that the trouble and expense of legislating for the District would not be great, but would diminish, and might in a great measure be avoided by a local Legislature; and that Congress could not retrocede the inhabitants without their consent. Continuing to live substantially under the laws that existed at the time of the cession, and such changes only having been made as were suggested by themselves, the people of the District have not sought, by a local Legislature, that which has generally been willingly conceded by the Congress of the nation.

As a general rule, sound policy requires that the Legislature should yield to the wishes of the people, when not inconsistent with the Constitution and the laws. The measures suited to one community might not be well adapted to the condition of another; and the persons best qualified to determine such questions are those whose. interests are to be directly affected by any proposed law. In Massachusetts, for instance, male persons are allowed to vote without regard to color, provided they possess a certain degree of intelligence. In a population in that State of 1,231,066, there were, by the census of 1860, only 9,602 persons of color; and of the males over twenty years of age, there were 339,086 white to 2,602 colored. By the same official enumeration there were in the District of Columbia 60,764 whites to 14,316 persons of the colored race. Since then, however, the population of the District has largely increased, and it is estimated that at the present time there are nearly 100,000 whites to 30,000 negroes. The cause of the augmented numbers of the latter class needs no explanation. Contiguous to Maryland and Virginia, the District, during the war, became a place of refuge for those who escaped from servitude, and it is yet the abiding-place of a considerable proportion of those who sought within its limits a shelter from bondage. Until then held in slavery, and denied all opportunities for mental culture, their first knowledge of the Government was acquired, when, by conferring upon them freedom, it became the benefactor of their race; the test of their capability for improvement began, when, for the first time, the career of free industry and the avenues to intelligence were opened to them. Possessing these advantages but a limited timethe greater number perhaps having entered the District of Columbia during the later years of the war or since its termination-we may well pause to inquire whether, after so brief a probation, they are as a class capable of an intelligent exercise of the right of suffrage, and qualified to discharge the duties of official position. The people who are daily witnesses of their mode of living, and who have become familiar with their habits of thought, have expressed the conviction that they are not yet competent to serve as electors, and thus become eligible for office in the local governments under which they live. Clothed with the elective franchise, their numbers, already largely in excess of the demand for labor, would be soon increased by an influx from the adjoining States. Drawn from fields where employ. ment is abundant, they would in vain seek it here, and so add to the embarrassments already experi enced from the large class of idle persons congregated in the District. Hardly yet capable of forming correct judgments upon the important questions that often make the issues of a political contest, they could readily be made subservient to the purposes of designing persons.

While in Massachusetts, under the census of 1860, the proportion of white to colored males over twenty years of age was one hundred and thirty to one, here the black race constitutes nearly one-third of the entire population, while the same class surrounds the District on all sides, ready to change their resi dence at a moment's notice, and with all the facility of a nomadic people, in order to enjoy here, after a

The necessity of some such check in the hands of the Executive is shown by reference to the most eminent writers upon our system of government, who seem to concur in the opinion that encroachments are most to be apprehended from the department in which all legislative powers are vested by the Constitution. Mr. Madison, in referring to the difficulty of providing some practical security for each against the invasion of the others, remarks that

The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity, and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex. The founders of our republic * *

seem

never to have recollected the danger from legislative usurpations, which, by assembling all power in the same hands, must lead to the same tyranny as is threatened by executive usurpations. In a representative republic, where the executive magistracy is carefully limited, both in the extent and the duration of its power, and where the legislative power is exercised by an assembly which is inspired by a supposed influence over the people, with an intrepid confidence in its own strength, which is sufliciently numerous to feel all the passions which actuate a multitude, yet not so numerous as to be incapable of pursuing the objects of its passions by means which reason prescribes-it is against the enterprising ambition of this department that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their precautions. The legislative department derives a superiority in our governments from other circumstances. Its constitutional powers being at once more extensive and less susceptible of precise limits, it can with the greater facility mask, under complicated and indirect measures, the encroachments which it makes on the coordinate departments. On the other side, the executive power being restrained within a narrower compass, and being more simple in its nature, and the judiciary being described by landmarks still less uncertain, projects of usurpation by either of these departments would immediately betray and defeat themselves. Nor is this all. As the legislative department alone has access to the pockets of the people, and has in some constitutions full discretion, and in all a prevailing influence over the pecuniary rewards of those who fill the other departments, a dependence is thus created in the latter which gives still greater facility to encroachments of the former. We have seen that the tendency of republican governments is to an aggrandizement of the legislative, at the expense of the other departments.

