Senator from Indiana, and in my State, after the people had condemned it by thirty thousand majority six months previous, the radical Legislature adopted one-half of it on a telegram, not waiting to receive an official and authentic copy, such was their haste to show contempt for the popular will of the State.

Then the question is raised by the State of Indiana in these resolutions in reference to the ratification of Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, and Georgia, without the ratification of which States the amendment was not adopted. If adopted at all, we have seen that it was adopted against the remonstrance of all the people of the North, and simply by coercion in the States of the South; and yet that amendment is now to be considered as one of those sacred things upon which no man must lay his hands. Because the perfidious representatives of the people have betrayed their trust and fixed a yoke upon their necks, they are not to wince when they are galled; and if some States, by a fraud obtaining the signatures of the presiding officers of the two Houses, enact into a law that which they had no right to enact, and contrary to the forms ordained in their own Constitution, we have no right to examine it or hold to proper accountability those who have committed fraud and perverted the forms of law to give effect to their crime.

Sir, if constitutional amendments can be adopted in that way we might well have constitutional amendments here that would create what the gentleman pretends so much to apprehend. If constitutional amendments can be adopted in this mode, against the remonstrance of the entire body of the people of the North, or a vast majority of them, as indicated by the facts to which I have referred, and which are not contradicted in the Senate, and cannot be contradicted, why may we not soon have one declared adopted which provides for a President and Senate for life, and why may not other aristocratic and monarchical institutions be fixed upon us by coercing these carpet-bag States, or, in the congressional slang, requiring them to adopt another fundamental condition, and by misrepresenting and defying the will of the people in the States of the North? And then we shall be told, in the language of the Senator, that we have no right to say a word; we have no right even to expose the perfidy by which the people have been betrayed; and we shall be denounced as revolutionists if we do.

This is no idle apprehension. Each day ushers in some new and monstrous usurpation of power on the part of the dominant party. One aggression is but the stepping-stone of another. The indignation excited by each successive infringement of the rights of the people is a pretext for still further encroachments. The plea of "political necessity," by which the Senator justifies the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, is always ready, and has become the

law of the existence of that party which, having forfeited the confidence of the people, is now compelled to retain power by fraud and force. Hence the bill to employ the Army to enforce the Fifteenth Amendment, which has grown out of that measure, and the bill now pending in the other House enlarging the powers of the President for the same purpose. It is the fungus growth from a rotten system, more poisonous than that which produced it.

Abraham Lincoln.

By FREDERICK DOUGLASS, of Maryland.

(Born 1817, died 1895.)

HAVE been down there to see the President; and as you were not there, perhaps you may like to know how the President of the United States received a black man at the White House. I will tell you how he received me — just as you have seen one gentleman receive another;" (great applause) "with a hand and a voice well-balanced between a kind cordiality and a respectful reserve. I tell you I felt big there." (Laughter.) "Let me tell you how I got to him; because everybody can't get to him. He has to be a little guarded in admitting spectators. The manner of getting to him gave me an idea that the cause was rolling on. The stairway was crowded with applicants. Some of them looked cager; and I have no doubt some of them had a purpose in being there, and wanted to see the President for the good of the country. They were white; and as I was the only dark spot among them, I expected to have to wait at least half a day; I had heard of men waiting a week; but in two minutes after I sent in my card, the messenger came out, and respectfully invited' Mr. Douglass' in. I could hear, in the eager multitude outside as they saw me pressing and elbowing my way through, the remark, yes, d-n it, I knew they would let the nigger through,' in a kind of despairing voice-a Peace Democrat, I suppose." (Laughter.) "When I went in, the President was sitting in his usual position, I was told, with his feet in different parts of the room, taking it easy." (Laughter.) "Don't put this down, Mr. Reporter, I pray you; for I am going down there again to-morrow." (Laughter.) "As I came in and approached him, the President began to rise," (laughter) “and he continued rising, until he stood over me;" (laughter) " and reaching out his hand, he said, Mr. Douglass, I know you; I have read about you, and Mr. Seward has told me about you;' putting me quite at ease at once.

"Now, you will want to know how I was impressed by him. I will tell you that, too. He impressed me as being just what every one of you have been in the habit of calling him an honest man." (Applause.) "I have never

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

met with a man who, on the first blush, impressed me more entirely with his sincerity, with his devotion to his country, and with his determination to save it at all hazards." (Applause.) "He told me (I think he did me more honor than I deserve), that I had made a little speech somewhere in New York, and it had got into the papers, and among the things I had said was this: that if I were called upon to state what I regarded as the most sad and most disheartening features in our present political and military situation, it would not be the various disasters experienced by our armies and our navies, on flood and field, but it would be the tardy, hesitating, vacillating policy of the President of the United States. And the President said to me, Mr. Douglass, I have been charged with being tardy, and the like;' and he went on, and partly admitted that he might seem slow; but he said: I am charged with vacillating; but, Mr. Douglass, I do not think that charge can be sustained; I think it cannot be shown that when I have once taken a position I have ever retreated from it.'” (Applause.) "That I regarded as the most significant point in what he said during our interview. I told him that he had been somewhat slow in proclaiming equal protection to our colored soldiers and prisoners; and he said that the country needed talking up to that point. He hesitated in regard to it, when he felt that the country was not ready for it. He knew that the colored man throughout this country was a despised man, a hated man, and that if he at first came out with such a proclamation, all the hatred which is poured on the head of the negro race would be visited on his administration. He said that there was preparatory work needed, and that that preparatory work had now been done. And he said, 'Remember this, Mr. Douglass; remember that Milliken's Bend, Port Hudson, and Fort Wagner are recent events; and that these were necessary to prepare the way for this very proclamation of mine.' I thought it was reasonable, but came to the conclusion that while Abraham Lincoln will not go down to posterity as Abraham the Great, or as Abraham the Wise, or as Abraham the Eloquent, although he is all three wise, great, and eloquent, he will go down to posterity, if the country is saved, as Honest Abraham;" (applause) "and going down thus, his name may be written anywhere in this wide world of ours, side by side with that of Washington, without disparaging the latter." (Renewed applause.)

(Delivered in Philadelphia in 1863.)