It seems to me, Sir, that these cases throw upon Congress the duty
at least of inquiry; and I wish the Committee on the Judiciary, from
which proceeded the Constitutional Amendment abolishing Slavery, would
enlighten us on the validity of these proceedings, and the necessity
or expediency of further action to prevent their repetition. I do not
know that the Civil Rights Bill, which was afterward passed, may not be
adequate to meet these cases; but I am not clear on that point.
When the Constitutional Amendment was under consideration, I objected
positively to the phraseology. I thought it an unhappy deference to an
original legislative precedent at an earlier period of our history. I
regretted infinitely that Congress was willing, even indirectly, to
sanction any form of slavery. But the Senate supposed that the phrase
“involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof
the party shall have been duly convicted,” was simply applicable to
ordinary imprisonment. At the time I feared that it might be extended
so as to cover some form of slavery. It seems now that it is so
extended, and I wish the Committee to consider whether the remedy can
be applied by Act of Congress, or whether we must not go further and
expurgate that phraseology from the text of the Constitution itself.
After remarks by Mr. Reverdy Johnson and Mr. Creswell, of
Maryland, Mr. Sumner said:--
The remarks of the Senator from Maryland [Mr. JOHNSON] seem to justify
entirely the resolution I have brought forward. I have simply called
attention to what was already notorious, but with a view to action. I
am not sure, that, under the Constitutional Amendment, this abuse may
not be justified, and I desire to have the opinion of the Committee
after ample consideration.
This, Sir, is not the first time in which incidents like this have
occurred. I remember, that, many years ago, when I first came into this
Chamber, the good people whom I represent were shocked at reading that
four colored sailors of Massachusetts had been sold into slavery in
the State of Texas. I did what I could to obtain their liberation, but
without success. I applied directly to the Senator from Texas at that
time, who will be remembered by many as the able General Rusk, beside
whom I sat on the other side of the Chamber. He openly vindicated the
power of the court to make such a sale, and I have never heard anything
of those poor victims from that time to this. Under the operation of
the Constitutional Amendment I trust they are now emancipated; but I am
not sure of that, since they are in Texas.
The resolution was adopted. Subsequently Mr. Creswell moved the
printing of a bill, introduced by him at the preceding session,
to protect children of African descent from being enslaved in
violation of the Constitution of the United States.
February 20th, Mr. Poland, from the Committee on the Judiciary,
to whom this bill had been referred, reported that its object
was accomplished by the Civil Rights and the Habeas Corpus
Acts, and that no further legislation was needed. In a
conversation that ensued, Mr. Sumner said:--
It strikes me the practical question is, whether recent incidents have
not admonished us that there is a disposition to evade the statute, and
under the protection of State laws----
MR. TRUMBULL [of Illinois]. That is the very thing the statute
guards against.
MR. SUMNER. But the statute was not effective to prevent those
incidents.
MR. TRUMBULL. Will any statute, if it is not executed?
MR. SUMNER. But when apprised of an evasion, I ask whether it is not
expedient to counteract that evasion specifically and precisely, so
that there shall be no possible excuse? Liberty is won by these anxious
trials. Those who represent her are accustomed to take case by case
and difficulty by difficulty,--overcoming them, if they can. Secure
first the general principle, as in the Constitutional Amendment,--then
legislation as extensive or minute as the occasion requires. Let it be
“precept upon precept, line upon line,” so long as any such outrage can
be shown.
I would not seem pertinacious, though I do not know that I can err by
any pertinacity on a question of Human Liberty. I feel that we are
painfully admonished, by incidents occurring under our very eyes,
that we ought to do something to tighten that great Constitutional
Amendment. It contains in its text words which I regret. I regretted
them at the time; I proposed to strike them out; and now they return
to plague the inventor. There should have been no recognition in the
Constitutional Amendment of any possibility of Slavery. The reply
is, that the Amendment, if properly interpreted, does not recognize
the possibility of Slavery being legal in any just sense. But it is
misinterpreted,--has been so in an adjoining State; and who can tell
that it will not be so now in every one of the Southern States? I am
sorry that the Committee has not reported the bill.
The Senate last night passed a bill, on the report of my colleague,
to prohibit slavery and peonage in New Mexico. Under the Constitutional
Amendment, I take it, that bill was unnecessary, it was superfluous.
But we have found a difficulty in that Territory. There has been
outrage; slavery in some form exists there; and consequently my
colleague was right, when he brought his Committee to the conclusion
that they must meet it by specific enactment. Where the abuse appears,
we must root it out. That is Radicalism. So long as a human being is
held as a slave anywhere under this flag, from the Atlantic to the
Pacific coast, there is occasion for your powerful intervention; and
if there is ambiguity or failure in existing statutes, then you must
supply another statute.