and your relations, and those you hold most sacred and dear. I have but little to say. It being unusual in this Government and in most of the other governments to have colored troops engaged in their cause, you have gone forth as events have shown, and served with patience and endurance in the cause of your country. This is your country as well as anybody else's country. This is the country in which you expect to live, and in which you should expect to do something by your example in civil life, as you have done in the field. This country is founded upon the principle of equality; and at the same time the standard by which persons are to be estimated is according to their merit and their worth. And you observe, no doubt, that for him who does his duty faithfully and honestly, there is always a just public judgment that will appreciate and measure out to him his proper reward.

I know that there is much well calculated in this Government, and since the late rebellion commenced, to excite the white against the black, and the black against the white man. These are things that you should all understand, and at the same time prepare yourselves for what is before you. Upon the return of peace and the surrender of the enemies of the country, it should be the duty of every patriot and every one who calls himself a Christian to remember that with a termination of the war his resentments should cease-that angry feelings should subside, and that every man should become calm and tranquil, and be prepared for what is before him.

This is another part of your mission. You have been engaged in the effort to sustain your country in the past, but the future is more important to you than the period in which you have just been engaged. One great question has been settled in this Government, and that is the question of slavery. The institution of slavery made war upon the United States, and the United States has lifted its strong arms in vindication of the Government and of free government, and in lifting the arm and appealing to the God of battles, it was decided that the institution of slavery must go down. This has been done, and the Goddess of Liberty, in bearing witness over many of our battle-fields since the struggle commenced, has made her loftiest flight and proclaimed that true liberty has been established upon a more permanent and enduring basis than heretofore. But this is not all; and as you have paid me the compliment to call upon me, I shall take the privilege of saying one or two words as I am before you.

Now, when the sword is returned to its scabbard, when your arms are reversed, and when the olive-branch of peace is extended, resentment and revenge should subside. Then what is to follow? You do understand, no doubt and if you do not you cannot understand too soon-that simple liberty does not mean the privilege of going into the battle-field, or into the service of the country as a soldier. It means other things as well; and now when you have laid down your arms there are other objects of equal importance before you-now that the Government has triumphantly passed through this

mighty rebellion, after the most gigantic batt the world ever saw.

The problem is before you, and it is best tha you should understand it, and I therefore spe simply and plainly. Will you now, when y have retired from the army of the United Sta and taken the position of the citizen-when y have returned to the avocations of peace-w you give evidence to the world that you capable and competent to govern yourselve This is what you will have to do.

Liberty is not a mere idea, a mere vagar when you come to examine this question of erty you should not be mistaken in a mere id for the reality. It does not consist in idlene Liberty does not consist in being worthle Liberty does not consist in doing in all this as we please; and there can be no liberty wit out law. In a government of freedom and erty there must be law, and there must be ob dience and submission to the law, without rega to color. Liberty-and may I not call you countrymen ?-liberty consists in the glorie privileges of freedom-consists in the glorio privileges of worth of pursuing the ordinar avocations of peace with energy, with industr and with economy; and that being done, those who have been industrious and economic are permitted to appropriate and enjoy the pr ducts of their own labor. This is one of the great blessings of freedom; and hence we mig ask the question and answer it by stating th liberty means freedom to work and enjoy th products of your own labor.

You will soon be mustered out of the rank It is for you to establish the great fact that you are fit and qualified to be free. Hence, freedo is not a mere idea, but it is something that er ists in fact. Freedom is not simply the principle to live in idleness. Liberty does not mean simp to resort to the low saloons and other places disreputable character. Freedom and liberty & not mean that the people ought to live in licen tiousness, but liberty means simply to be indu trious and to be virtuous, to be upright in al our dealings and relations with men; and t those now before me, members of the last reg ment of colored volunteers from the District Columbia, and the capital of the United States I have to say, that a great deal depends upo yourselves; you must give evidence that you ar competent for the rights that the government has guaranteed to you.

Hence, each and all of you must be measure according to his merit. If one man is more meritorious than the other, they cannot t equals, and he is the most exalted that is the most meritorious, without regard to color; and the idea of having a law passed in the morning that will make a white man black before night and a black man a white man before day is al surd. That is not the standard; it is your own conduct; it is your own merit; it is the devel opment of your own talents and of your intellectual and moral qualities.

