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14 - Charles Sumner, The Scholar in Politics by Archibald Grimké · Charles Sumner, The Scholar in Politics

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Speaker 1: Chapter thirteen of Charles Sumner, The Scholar in Politics by
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Speaker 1: Archibald Grimkey. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: Cathago esked Dalunda. The two antagonistic ideas of the Union,
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Speaker 1: after seventy years of expansion and conflict, had crashed together
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Speaker 1: in the storm of Civil War. Northern interests were not
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Speaker 1: separable from the Union. To it, undoubtedly, the Free States
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Speaker 1: owed their unprecedented increase in population, their surprising development of
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Speaker 1: material resources, and their rapid augmentation of wealth naturally enough.
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Speaker 1: Therefore they held in abhorrence a Southern confederacy for destruction
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Speaker 1: of the Union, carried as a consequence ruined to all
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Speaker 1: this growth and prosperity. The war on the part of
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Speaker 1: the Free States was for the maintenance of the Union
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Speaker 1: and for no other purpose. Lincoln's indifference as to the
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Speaker 1: fate of slavery in this emergency of the Republic was
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Speaker 1: hardly less complete or shocking than was that of Douglas,
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Speaker 1: who cared not whether slavery was voted up or voted
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Speaker 1: down in the national territories. Since popular sovereignty was vindicated, Lincoln,
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Speaker 1: as president was not concerned as to whether slavery survived
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Speaker 1: or perished, if only the Union survived. As a man,
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Speaker 1: he was probably not indifferent on this point, but as
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Speaker 1: President he avowedly meant slavery within the states and entrenched
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Speaker 1: within the Constitution and the laws of the land, no
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Speaker 1: harm from the war power of the government over which
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Speaker 1: he presided. He was openly, notoriously for maintaining the Constitution
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Speaker 1: as it was, the Union as it was, even to
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Speaker 1: the execution of its infamous fugitive slave laws. It took
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Speaker 1: too years to reveal to the President and the Republican
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Speaker 1: Party the folly of such a purpose, the madness of
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Speaker 1: a statesmanship which was pouring out blood and treasure to
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Speaker 1: preserve the federation of two contrary social systems under a
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Speaker 1: single general government, when the opportunity offered of putting an
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Speaker 1: end to one and of establishing forever the other at length,
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Speaker 1: it was perceived, beyond peradventure that the institution which the
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Speaker 1: administration was preserving was the pith, the mara, and backbone
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Speaker 1: of the rebellion. It too was seen that the fortunes
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Speaker 1: of the slave in the fortunes of the Union, were
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Speaker 1: not detachable and distinct the one from the other, but
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Speaker 1: identical and insoluble. Then it was that the slave was
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Speaker 1: emancipated and made a soldier to save a union as
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Speaker 1: central to the supremacy of Northern ideas and to the
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Speaker 1: security of Northern interests and institutions in America. Sumner, during
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Speaker 1: the Antebellum period of crisis and suspense, recognized with all
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Speaker 1: his own time clarity of vision the constitutional limitations of
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Speaker 1: the political movement against slavery. He did not propose to
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Speaker 1: touch the evil within the states, because he had not
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Speaker 1: the power to the utmost verge of the Constitution. He
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Speaker 1: pushed his opposition ere he drew up, ready to cross
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Speaker 1: this rubicum of the slave power should justificat cause arise,
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Speaker 1: Such he considered, was the uprising of the South and
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Speaker 1: rebellion trees and council the covenants of the Constitution, and
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Speaker 1: discharge the North from their further observance. He was at
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Speaker 1: last untrambled by political conditions, free to carry the war
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Speaker 1: into Africa. Cathago Estalanda was thenceforth constantly on his lips.
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Speaker 1: It is the vogue now to extol the marvelous gas
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Speaker 1: that of Abraham Lincoln, and the writer too will join
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Speaker 1: in the panegyric of his great qualities, but in the
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Speaker 1: matter of emancipation, that wise man was not infallible, the
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Speaker 1: opinion of his latest biographers to the contrary. Notwithstanding, he
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Speaker 1: waited for the people, but the people who were really
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Speaker 1: ready for the act as a war measure before he
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Speaker 1: was when he issued the emancipation Proclamation. The self, but
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Speaker 1: a little later, began to weigh the military necessity of
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Speaker 1: a similar movement. Sagacious, undoubtedly, the President was wonderfully so,
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Speaker 1: but slow at times, also to his surprising degree. And
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Speaker 1: this was true with regard to his conduct in relation
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Speaker 1: to the liberation of the slaves. To have saved the
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Speaker 1: Union with slavery was surely not such a preservation of
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Speaker 1: his as mere worldly prudence ought to have dictated. All
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Speaker 1: that it could possibly have accomplished was a short postponement
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Speaker 1: of the final struggle for mastery between what was morally
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Speaker 1: and industrially wrong and what was morally and industrially right
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Speaker 1: in the Republic. A day of wrath. This struggle would
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Speaker 1: have been in nineteen hundred, as it was in eighteen
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Speaker 1: sixty one. To put off this day then would have
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Speaker 1: consummated the most stupendous crime of fathers against children. Of
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Speaker 1: modern times. Yet such was distinctly mister Lincoln's purposes present.
