“Mr. President, it is my sincere belief that this
disposition to interfere with the rights of the States,
exhibited by this Congress, has prolonged the war,--that,
if persisted in, the war becomes a war of indefinite
duration, and that the Constitutional Union our fathers
formed will be lost to us and our posterity forever.”[81]
July 14th, the question was taken on Mr. Sumner’s amendment,
which was rejected,--Yeas 11, Nays 24.
Mr. Lane, of Kansas, moved that all slaves in the State, July
4, 1863, and under the age of ten, shall be free when they
arrive at the age of twenty-one, and all slaves over ten and
under twenty-one shall be free when they arrive at the age of
twenty-five; and the amendment was adopted,--Yeas 25, Nays 12.
* * * * *
The question then occurred on the passage of the bill, when Mr.
Sumner remarked:--
I renounce the intention of presenting again the amendment you have
already voted down; but it is none the less important in my judgment.
I do not like to occupy the time of the Senate; but I cannot doubt
that you have acted on the amendment hastily, and without full
consideration. Why, Sir, it is simply the old Jeffersonian ordinance,
which, when originally adopted for the great Territory of the
Northwest, operated upon Slavery already there, and absolutely forbade
this wrong from that time forward. In point of fact, slaves were freed
by this ordinance.
I thought it well that this institute of Virginia’s son should help
to redeem Virginia. It has been voted down; and now the question
is presented, whether the Senate will recognize a new Slave State.
True, Slavery will be for a short term only, for twenty-one years, if
you please, but that is a long time for Slavery. I cannot consent to
admit a new State with such a curse for twenty-one years. How little
slavery it takes to make a Slave State is illustrated by Delaware, with
less than eighteen hundred slaves, sending two Senators of Slavery to
this Chamber. Shall we welcome two more from a State newly created
by ourselves? Never, Sir, by my vote; and as the Senate sees fit to
discard the effort I have made, I deem it my duty to vote against the
bill.
The bill was passed,--Yeas 23, Nays 17,--Mr. Sumner voting in
the negative.