Let this, then, be your course; adopt systems of morality; abstain from all licentiousness; and let me say one thing here, for I am going to talk plainly. I have lived in a Southern State all my life, and know what has too often

en the case. There is one thing you should Eeem higher and more supreme than almost all hers, and that is the solemn contract with all e penalties in the association of married life, en and women should abstain from those quales and habits that too frequently follow a war. culcate among your children and among your sociates, notwithstanding you are just back om the army of the United States, that virtue, at merit, that intelligence are the standards to observed, and those which you are deterined to maintain during your future lives. He at is meritorious and virtuous, intellectual and ell informed, must stand highest, without rerd to color. It is the very basis upon which aven itself rests-each individual takes his gree in the sublimer and more exalted regions proportion to his merits and his virtue. Then I shall say to you on this occasion, in turning to your homes and firesides, after feelg conscious and proud of having faithfully one your duty, return with the determination at you will perform your duty in the future you have performed it in the past. Abstain om all those bickerings and jealousies and reengeful feelings which too often spring up beveen different races.

There is a great problem before us, and I may well allude to it here in this connection, and at is, whether this race can be incorporated nd mixed with the people of the United States -to be made a harmonious and permanent ingreent in the population. This is a problem not et settled, but we are in the right line to do so. avery raised its head against the Government, nd the Government raised its strong arm and ruck it to the ground; hence, that part of the roblem is settled. The institution of slavery overthrown. But another part remains to be olved, and that is, can four millions of people, eared as they have been, with all their prejuices of the whites-can they take their places n the community, and be made to work harmoniusly and congruously in our system? This is problem to be considered. Are the digestive powers of the American Government sufficient o receive this element in a new shape, and digest t and make it work healthfully upon the system hat has incorporated it?

This is the question to be determined. Let as make the experiment, and make it in good aith. If that cannot be done, there is another problem that is before us. If we have to become a separate and distinct people (although I trust that the system can be made to work harmoniously, and that the great problem will be settled without going any further)-if it should be so that the two races cannot agree and live in peace and prosperity, and the laws of Providence require that they should be separated-in that event, looking to the far distant future, and trusting in God that it may never come—if it should come, Providence, that works mysteriously, but unerringly and certainly, will point out the way, and the mode, and the manner by which these people are to be separated, and they are to be taken to their land of inheritance and promise, for such a one is before them, Hence we are making the experiment.

Hence, let me again impress, upon you the

importance of controlling your passions, developing your intellect, and of applying your physical powers to the industrial interests of the country; and that is the true process by which this question, can be settled. Be patient, persevering, and forbearing, and you will help to solve this problem. Make for yourselves a reputation in this cause, as you have won for yourselves a reputation in the cause in which you have been engaged. In speaking to the members of this regiment, I want them to understand that, so far as I am concerned, I do not assume or pretend that I am stronger than the laws or course of nature, or that I am wiser than Providence itself. It is our duty to try and discover what these great laws are which are the foundation of all things, and, having discovered what they are, conform our action and conduct to them and to the will of God, who ruleth all things. He holds the destinies of nations in the palm of his hand, and He will solve the questions and rescue these people from the difficulties that have so long surrounded them. Then let us be patient, industrious, and persevering. Let us develop our intellectual and moral worth.

I trust what I have said may be understood and appreciated. Go to your homes and lead peaceful, prosperous, and happy lives, in peace with all men. Give utterance to no word that would cause dissensions, but do that which will be creditable to yourselves and to your country. To the officers who have led and so nobly commanded you in the field I also return my thanks, for the compliment you and they have conferred upon me.

Interview with Senator Dixon, of Connecticut. January 28, 1866-The following is the substance of the conversation, as telegraphed that night over the country:

The President said he doubted the propriety at this time of making further amendments to the Constitution. One great amendment. had already been made, by which slavery had forever been abolished within the limits of the United States, and a national guarantee thus given that the institution should never exist in the land. Propositions to amend the Constitution were becoming as numerous as preambles and resolutions at town meetings called to consider the most ordinary questions connected with the administration of local affairs. All this, in his opinion, had a tendency to diminish the dignity and prestige attached to the Constitution of the country, and to lessen the respect and confidence of the people in their great charter of freedom. If, however, amendments are to be made to the Constitution, changing the basis of representation and taxation, (and he did not deem them at all necessary at the present time,) he knew of none better than a simple proposition, embraced in a few lines, making in each State the number of qualified voters the basis of representation, and the value of property the basis of direct taxation. Such a proposition could be embraced in the following terms:

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union according to the number of qualified voters in each State.