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Speaker 1: It certainly was not mister Sumners. As Senator Justice was
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Speaker 1: his solitary, expedient right, his unfeeling sagacity. Of no other
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Speaker 1: American statesman. Can this be so unqualifiedly asserted here He
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Speaker 1: is the transcendent figure in our political history. And yet
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Speaker 1: he was no fanatical visionary, utopian dreamer, but a practical
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Speaker 1: moralist in the domain of politics. And president and party
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Speaker 1: refused to heed him and turned from his simple and
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Speaker 1: straightforward remedy to try others. He did not break with them,
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Speaker 1: nor sulk at his post. On the contrary, foot to
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Speaker 1: foot and shoulder to shoulder, he pulled with both as
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Speaker 1: far as they would go. Where they halted, he could
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Speaker 1: not stuck. As the wheels of statement of the war
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Speaker 1: were in those dreadful years, in the mar of political
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Speaker 1: expediency and pro slavery hunkherism, he appealed confidently to that large,
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Speaker 1: unknown quantity of courage and righteousness latent in the North
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Speaker 1: to set the bulked wheels again, moving the policy of
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Speaker 1: forbearance towards slavery, which characterized to so remarkable an extent
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Speaker 1: the early part of mister Lincoln's administration was at first
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Speaker 1: interpreted liberally by mister Sumner. The President seemed to be
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Speaker 1: making haste slowly to attack the enemy at a vital point,
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Speaker 1: which course during the first months of the war, Sumner
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Speaker 1: cordially approved, and this approval he communicated to mister Lincoln
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Speaker 1: in the month of May, preceding the Battle of bull Run,
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Speaker 1: adding however, that the President must be ready to strike
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Speaker 1: when the moment came. Upon the happening of that event,
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Speaker 1: Sumner felt that the time had arrived for the adoption
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Speaker 1: of a presidential policy of active hostility towards the peculiar institution,
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Speaker 1: and this conviction he imparted to the President two days
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Speaker 1: after the bull Run disaster. But mister Lincoln received the
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Speaker 1: suggestion with undisguised impatience. No, the moment had not come
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Speaker 1: to strike slavery. Instead of striking slavery, the administration struck
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Speaker 1: several thumping blows upon the backs of the slaves. In
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Speaker 1: its jealous regard for the rights of masters fugitive slaves,
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Speaker 1: so ran a general order from Washington July seventeenth, Fugitive
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Speaker 1: slaves will, under no pretext whatever be permitted to reside
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Speaker 1: or in any way be harbored in the quarters and
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Speaker 1: camps of the troops serving in this department. Neither will
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Speaker 1: such slaves be allowed to accompany troops on the march.
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Speaker 1: Commanders of troops will be held responsible for as strict
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Speaker 1: observance of this order. Six days afterwards, the Administration, through
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Speaker 1: Attorney General Bates, reminded the United States Marshals of Missouri
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Speaker 1: that the Fugitive Slave Act must be executed, and to
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Speaker 1: General Butler's famous suggesting that the able bodied negroes liable
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Speaker 1: to be used in aid of rebellion were contraband of war,
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Speaker 1: the Secretary of War Simon Cameron, replied in August that
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Speaker 1: it is the desire of the President that all existing
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Speaker 1: rights in all the States be carefully respected and maintained.