Mr. Jefferson, in referring to the early constitution of Virginia, objected that by its provisions all the powers of government-legislative, executive, and judicial-resulted to the legislative body, holding

that

*

The concentrating these in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands and not by a single one. One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one. As little will it avail us that they are chosen by ourselves. An elective despotism was not the Government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so di. vided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others. For this reason that convention which passed the ordinance of government laid its foundation on this basis: that the legislative, executive, and judiciary departments should be separate and distinct, so that no person should exercise the powers of more than one of them at the same time. But no barrier was provided between these several powers. The judiciary and executive members were left dependent on the legislative for their subsistence in office, and some of them for their continuance in it. If, therefore, the Legislature assumes executive and judiciary powers, no opposition is likely to be made, nor, if made, can be effectual; because in that case they may put their proceedings into the form of an act of assembly, which will render them obligatory on the other branches. They have accordingly, in many instances, decided rights which should have been left to judiciary controversy: and the direction of the Executive during the whole time of their session is becoming habitual and familiar.

Mr. Justice Story, in his "Commentaries on the Constitution," reviews the same subject, and says:

The truth is, that the legislative power is the great and overruling power in every free government. The representatives of the people will watch with jealousy every encroachment of the Executive Magistrate, for it trenches upon their own authority. But who shall watch the encroachment of these representatives themselves? Will they be as jealous of the exercise of power by themselves as by others? There

ers.

are many reasons which may be assigned for the engrossing influence of the legislative department. In the first place, its constitutional powers are more extensive, and less capable of being brought within precise limits, than those of either of the other departments. The bounds of the executive authority are easily marked out and defined. It reaches few objects, and those are known. It cannot transcend them without being brought in contact with the other departments. Laws may check and restrain and bound its exercise. The same remarks apply with still greater force to the judiciary. The jurisdiction is, or may be, bounded to a few objects or persons; or, however general and unlimited, its operations are necessarily confined to the mere administration of private and public justice. It cannot punish without law. It cannot create controversies to act upon. It can decide only upon rights and cases as they are brought by others bcfore it. It can do nothing for itself. It must do everything for others. It must obey the laws; and if it corruptly administers them, it is subjected to the power of impeachment. On the other hand, the legislative power, except in the few cases of constitutional prohibition, is unlimited. It is forever varying its means and its ends. It governs the institutions and laws and public policy of the country. It regulates all its vast interests. It disposes of all its property. Look but at the exercise of two or three branches of its ordinary powIt levies all taxes; it directs and appropriates all supplies; it gives the rules for the descent, distribution, and devises of all property held by individuals. It controls the sources and the resources of wealth. It changes at its will the whole fabric of the laws. It moulds at its pleasure almost all the institutions which give strength and comfort and dignity to society. In the next place, it is the direct, visible representative of the will of the people in all the changes of times and circumstances. It has the pride as well as the power of numbers. It is easily moved and steadily moved by the obeys, without reluctance, the wishes and the will of the mastrong impulses of popular feeling and popular odium. It jority for the time being. The path to public favor lies open by such obedience; and it finds not only support but impunity, in whatever measures the majority advises, even though they transcend the constitutional limits. It has no motive, therefore, to be jealous or scrupulous in its own use of power; and it finds its ambition stimulated and its arm strengthened by the countenance and the courage of numbers. These views are not alone those of men who look with apprehension upon the fate of republics; but they are also freely admitted by some of the strongest advocates for popular rights and the permanency of republican institutions. Each department should have a will of its own. Each should have its own independence secured beyond the power of being taken away by either or both of the others. But at the same time the relations of each to the other should be so strong that there should be a mutual interest to sustain and protect cach other. There should not only be constitutional means but personal motives to resist encroachments of one or either of the others. Thus ambition would be made to counteract ambition; the desire of power to check power; and the pressure of interest to balance an opposing interest. The judiciary is naturally, and almost necessarily (as has been already said), the weakest department. It can have no means of influence by patronage. Its powers can never be wielded for itself. It has no command over the purse or the sword of the nation. It can neither lay taxes nor appropriate money nor command armies nor appoint to office. It is never brought into contact with the people by constant appeals and solicitations and private intercourse, which belong to all the other departments of Government. It is seen only in controversies or in trials and punishments. Its rigid justice and impartiality give it no claims to favor, however they may to respect. It stands solitary and unsupported, except by that portion of public opinion which is interested only in the strict administration of justice. It can rarely secure the sympathy or zealous support either of the Executive or the Legislature. If they are not (as is not unfrequently the case) jealous of its prerogatives, the constant necessity of scrutinizing the acts of each, upon the application of any private person, and the painful duty of pronouncing judgment that these acts are a departure from the law or Constitution, can have no tendency to conciliate kindness or nourish influence. It would seem, therefore, that some additional guards would, under such circumstances, be necessary to protect this department from the absolute dominion of the others. Yet rarely have any such guards been applied; and every attempt to introduce them has been resisted with a pertinacity which demonstrates how slow popular leaders are to introduce checks upon their own power, and how slow the people are to believe that the judiciary is the real bulwark of their liberties. If any department of the Government has undue influence, or absorbing power, it certainly has not been either the executive or judiciary.

