Mr. Sumner offered the following resolution, and then spoke
upon it.
“_Resolved_, That the Select Committee on the Conduct of
the War be directed to collect the evidence with regard
to the barbarous treatment by the Rebels at Manassas of
the remains of officers and soldiers of the United States
killed in battle there, and to report the same to the
Senate, with power to send for persons and papers.”
MR. PRESIDENT,--We have all been shocked, during the last few days, by
the evidence that has accumulated with regard to the treatment of our
dead at Manassas.
Instead of those honorable rites which in all ages generous soldiers
have been glad to bestow upon enemies fallen in battle, we are
disgusted by barbarities reminding us of savage life. Bodies have
been dug up, and human bones carried off as trophies. The skull of a
gallant Massachusetts soldier has been converted into the drinking-cup
of a Georgia colonel, that he may, far away among his slaves, renew
the festive barbarism of another age under the name of “The Feast of
Skulls.”
It is obvious, Sir, that we are now in conflict with beings who belong
to a different plane of civilization from ourselves, and it is
important that this unquestionable fact should be made known to the
country and to the world.
All familiar with recent events will remember the effect with which
that great minister, Cavour, when on the eve of the war for Italian
liberation, put forth his circular, setting forth the outrages of the
Austrian soldiers on the Italian inhabitants. Through that appeal, Sir,
he secured the general sympathy of Europe and of the civilized world.
Our cause needs no such document; but I am anxious, nevertheless, for
the sake of history, that the record should be made.
Let it be made, also, that the country and mankind may see how Slavery
in all its influences is barbarous,--barbarous in peace, barbarous in
war, barbarous always, and nothing but barbarism.