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Speaker 1: August thirtieth, General Fremont, commanding the Western Department, and made
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Speaker 1: proclamation that the property, real, and person of all persons
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Speaker 1: in the State of Missouri who shall take up arms
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Speaker 1: against the United States, or who shall be directed proven
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Speaker 1: to have taken an active part where their enemies in
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Speaker 1: the field, is declared to be confiscated to the public use,
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Speaker 1: and their slaves if any they have are hereby declared
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Speaker 1: free men. Notwithstanding the outburst of popular satisfaction with which
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Speaker 1: this last clause of the order was received, President Lincoln
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Speaker 1: promptly countermanded it. He was plainly bent on saving the
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Speaker 1: Union if he could, without in any manner disturbing the
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Speaker 1: status quo of invested interest in the slave states. This
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Speaker 1: amazing conservatism was unspeakably painful to Sumner and excited his
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Speaker 1: keenest apprehensions in respect of its demoralizing consequences in the
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Speaker 1: conduct of the war. It was injurious to the cause
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Speaker 1: of the Union at home and abroad. It operated in
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Speaker 1: the South to strengthen, not weaken, the spirit of rebellion. Sumner,
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Speaker 1: unable to influence, the President, turned to the people. Perhaps
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Speaker 1: they could show the administration and the error of its way,
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Speaker 1: induced to change its policy of forbearance too bold and
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Speaker 1: active anti slavery measures. As early as July, he and
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Speaker 1: ever to get Congress to inaugurate a new and militant
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Speaker 1: policy in the treatment of rebels. Two bills introduced by
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Speaker 1: him into the Senate prior to the Battle of bull
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Speaker 1: Run provided for the confiscation of the property of traitors.
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Speaker 1: This was one way, certainly of starting off on a
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Speaker 1: new departure in the conduct of the war. At the
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Speaker 1: Republican State Convention of Massachusetts, which met at Worcester October one,
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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty one, he demonstrated in an electric speech that
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Speaker 1: emancipation was the best weapon for putting down the rebellion
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Speaker 1: and saving the Union. It is not necessary, even borrowing
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Speaker 1: a familiar phrase, he declared, with singular sagacity, to carry
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Speaker 1: the war into Africa. It will be enough if we
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Speaker 1: carry Africa into the war in any form, any quantity,
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Speaker 1: any way. The moment this is done, rebellion will begin
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Speaker 1: its bad luck and the Union becomes secure forever. Facts
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Speaker 1: a year later completely verified this bold prediction. On the
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Speaker 1: evening of nov. Number twenty seventh, before the Young Men's
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Speaker 1: Republican Union of New York at Cooper Institute, he pointed out,
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Speaker 1: in an argument of masterly force that slavery was the
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Speaker 1: origin and mainspring of the rebellion. Wherever this rebellion shows itself,
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Speaker 1: whatever form it takes, whatever thing it does, whatever it meditates,
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Speaker 1: exclaimed the orator, it is moved by slavery. Ney the
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Speaker 1: rebellion is slavery itself incarnate living, acting, raging, robbing, murdering,
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Speaker 1: according to the essential law of its being. And again
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Speaker 1: the slaves toil at home, while the master's work at rebellion.
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Speaker 1: And thus, by singular fatality is this doomed race without
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Speaker 1: taking up arms, actually engaged in feeding, supporting, succoring, invigorating
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Speaker 1: those battling for their enslavement. Full will I know that
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Speaker 1: this is an element of strength only through the forbearance
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Speaker 1: of our own government. And coming to the point of
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Speaker 1: the argument, he finds that something more is needed to
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Speaker 1: encounter successfully the rebellion than men and money. That decisive
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Speaker 1: something which the war for the Union wanted was ideas.
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Speaker 1: Our battalions must be reinforced by ideas, he sums up.
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Speaker 1: And we must strike directly at the origin and mainspring.
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Speaker 1: I do not say now in what way or to
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Speaker 1: what extent, but only that we must strike. In no
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Speaker 1: way can we do so much at so little cost
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Speaker 1: to the enemy. Such a blow would be a terror
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Speaker 1: to goodman. It will be an encouragement, and to foreign
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Speaker 1: nations watching this contest there will be an earnest of
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Speaker 1: something beyond a mere carnival of battle. There has been
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Speaker 1: the cry on to Richmond and still another worse cry
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Speaker 1: on to England. Better than either is the cry on
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Speaker 1: to freedom. Let this be heard in the voices of
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Speaker 1: our soldiers, eye Let it resound in the purposes of
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Speaker 1: the government, and victory must be near. No opportunity did
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Speaker 1: Sumner now miss to press upon President, Congress and the
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Speaker 1: country the duty and necessity of emancipation. From this time forward,
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Speaker 1: he never saw mister Lincoln without urging him to strike
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Speaker 1: the great criminal, without warning him that then was the
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Speaker 1: accepted time for dispatching the monster. But mister Lincoln did
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Speaker 1: not so apprehend the situation nor the urgency of immediate action.
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Speaker 1: He would wait yet a while longer. He was, according
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Speaker 1: to his own calculation, but six weeks behind Sumner. The weeks, however,
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Speaker 1: stretched into months, and still the presidential arm was stayed.
