colored population is large the people of that race are by various
devices deprived of any effective exercise of their political rights and
of many of their civil rights. The wrong does not expend itself upon
those whose votes are suppressed. Every constituency in the Union is
wronged.

It has been the hope of every patriot that a sense of justice and of
respect for the law would work a gradual cure of these flagrant evils.
Surely no one supposes that the present can be accepted as a permanent
condition. If it is said that these communities must work out this
problem for themselves, we have a right to ask whether they are at work
upon it. Do they suggest any solution? When and under what conditions is
the black man to have a free ballot? When is he in fact to have those
full civil rights which have so long been his in law? When is that
equality of influence which our form of government was intended to
secure to the electors to be restored? This generation should
courageously face these grave questions, and not leave them as a
heritage of woe to the next. The consultation should proceed with
candor, calmness, and great patience, upon the lines of justice and
humanity, not of prejudice and cruelty. No question in our country can
be at rest except upon the firm base of justice and of the law.

I earnestly invoke the attention of Congress to the consideration of
such measures within its well-defined constitutional powers as will
secure to all our people a free exercise of the right of suffrage and
every other civil right under the Constitution and laws of the United
States. No evil, however deplorable, can justify the assumption either
on the part of the Executive or of Congress of powers not granted, but
both will be highly blamable if all the powers granted are not wisely
but firmly used to correct these evils. The power to take the whole