I have no speech to make on this occasion. simply submit these observations as a limited xpression of the views and feelings of the deleation with which I have come.

RESPONSE OF THE PRESIDENT.

In reply to some of your inquiries, not to ake a speech about this thing, for it is always est to talk plainly and distinctly about such hatters, I will say that if I have not given evience in my course that I am a friend of huanity, and to that portion of it which constiates the colored population, I can give no vidence here. Everything that I have had, oth as regards life and property, has been perled in that cause, and I feel and think that I nderstand—not to be egotistic-what should e the true direction of this question, and what ourse of policy would result in the melioration nd ultimate elevation, not only of the colored, ut of the great mass of the people of the United tates. I say that if I have not given evidence hat I am a friend of humanity, and especially he friend of the colored man, in my past conuct, there is nothing that I can now do that would. I repeat, all that I possessed, life, librty, and property, have been put up in conection with that question, when I had every ducement held out to take the other course, y adopting which I would have accomplished erhaps all that the most ambitious might have esired. If I know myself, and the feelings of y own heart, they have been for the colored lan. I have owned slaves and bought slaves, ut I never sold one. I might say, however, hat practically, so far as my connection with aves has gone, I have been their slave instead f their being mine. Some have even followed ne here, while others are occupying and enjoyng my property with my consent. For the olored race my means, my time, my all has een perilled; and now at this late day, after giving evidence that is tangible, that is practial, I am free to say to you that I do not like o be arraigned by some who can get up handomely-rounded periods and deal in rhetoric, nd talk about abstract ideas of liberty, who ever perilled life, liberty, or property. This ind of theoretical, hollow, unpractical friendhip amounts to but very little. While I say hat I am a friend of the colored man, I do not want to adopt a policy that I believe will end n a contest between the races, which if persisted n will result in the extermination of one or the other. God forbid that I should be engaged in such a work!

Now, it is always best to talk about things practically and in a common sense way. Yes, I have said, and I repeat here, that if the colored man in the United States could find no other Moses, or any Moses that would be more able and efficient than myself, I would be his Moses to lead him from bondage to freedom; that I would pass him from a land where he had lived in slavery to a land (if it were in our reach) of freedom. Yes, I would be willing to pass with him through the Red sea to the Land of Promise, to the land of liberty; but I am not willing, under either circumstance, to adopt a policy which I believe will only result in the sacrifice

of his life and the shedding of his blood. I think I know what I say. I feel what I say; and I feel well assured that if the policy urged by some be persisted in, it will result in great injury to the white as well as to the colored man. There is a great deal of talk about the sword in one hand accomplishing an end, and the ballot accomplishing another at the ballot-box.

These things all do very well, and sometimes have forcible application. We talk about justice; we talk about right; we say that the white man has been in the wrong in keeping the black man in slavery as long as he has. That is all true. Again, we talk about the Declaration of Independence and equality before the law. You understand all that, and know how to appreciate it. But, now, let us look each other in the face; let us go to the great mass of colored men throughout the slave States; let us take the condition in which they are at the present time— and it is bad enough, we all know-and suppose, by some magic touch you could say to every one, you shall vote to-morrow;" how much would that ameliorate their condition at this time?

Now, let us get closer up to this subject, and talk about it. [The President here approached very near to Mr. Douglass.] What relation has the colored man and the white man heretofore occupied in the South? I opposed slavery upon two grounds. First, it was a great monopoly, enabling those who controlled and owned it to constitute an aristocracy, enabling the few to derive great profits and rule the many with an iron rod, as it were. And this is one great objection to it in a government, it being a monopoly. I was opposed to it secondly upon the abstract principle of slavery. Hence, in getting clear of a monopoly, we are getting clear of slavery at the same time. So you see there were two right ends accomplished in the accomplishment of the one.

Mr. DOUGLASS. Mr. President, do you wishThe PRESIDENT. I am not quite through yet. Slavery has been abolished, "A great national guarantee has been given, one that cannot be revoked. I was getting at the relation that subsisted between the white man and the colored men. A very small proportion of white persons compared with the whole number of such owned the colored people of the South. I might instance the State of Tennessee in illustration. There were there twenty-seven non-slaveholders to one slaveholder, and yet the slave power controlled the State. Let us talk about this matter as it is. Although the colored man was in slavery there, and owned as property in the sense and in the language of that locality and of that community, yet, in comparing his condition and his position there with the non-slaveholder, he usually estimated his importance just in proportion to the number of slaves that his master owned with the non-slaveholder.