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Speaker 1: In the meantime, Congress was not enacted. It took the
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Speaker 1: initiative in the military movement against slavery as the origin
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Speaker 1: and mainspring of the rebellion. In the measure to confiscate
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Speaker 1: property use for insurrectionary purposes, slaves so employed were declared
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Speaker 1: free by the Act, which, on its approval by the
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Speaker 1: President August sixth, eighteen sixty one was the beginning of emancipation.
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Speaker 1: This act was followed at BArch eighteen sixty two by
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Speaker 1: another which prohibited the employment of the national forces and
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Speaker 1: the return of fugitive slaves. It was thus largely through
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Speaker 1: the earnestness and determination of Sumner that a path was
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Speaker 1: viewed for or the feet of mister Lincoln, to emancipation
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Speaker 1: as a measure of military necessity. When the slave masters
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Speaker 1: retired from the Senate and the Republican Party obtained control
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Speaker 1: of that body, mister Sunder was placed at the head
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Speaker 1: of the Committee on Foreign Relations. In this position he
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Speaker 1: was enabled to render inestimable services to the country and
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Speaker 1: to the cause of freedom as well. His extensive acquaintance
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Speaker 1: in Europe, and his immense acquisitions as a student of
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Speaker 1: history and of international law, made him a power at
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Speaker 1: home and abroad during the progress of the war. As
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Speaker 1: chairman of that committee, his speech on the Trent episode
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Speaker 1: was one of the greatest services rendered by him to
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Speaker 1: the administration and the country. In that capacity, two of
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Speaker 1: Sumner's old enemies, James M. Mason, the former chairman of
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Speaker 1: the Committee on Foreign Relations, and John Slidell of Louisiana,
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Speaker 1: were appointed to represent the Rebel states, the former at
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Speaker 1: the court of Saint James and the latter at the
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Speaker 1: court of Napoleon the third in October eighteen sixty one,
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Speaker 1: were their two s equitaries. They eluded the blockade at Charlestown
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Speaker 1: and were landed at Havana. From this place they took
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Speaker 1: passage in the British mayor Packet Trent for Saint Thomas,
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Speaker 1: where a line of steamers connecting with the Trent ran
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Speaker 1: to England. When near Saint Thomas, the Trent was stopped
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Speaker 1: by the United States steamers and yet sainto commanded by
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Speaker 1: Captain Wilkes, and the rebel commissioners and their two secretaries
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Speaker 1: were taken into custody and removed to the National steamer.
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Speaker 1: This proceeding of Captain Wilkes, though in strict accord with
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Speaker 1: British President, was in violation of the principle in that
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Speaker 1: regard uniformly contended for by America. But this latter fact
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Speaker 1: was at first quite lost sighted by the statesmen and
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Speaker 1: diplomatic scholars and lawyers of the land. The capture gave
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Speaker 1: general satisfaction in the United States made Captain Wilkes the
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Speaker 1: hero of the hour. In England, however, the act excited
14:52
Speaker 1: very different emotions. It brought the hostility of that country
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Speaker 1: toward the United States to a head. The English government
14:58
Speaker 1: demanded the surrender of the traders. In case of the
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Speaker 1: refusal of the American government to comply, Therewith instructed its
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Speaker 1: minister at Washington, Lord Lyons, to return to London with
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Speaker 1: the entire legation, Pending the consideration of this demand by
15:12
Speaker 1: the administration. Great Britain, like the wild boar in the fable,
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Speaker 1: began industriously to wed its tasks for a war which,
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Speaker 1: in its consequences must have proven disasters to the cause
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Speaker 1: of the Union and their freedom alike. Plainly, under the circumstances,
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Speaker 1: there was but one course for the American government to pursue,
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Speaker 1: and that was to throw itself back upon American practice,
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Speaker 1: rather than upon British precedent, and surrender the prisoners. And
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Speaker 1: this it did, though not without embarrassment, and view of
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Speaker 1: the popularity of the capture of those men, and of
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Speaker 1: the deep resentment felt by all classes against the demand
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Speaker 1: for their release. If the popular feeling was warlike in England,
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Speaker 1: it was equally so in America. The government, in getting
15:53
Speaker 1: rid of a war with England could ill afford to
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Speaker 1: do so by forfeiting the respect and confidence of its
15:58
Speaker 1: own citizens, whose life love of country was, without doubt
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Speaker 1: sorely wounded by what, to the public eye seemed like
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Speaker 1: an agnominious back down before British insolence and menace. It
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Speaker 1: failed to a lot of Summer to rescue the administration
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Speaker 1: from this predicament by appeasing the irritated national amou appropri
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Speaker 1: which he achieved in a masterly speech before the Senate
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Speaker 1: January ninth, eighteen sixty two, entitled the Trent Case and
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Speaker 1: Maritime Rights, he demonstrated to the almost universal satisfaction of
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Speaker 1: the country, if not of the world, that the surrender
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Speaker 1: of the rebel commissioners was not a back down, but that,
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Speaker 1: on the contrary, it was in strict accord with American principle.
