Valley Spirit

Proceedings of the 39th Congress--Important Bills Introduced.

A Bill to allow the Negroes of District of Columbia to "Wote"--A Bill to allow Negroes to Sit as Jurors in the Courts of the District of Columbia."

For the benefit of negro-sympathizers we give space to the following, taken from the Senate proceedings of its first day's session:

Mr. Wade presented a bill to regulate the elective franchise in the District of Columbia. It provides that from and after its passage every male person twenty-one years of age, a citizen of the United States, and resident of the District of Columbia six months, and has never been convicted of infamous crime, shall be entitled to the right of suffrage in the district. Any person who shall disturb or interfere with such voter in the exercise of his right shall, on conviction, suffer the penalty of a fine not exceeding $1,000 or imprisonment in the dungeon or the city jail and fed on bread and water for a period not exceeding thirty days or both. It imposes the duty upon the criminal courts of the District of giving this act in special charge to the grand jury at the commencement of each term. Ordered to be printed.

Mr. Sumner introduced various bills as follows, which were severally ordered to be printed:

"A bill to carry out the principles of a republican form of government in the District of Columbia." It provides that no person in other respects qualified to vote shall be excluded from that right by reason of his race or color. Any one whose duty it is to receive votes, who shall refuse the vote of such person is to be liable to indictment and fined not exceeding $5,000, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, and where the rejected party of is African descent, the jury to try the case shall be composed of one-half of COLORED MEN. Any person molesting a party entitled to vote is to be fined, on conviction, a sum not exceeding $3,000, or imprisonment not exceeding six months, or both, the jury to be composed as above where the party is of African descent.

"A bill to preserve the right of trial by jury by securing impartial jurors in the courts of the United States." It provides that where, according to the census of 1860, one-sixth or more of the population was of African descent, grand juries shall consist one-half of African descent, and petit juries in the same proportion where the matter tried relates to any injury inflicted by a person of African descent upon a person not of such descent, or vice versa. And prejudice against such race is made ground of challenge and exclusion.

The impression is gaining ground that Secretary McCulloch, in his forthcoming message, will recommend a steady funding of the floating debt, and a regular withdrawal of greenbacks, with a view of contracting the National Bank currency. This is a result generally desired, as it is conceded that the present high prices of all articles is owing to the inflated currency. During the war the opinion was expressed that when the contest ceased prices would be reduced. But the war has terminated, and there is no reduction. Few expected that at the end of a season unusually productive, and in the midst of a peace, they would be compelled to pay higher prices for all articles used in the family than they paid during the war, when gold was at two hundred and fifty, and rising. But they are compelled to pay higher for everything, and, as a matter of course, will sustain any movement calculated to bring figures to a legitimate standard.

The Detroit Free Press, in appealing to the business and working men of the nation to join in compelling Congress to strike at the root of the evil, and remove the principal cause of the high prices, the inflation of the currency, says:

If the people who are affected by these prices will but united in saying the word, Congress will not dare to refuse, early in the session, to remove this inflation, which is the heaviest of all our taxes. Not only does it keep up prices, but by its uncertainty and fluctuations in the price of gold, it renders it impossible to do business with certainty--the margin of uncertainty must always be against the consumer, and the superabundance of currency stimulates speculation and compels every man to charge an exorbitant profit in self-defense. Congress can cure this. Congress can contract currency till it and gold assimilate in value. Congress can restore specie payments, and when Congress does this it will accomplish all that we can ever again hope to see done, and that is not to get back to old prices, but to restore the equilibrium between wages and living. Therefore what we really want is a return to a specie standard, with a reduction of circulation to the of business--when we will again realize the comfort, so well known of aid, called "good times," and mankind can judge at the commencement of the year how he will come out if he pursues a certain course.