In addition to what has been said by these distin

Upon information which I considered reliable, I assumed in my message of the 15th of May last that the population of Colorado was not more than thirty thousand, and expressed the opinion that this number was entirely too small either to assume the responsibility or to enjoy the privileges of a State. It appears that previous to that time the Legislature, with a view to ascertain the exact condition of the Territory, had passed a law authorizing a census of the population to be taken. The law made it the duty of the assessors in the several counties to take the census in connection with the annual assessments, and, in order to secure a correct enumeration of the population, allowed them a liberal compensation for the service by paying them for every name returned, and added to their previous oath of office an oath to perform this duty with fidelity.

From the accompanying official report it appears that returns have been received from fifteen of the eighteen counties into which the State is divided, and that their population amounts in the aggregate to twenty-four thousand nine hundred and nine. three remaining counties are estimated to contain three thousand, making a total population of twentyseven thousand nine hundred and nine.

The

This census was taken in the summer season, when it is claimed that the population is much larger than at any other period, as in the autumn miners in large numbers leave their work and return to the East with the results of their summer enterprise.

The population, it will be observed, is but slightly in excess of one-fifth of the number required as the basis of representation for a single congressional district in any of the States, the number being one hundred and twenty-seven thousand.

I am unable to perceive any good reason for such great disparity in the right of representation, giving, as it would, to the people of Colorado not only this vast advantage in the House of Representatives, but an equality in the Senate, where the other States are represented by millions. With perhaps a single exception, no such inequality as this has ever before been attempted. I know that it is claimed that the population of the different States at the time of their admission has varied at different periods: but it has not varied much more than the population of each decade, and the corresponding basis of representation for the different periods.

The obvious intent of the Constitution was that no State should be admitted with a less population than the ratio for a representative at the time of application. The limitation in the second section of the first article of the Constitution, declaring that "each State shall have at least one Representative," was manifestly designed to protect the States which originally composed the Union from being deprived, in the event of a waning population, of a voice in the popular branch of Congress, and was never intended as a warrant to force a new State into the Union with a representative population far below that which might at the time be required of sister members of the Confederacy. This bill, in view of the prohibition of the same section, which declares that "the number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand," is at least a violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Consti

tution.

It is respectfully submitted that however Congress, under the pressure of circumstances, may have admitted two or three States with less than a representative population at the time, there has been no instance in which an application for admission has ever been entertained when the population, as officially ascertained, was below thirty thousand.

Were there any doubt of this being the true construction of the Constitution, it would be dispelled by the early and long-continued practice of the Federal Government. For nearly sixty years after the

adoption of the Constitution no State was admitted with a population believed at the time to be less than the current ratio for a Representative; and the first instance in which there appears to have been a departure from the principle was in 1845, in the case of Florida. Obviously the result of sectional strife, we would do well to regard it as a warning of evil rather than as an example for imitation; and I think candid men of all parties will agree that the inspiring cause of the violation of this wholesome principle of restraint is to be found in a vain attempt to balance these antagonisms which refused to be reconciled except through the bloody arbitrament of arms. The plain facts of our history will attest that the great and leading States admitted since 1845, namely, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, and Kansas-including Texas, which was admitted that year have all come with an ample population for one Representative, and some of them with nearly or quite enough for two.

To demonstrate the correctness of my views on this question, I subjoin a table containing a list of the States admitted since the adoption of the Federal Constitution, with the date of admission, the ratio of representation, and the representative population when admitted, deduced from the United States census tables, the calculation being made for the period of the decade corresponding with the date of admission.

Colorado, which it is now proposed to admit as a State, contains, as has already been stated, a population less than twenty-eight thousand, while the present ratio of representation is one hundred and twenty-seven thousand.

There can be no reason that I can perceive for the admission of Colorado that would not apply with equal force to nearly every other Territory now organized; and I submit whether, if this bill become a law, it will be possible to resist the logical conclusion that such Territories as Dakota, Montana, and Idaho, must be received as States whenever they present themselves, without regard to the number of inhabitants they may respectively contain. Eight or ten new Senators and four or five new members of the House of Representatives would thus be admitted to represent a population scarcely exceeding that which in any other portion of the nation is entitled to but a single member of the House of Representatives, while the average for two Senators, in the Union as now constituted, is at least one million people. It would surely be unjust to all other sections of the Union to enter upon a policy with regard to the admission of new States which might result in conferring such a disproportionate share of influence in the national Legislature upon communities which, in pursuance of the wise policy of our fathers, should for some years to come be retained under the fostering care and protection of the national Government. If it is deemed just and expedient now to depart from the settled policy of the nation during all its history, and to admit all the Territories to the rights and privileges of States, irrespective of their population or fitness for such government, it is submitted whether it would not be well to devise such measures as will bring the subject before the country for consideration and decision. This would seem to be evidently wise, because, as has already been stated, if it is right to admit Colorado now, there is no reason for the exclusion of the other Territories.

It is no answer to these suggestions that an enabling act was passed authorizing the people of Colorado to take action on this subject. It is well known that that act was passed in consequence of representations that the population reached, according to some statements, as high as eighty thousand, and to none less than fifty thousand, and was growing with a rapidity which, by the time the admission could be consummated, would secure a population of over a hundred thousand. These representations