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Speaker 1: In practice touching the right of search of neutral vessels
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Speaker 1: at see by belligerent powers, it was the American contention
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Speaker 1: that these powers could not, in the exercise of the
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Speaker 1: right of search, bored neutral vessels at sea and take
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Speaker 1: out of them persons on whom such nations might otherwise
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Speaker 1: have perfectly valid claims. This grand principle was now established
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Speaker 1: by the demand of England and the active America. America
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Speaker 1: therefore had no cause for feeling humiliated by the surrender
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Speaker 1: of the prisoners, but rather the strongest reason for experiencing
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Speaker 1: a sense of accomplishment and triumph. To her other glory,
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Speaker 1: she had added the glory of leading the way to
17:15
Speaker 1: the reformation of long existing abuses and wrongs in the
17:18
Speaker 1: law of nations. If America had surrendered the rebels to England,
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Speaker 1: England had truly surrendered a bad principle and the support
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Speaker 1: of many bad precedents to America. The speech produced a
17:30
Speaker 1: profound impression at home and abroad. The London Times was
17:33
Speaker 1: greatly chagrined at the skillful manner in which the orator
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Speaker 1: had turned the surrender to the advantage of the American
17:39
Speaker 1: government and of the American people. The great object of
17:42
Speaker 1: this remarkable oration, growled a famous correspondent of the Thunderer,
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Speaker 1: is to prove that the surrender of Messrs Slydell and
17:49
Speaker 1: Mason is a great triumph for the American government. There
17:52
Speaker 1: is proverbially no accounting for taste, and if the American
17:56
Speaker 1: people are a Mister Sumner's opinion I do not see
17:58
Speaker 1: why we should complain of contentment. But neither the Times
18:02
Speaker 1: nor its famous correspondent was able to laugh down, or
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Speaker 1: sneer down, or argue down the force of the speech. Sumner,
18:08
Speaker 1: with his customary thoroughness, had done what he set out
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Speaker 1: to do, vindicated the government established for it in the
18:14
Speaker 1: popular regard a fresh claim to the confidence and support
18:18
Speaker 1: of the loyal North. And this was in effect dealing
18:21
Speaker 1: another blow upon the head of slavery, the supreme traitor,
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Speaker 1: the origin and mainspring of the rebellion. Some news labors
18:29
Speaker 1: for the recognition of the independence of the Black republics,
18:32
Speaker 1: Haiti and Liberia by the United States as similar results.
18:35
Speaker 1: He found the spirit of slavery entrenched in public opinion
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Speaker 1: and the laws of the land, and it was his
18:40
Speaker 1: purpose to strike it there as well as at the South,
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Speaker 1: in its tattle form. If dislodged from those coins of
18:47
Speaker 1: vantage in the republic, if disowned by public opinion and
18:50
Speaker 1: expelled from the national statutes, he believed that it could
18:53
Speaker 1: be the more readily and effectively dealt with. In the
18:56
Speaker 1: rebellious states, a move for the recognition of the Black
18:59
Speaker 1: rept publics was a move against the many headed wrong
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Speaker 1: of slavery. Before the war, the slave power refused all
19:06
Speaker 1: recognition of Haiti and Liberia as members of the Family
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Speaker 1: of Nations. Nearly a year after the opening of hostilities,
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Speaker 1: President Lincoln, with characteristic caution, suggested the subject to Congress
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Speaker 1: in his annual Message, remarking that if any good reason
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Speaker 1: exists why we should persevere longer in withholding our recognition
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Speaker 1: of the independence and sovereignty of Haiti and Liberia, I'm
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Speaker 1: unable to discern it. He goes on to say that
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Speaker 1: he is unwilling to inaugurate a novel policy in regard
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Speaker 1: to them without the approbation of Congress, and thereupon submits
