I was about to say that the proposition involved in the resolution of
the Senator from Connecticut is so important that it may be considered
as always in order to discuss it. I do not know that we ought to pass
a day without in some way considering it. I certainly do not deprecate
this debate; but while so saying, I am very positive on another point.
I should deprecate any effort now to precipitate decision on the
question; and I most sincerely hope that the Senator from Maine [Mr.
FESSENDEN], the Chairman of the Committee on Reconstruction, who has
this matter in charge, will bear that in mind. I do not believe that
Congress at this moment is in a condition to give the country the best
measure on this important subject. I am afraid that excellent Committee
has listened too much to voices from without, insisting that there must
be a political issue presented to the country. I have always thought
such call premature. There is no occasion now for an issue. There are
no elections in any States. The election in Connecticut is over; the
election in New Hampshire is over. There are to be no elections before
next autumn. What occasion, then, for an issue? I see none, unless
Congress, after most careful and mature consideration of the whole
subject, is able to present a plan on which we can all honestly unite
and as one phalanx move forward to victory.
I shall not be drawn into premature discussion of the scheme presented
by the report of the Committee on Reconstruction. I speak now to the
question of time only. I am sure that report could not have been made
in the last week of March. I am equally sure, that, if it had been
postponed until the last week of May, they would have made a better one
than they made in the last week of April. I hope, therefore, that the
decision of this question will be postponed as long as possible, in
order that all just influences may come to Congress from the country,
and that Congress itself may be inspired by the fullest and amplest
consideration of the whole question.
There is the evidence before this Committee,--we have not yet seen it
together. That evidence ought to be together; it ought to be before
the whole country; and we should have returning to us from the country
the just influence which its circulation is calculated to produce. I
am sure, that, wherever that evidence is read, the people will say,
Congress is justified in insisting upon security for the future. For
that purpose I presume the evidence was taken; and I hope Congress will
not act until the natural and legitimate influences from the evidence
are felt in their counsels.
Allow me to say, by way of comment on the proposition of the Senator
from Connecticut, that it seems to me my excellent friend, in bringing
it forward, forgot two things.
MR. DIXON. Probably more than that.
MR. SUMNER. But two things he forgot were so great, so essential,
that to forget them was to forget everything. In the first place, he
forgot that we had been in a war; and, in the second place, he forgot
that four million human beings had been changed from a condition of
slavery to freedom. Those two ruling facts my excellent friend forgot,
evidently, when he drew his proposition. Plainly, he forgot that we
had been in a war, because he fails to make any provision for that
security which common sense and common prudence, the Law of Nations
and every instinct of the human heart, require should be made. He
provides no guaranty. Sir, the essential thing, at this moment, is a
guaranty. The Senator abandons that. If, like the Senator, I could
forget this terrible war, with all the blood and treasure it has cost,
I, too, could be indifferent to security for the future; but as that
war is always in my mind, the Senator will pardon me, if I insist upon
guaranties.
I have said that my excellent friend forgets that four million human
beings have been changed in their condition. Four million slaves have
been declared freemen. By whom, and by what power? By the National
Government. And let me say, that, as the National Government gave
that freedom, the National Government must secure it. The National
Government cannot leave the men it has made free to the guardianship or
custody or tender mercies of any other government. It is bound to take
them into its own keeping, to surround them with its own protecting
power, and invest them with all the rights and conditions which, in the
exercise of its best judgment, seem necessary to that end. All that the
Senator has forgotten. It is not in his mind. If I could bring myself
to such obliviousness, if I could bathe so completely in the waters of
Lethe as my excellent friend from Connecticut seems to have done daily
in these recent times, I might, perhaps, join in the support of his
proposition.