"At an election for a Territorial Legislature in 1861, 10,580 votes were cast; at an election in 1864 only 6,192 votes were cast; while at the election of 1865 only 5,905 votes have been cast." He said, "I regret this apparent decline of population in Colorado, but it is manifest that it is due to emigration which is going out from that Territory into other regions of the United States, which either are in fact, or are believed to be by the citizens of Colorado, richer in mineral wealth and agricultural resources." The President commented upon the injustice of creating from so small a population a State with senatorial strength equal to that of the largest State in the Union.

He thought Colorado did not have a population of more than twenty thousand persons "whereas one hundred and twenty-seven thousand are required in other States for a single representative in Congress." The President did not neglect his one constant theme--the unrepresented condition of the Southern States.

He insisted that "so long as eleven of the old States remain unrepresented in Congress, no new State should be prematurely and unnecessarily admitted to a participation in the political power which the Federal Government wields." The strong minority which had opposed the Colorado bill gave no hope of overriding the President's veto, which was simply laid on the table and ordered to be printed.
The bill for the admission of Nebraska came later in the session, not being introduced for consideration until the 23d of July.

It passed very promptly by a vote of twenty-four to eighteen in the Senate, and by sixty-two to fifty-two in the House.

As in the case of Colorado the constitution excluded the negro from the right of suffrage, and for that reason a very considerable proportion of the Republicans of each branch voted against the bill.