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Speaker 1: to its consideration the expediency of an appropriation for maintaining
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Speaker 1: our charge d'affaire in each of those new states. This
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Speaker 1: was enough for Sumner, who immediately took the matter up
19:47
Speaker 1: and pursued it with such zeal, discretion, and perseverance that
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Speaker 1: in June these states received their long deferred recognition at
19:54
Speaker 1: the hands of the United States. Governor Andrew felt that
19:58
Speaker 1: the recognition of Haiti and Liby Bury was in effect
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Speaker 1: the recognition of the colored man of the Union as well,
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Speaker 1: and that the passage of the law placed a fresh
20:06
Speaker 1: jewel in Sumner's crown. The considerable and essential service of
20:10
Speaker 1: Sumner towards the success of the measure found grateful acknowledgment
20:14
Speaker 1: and appreciation from the two countries. The Liberian Commissioners Alexander Crummell,
20:19
Speaker 1: Edward W. Blyden, and J. D. Johnson, who were at
20:22
Speaker 1: the time in Washington, promptly expressed the sentiments of Libery
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Speaker 1: to mister Sumner. Had it not been for your masterly policy,
20:29
Speaker 1: they wrote him, and your wise discretion allied to a
20:32
Speaker 1: most persistent determination, we have reason to doubt whether the
20:36
Speaker 1: Bill of Recognition would not have met with a miscarriage
20:38
Speaker 1: during the present session of Congress. The objection to the
20:43
Speaker 1: passage of the Bill of Recognition by mister Salisbury of
20:46
Speaker 1: Delaware is so absolutely absurd, so incredibly comic, and utterly asinine,
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Speaker 1: that the writer begs to reproduce it as a curiosity
20:54
Speaker 1: of the Raciocian nation of a slave master's mind. In
20:57
Speaker 1: US and notatorial debate. It is evident, observed the acute
21:00
Speaker 1: mister Salisbury, that this bill is going to pass. I
21:03
Speaker 1: want the country, however, to know that according to the
21:06
Speaker 1: rules of the Senate. Foreign ministers have a right upon
21:09
Speaker 1: this floor, and we have set apart a portion of
21:11
Speaker 1: the gallery for the ministers and their families. If this
21:14
Speaker 1: bill should pass both houses of Congress and become a law,
21:17
Speaker 1: I predict that in twelve months some negro will walk
21:19
Speaker 1: upon the floor of the Senate of the United States
21:22
Speaker 1: and curious family into that gallery which is set apart
21:24
Speaker 1: for foreign ministers. If that is agreeable to the taste
21:27
Speaker 1: and feeling of the people of this country. It is
21:30
Speaker 1: not of mine to mine, and I only say that
21:32
Speaker 1: I will not be responsible for any such act. With this,
21:35
Speaker 1: I will content myself. The final suppression of the slave
21:39
Speaker 1: trade by a treaty between Great Britain and the United
21:42
Speaker 1: States was another effective low dealt the hydra of the land,
21:45
Speaker 1: the ratification of which by the Senate received the powerful
21:48
Speaker 1: aige of the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations.
21:51
Speaker 1: The ratification of a treaty between the two countries giving
21:53
Speaker 1: to each on the coasts of African America a restricted
21:57
Speaker 1: right of search in suspected vessels flying the national colors
22:00
Speaker 1: of the other, was so long as the slave power
22:03
Speaker 1: dominated the Senate, a thing impossible of accomplishment. The right
22:07
Speaker 1: was yielded for the African coast, but persistently withheld for
22:10
Speaker 1: the American where was notorious that slavery was proud with
22:13
Speaker 1: their African victims for the southern market. But as the
22:16
Speaker 1: war waxed, a new spirit arose in the North against
22:19
Speaker 1: this inhuman commerce. A federal law had denounced it as
22:22
Speaker 1: privacy and punishable with death, but while the slave power ruled,
22:26
Speaker 1: the law remained on the statute book a dead letter.
22:30
Speaker 1: The rising hatred of slavery, as the origin and mainspring
22:33
Speaker 1: of the rebellion which was spreading through the North, galvanized
22:36
Speaker 1: on February twenty one, eighteen sixty two, into sudden and
22:39
Speaker 1: terrible life the dead letter of that law in the
22:41
Speaker 1: execution under it at New York of Nathaniel Gordon, an
22:45
Speaker 1: African slave trader. The Treaty for the Final Suppression of
22:48
Speaker 1: the Atrocious Traffic passed the Senate April twenty fourth, eighteen
22:51
Speaker 1: sixty two. Eight days before the ratification of the Treaty
22:56
Speaker 1: for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade, Slavery was
23:00
Speaker 1: abolished by law in the District of Columbia. Sumner sustained
23:05
Speaker 1: a principal part in the consummation of this great act.
