Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1867-02-08
From the National Intelligencer, Goth.
Veto of the CoIorahn RfII

We publish this morning the Presidents
message assigning his reasons for returning
to the Senate without his signature the bill
for the admission of Colorado into the
Union as State. The President refers to
his veto message of May 18th last upon
this same subject, and not only reiterates
the objections then urged, but says they
have been greatly strengthened by events
that have since transpired, and that there
are still stronger reasons now for declining
to sanction this measure. In the former
veto message the objections presented were
the insuffciency of the population of the
Territory to bear the expense of a State
government, the want of satisfactory evil
dence that the people of the Territory de-
sired to be erected into q State, and the in
compatibility with the public interests of
admitting into the Union a new State with.
at most, only thirty thousand inhabitants,
and comforting upon this number of people
share in the national legislation eouiva
lent to that accorded only in one branch Of
Congress to one hundred and twenty-seven
thousand, and in the other to many mil
lions of inhabitants in the older States,
while eleven of the older States, with many
millions OF inhabitants, are entirely exclu-
ded from representation in Congress.
These objections have since been strength
ened by the formal protest of the people of
the Territory, expressed through the Ter
ritorial Legislature. to being forced into the
Union against their will.
In this last message the President very
quietly exhibits the incongruity of the legis-
lation of Congress and that of the Territory
of Colorado, by abiding to the laws of the
Territory prohibiting negroes and mulat-
toes from voting and also from acting as
jurors. He shows cOnciusively that in this
respect the bill in question is absurdly in
conflict with the State constitution to which
it proposes to give validity, as the latter
provides that all laws in force in the Terri
tory at the time of the adoption of the con-
stitution and the admission of the State
into the Union shall continue in force and
the bill of admission requires that there
shall be no denial of the elective franchise
or any other right to any person by reason
of race or color, except Indians not taxed.
After showing that the bill proposing to
create State of less than thirty thousand
inhabitants is unequivocally violative of
the letter if not the spirit of the Constitu-
ton, and celebrating cOnclusively the an
gument upon the injustice and improperly
of Fgiving to that fraction of the present
ratio of representation the right to send
Senators and Representatives to Congress,
the President shows that the bill itself is u
positive absurdity, and from the very ma
ture of its provisions can never be execu-
ted.
This is very probably the last of the effort
to bring into the Senate two new Senators
who are expected to be obedient to the
edicts of Radicalism, for this is the only
object of the endeavor to force new State
into the Union against the will of its in
habitants, while ten of the old States are
kept out simply in order that Radicalism
may maintain a majority in Congress-
The bill did not receive a two-thirds ma
jority on its passage, and it is not possible
that more votes can be given for it after
the exposition of facts made in this veto
message.