Have you ever lived upon a plantation? Mr. DOUGLASS. I have, your excellency. The PRESIDENT. When you would look over and see a man who had a large family, struggling hard upon a poor piece of land, you thought a great deal less of him than you did of your own master's negro, didn't you?

Mr. DOUGLASS. Not I!

The PRESIDENT. Well, I know such was the case with a large number of you in those sections. Where such is the case we know there is an enmity, we know there is a hate. The poor white man, on the other hand, was opposed to the slave and his master; for the colored man and his master combined kept him in slavery, by depriving him of a fair participation in the labor and productions of the rich land of the country.

Don't you know that a colored man, in going to hunt a master (as they call it) for the next year, preferred hiring to a man who owned slaves rather than to a man who did not? I know the fact, at all events. They did not consider it quite as respectable to hire to a man who did not own negroes as to one who did.

Mr. DOUGLASS. Because he wouldn't be treated as well.

The PRESIDENT. Then that is another argument in favor of what I am going to say. It shows that the colored man appreciated the slave owner more highly than he did the man who didn't own slaves. Hence the enmity between the colored man and the non-slaveholders. The white man was permitted to vote before-government was derived from him. He is a part and parcel of the political machinery.

Now, by the rebellion or revolution—and when you come back to the objects of this war, you find that the abolition of slavery was not one of the objects; Congress and the President himself declared that it was waged on our part in order to suppress the rebellion-the abolition of slavery has come as an incident to the suppression of a great rebellion-as an incident, and as an incident we should give it the proper direction. The colored man went into this rebellion a slave; by the operation of the rebellion he came out a freedman-equal to a freeman in any other portion of the country. Then there is a great deal done for him on this point. The nonslaveholder who was forced into the rebellion, who was as loyal as those that lived beyond the limits of the State, but was carried into it, lost his property, and in a number of instances the lives of such were sacrificed, and he who has survived has come out of it with nothing gained, but a great deal lost.

Now, upon the principle of justice, should they be placed in a condition different from what they were before? On the one hand, one has gained a great deal; on the other hand, one has lost a great deal, and, in a political point of view, scarcely stands where he did before.

You have spoken about government. Whe is power derived from? We say it is deriv from the people. Let us take it so, and refer the District of Columbia by way of illustrati Suppose, for instance, here, in this political co munity, which, to a certain extent, must ha government, must have laws, and putting it ne upon the broadest basis you can put it-ta into consideration the relation which the wh has heretofore borne to the colored race-ist proper to force upon this community, with their consent, the elective franchise, with regard to color, making it universal?

Now, where do you begin? Government have a controlling power-must have a lo ment. For instance, suppose Congress sho pass a law authorizing an election to be held a which all over twenty-one years of age, with regard to color, should be allowed to vote, a a majority should decide at such election the the elective franchise should not be univers what would you do about it? Who would tle it? Do you deny that first great principles the right of the people to govern themselve Will you resort to an arbitrary power, and s a majority of the people shall receive a state things they are opposed to?

Mr. DOUGLASS. That was said before the wa

The PRESIDENT. I am now talking about principle; not what somebody else said.

Mr. DowNING. Apply what you have sa Mr. President, to South Carolina, for insta where a majority of the inhabitants are color

The PRESIDENT. Suppose you go to Sout Carolina; suppose you go to Ohio. That does change the principle at all. The query to whic I have referred still comes up when gover ment is undergoing a fundamental change. Go ernment commenced upon this principle; it existed upon it; and you propose now to inc porate into it an element that didn't exist te fore. I say the query comes up in undertaking this thing whether we have a right to make change in regard to the elective franchise Ohio, for instance: whether we shall not let t people in that State decide the matter for the selves.

Each community is better prepared to dete mine the depositary of its political power th anybody else, and it is for the Legislature, the people of Ohio to say who shall vote, a not for the Congress of the United States. might go down here to the ballot-Box to-morrow and vote directly for universal suffrage; but great majority of the people said no, I shoul consider it would be tyrannical in me to attem to force such upon them without their will. is a fundamental tenet in my creed that the w of the people must be obeyed. Is there any thing wrong or unfair in that?

a

Mr. DOUGLASS (smiling.) A great deal that wrong, Mr. President, with all respect.

consent.