23:08
Speaker 1: He was pained and discouraged by the absence from the
23:10
Speaker 1: Annual Message of the President of any proposition or discussion
23:13
Speaker 1: touching emancipation. There was nothing in that document to indicate
23:17
Speaker 1: that mister Lincoln was considering the subject at all. On
23:20
Speaker 1: the countrary, the President had told him of circumstances which
23:23
Speaker 1: might lead him to infer that mister Lincoln was still
23:25
Speaker 1: opposed to the use of this best weapon in the
23:27
Speaker 1: prosecution of the war for the Union. From the report
23:30
Speaker 1: of Simon Cameron, then Secretary of War, the President had
23:33
Speaker 1: struck a strong passage in relation to this very matter.
23:36
Speaker 1: But notwithstanding these unfavorable symptoms, Sumner began to feel assured
23:41
Speaker 1: that the President was seriously grappling with the question. It
23:45
Speaker 1: was not long before Sumner's faith in the President was
23:47
Speaker 1: happily confirmed. Early on the morning of March sixth, he
23:51
Speaker 1: was summoned to meet mister Lincoln, who read to him
23:53
Speaker 1: the draft of the Special Message of that date proposing
23:56
Speaker 1: compensated emancipation. Who was never inclined to attach much value
24:02
Speaker 1: to the schemes for compensated emancipation, especially in a large scale,
24:06
Speaker 1: was too thankful for this evidence that the President was
24:09
Speaker 1: ready to move abolition word to take a new departure, however,
24:13
Speaker 1: slight from the old policy of forbearance for other than
24:16
Speaker 1: cordial words of welcome for the message. At his instance,
24:20
Speaker 1: the President struck a doubtful paragraph from the draft. That day,
24:24
Speaker 1: the message was communicated to the Senate that the good work,
24:26
Speaker 1: as far as mister Lincoln was concerned, was begun, although
24:29
Speaker 1: no practical results followed. This particular act of is The
24:33
Speaker 1: principle of compensated emancipation on a small scale had been
24:36
Speaker 1: embodied in a bill introduced in the Senate by Henry
24:39
Speaker 1: Wilson December sixteenth for the abolition of slavery in the
24:42
Speaker 1: District of Columbia. Sumner, unwilling to endorse the principle of
24:46
Speaker 1: compensated emancipation because it involved recognition of right of property
24:51
Speaker 1: in persons, treated the measure as a scheme for the
24:53
Speaker 1: ransom of the slaves at the National Capitol, rejecting with
24:57
Speaker 1: indignation the wild and guilty fantasy that man can hold
25:00
Speaker 1: property in man. He nevertheless was ready to help to
25:03
Speaker 1: build a bridge of gold for the banishment of the
25:06
Speaker 1: barbarism of slavery. Amidst all present solicitudes, where the fervid
25:10
Speaker 1: and cheering words with which he closed his able and
25:13
Speaker 1: elaborate argument in support of the bill for emancipation, amidst
25:16
Speaker 1: all present solicitudes, the future cannot be doubtful at the
25:20
Speaker 1: National Capitol. Slavery will give way to freedom, But the
25:23
Speaker 1: good work will not stop here. It must proceed what
25:26
Speaker 1: God in nature decree. Rebellion cannot arrest. And as the
25:29
Speaker 1: whole widespread tyranny begins to tumble, then above the din
25:33
Speaker 1: of battle, sounding from the sea and echoing along the land.
25:36
Speaker 1: Above even the exaltations of victory on heart fought fields
25:39
Speaker 1: will ascend voices of gladness wherever civilization bears sway to
25:43
Speaker 1: commemorate a sacred triumph whose trophies, instead of tattered banners,
25:47
Speaker 1: are ransom slaves. On April sixteen, eighteen sixty two, the
25:51
Speaker 1: District Emancipation Act received the approval of the President. It
25:55
Speaker 1: was freedom's first practical victory over slavery in the government.
25:58
Speaker 1: Mister Lincoln, true to his character for going slow where
26:01
Speaker 1: any disturbance of the status quo of the invested interests
26:04
Speaker 1: of slave masters was involved without his approval from the
26:08
Speaker 1: measure five days after it passed the House. This delay
26:11
Speaker 1: of the President gave rise to no little anxiety on
26:14
Speaker 1: the part of the supporters of the bill. Among these
26:16
Speaker 1: anxious friends was mister Sumner, who, during this painful period
26:19
Speaker 1: called on mister Lincoln and expressed the astonishment which he
26:22
Speaker 1: felt that the author of the special messages on compensated
26:26
Speaker 1: emanticipation could postpone his approval of the District Emancipation Act
26:31
Speaker 1: a single night. Do you know who, at this moment
26:33
Speaker 1: is the largest slaveholder in this country? Sumner asked the
26:38
Speaker 1: great man, with costly guarany, and without waiting for reply, answered,
26:41
Speaker 1: thus it is Abraham Lincoln, for he holds all the
26:44
Speaker 1: three thousand slaves of the district, which is more than
26:47
Speaker 1: any other person in the country holds. But if mister
26:50
Speaker 1: Lincoln was loth to meddle with the status quo slavery
26:53
Speaker 1: in the Union, not so was mister Sumner, who was
26:56
Speaker 1: ever in motion and running a tilt now at one,
26:58
Speaker 1: now at another, of the man heads of the colossal evil.
27:02
Speaker 1: Now it was against the incredible meanness of that proscriptive
27:06
Speaker 1: spirit which denied to the colored citizens going abroad the
27:09
Speaker 1: passport of the government, or which refused to issue patents
27:12
Speaker 1: to inventors on account of color. Now it was against
27:15
Speaker 1: those twin abominations which erected a man's color into a
27:19
Speaker 1: legal barrier to his carrying the males, or made it
27:22
Speaker 1: a ground for excluding his testament in judicial proceedings held
27:25
Speaker 1: under the Black Code of the District of Columbia and
27:29
Speaker 1: of the Slave States, wherein so runneth the black letter
27:32
Speaker 1: of the Black Law, any Christian white person is concerned.
27:37
Speaker 1: Sumner began his efforts for the amoment of this infamous
27:40
Speaker 1: law while the District Emancipation Bill was under consideration in
27:43
Speaker 1: the Senate. Aware that its total abolishment would not be
27:47
Speaker 1: immediately effected, he moved to amend the bill by the
27:50
Speaker 1: addition of a provision which prohibited the exclusion of any
27:53
Speaker 1: witness on account of color in proceeding held under the act.
27:57
Speaker 1: This was the thin edge of the movement for the
27:59
Speaker 1: civil rights of colors in the United States, the first
28:02
Speaker 1: step taken by the government toward equality before the law.
28:05
Speaker 1: Having obtained so much for his colored fellow citizens, Sumner
28:09
Speaker 1: a few months later made a second attempt in the
28:11
Speaker 1: same direction, and this time it was to extend the
28:13
Speaker 1: immunity to all judicial proceedings in the district. The second
28:17
Speaker 1: attempt proved also successful, and equality began to erect its
28:21
Speaker 1: benign crest over the black code of the national capital. Sumner,
28:26
Speaker 1: ever persistent and indefatigable, made a third attempt still further
28:30
Speaker 1: to broaden the immunity by extending the operation of the
28:32
Speaker 1: principal non exclusion to the Southern states and judicial proceedings
28:37
Speaker 1: had under the Confiscation and Liberation Act. But this step
28:41
Speaker 1: was farther than the Senate was ready to go at
28:43
Speaker 1: that time, and so mister Sumner's amendment was rejected. Congress,
28:47
Speaker 1: like the President, was singularly timid in inaugurating any novel
28:50
Speaker 1: policy in that regard, surprising the tender of the rights
28:53
Speaker 1: and prejudices of slave masters at the expense of the slaves.
28:58
Speaker 1: Defeat had no deterrentti act upon a mind like Sumner's.
29:02
Speaker 1: Failing once, he tried again and again until he succeeded.
29:05
Speaker 1: Three times. He attempted to extend the principle of non
29:07
Speaker 1: exclusion and equality to the proceedings in the courts of
29:10
Speaker 1: the United States. Before he was enabled to carry his point.
29:14
Speaker 1: In the summer of eighteen sixty four, he attached his
29:17
Speaker 1: proposition to the Sundry Civil Appropriation Bill as an amendment,
29:21
Speaker 1: and thus forced its consideration upon the Senate. John Jerman
29:25
Speaker 1: trusted that, after the experiences of last night, when the
29:28
Speaker 1: thermometer here rose to ninety three degrees, and we were
29:31
Speaker 1: exhausted by debate on irrelevant matter, this Senator from Massachusetts
29:35
Speaker 1: would not introduce upon this Appropriation Bill a topic of
29:38
Speaker 1: this kind. But mister Sherman's protest was in vain, for
29:41
Speaker 1: neither the heat of the evening nor the disapproval of
29:44
Speaker 1: senators could deter Sumner from his purpose to purge the
29:47
Speaker 1: laws of the Union of the stain of slavery, and
29:49
Speaker 1: to redress the wrongs of an oppressed race. His vigilance
29:55
Speaker 1: and persistency secured at this time a double triumph of freedom.
29:58
Speaker 1: On the self same Appropriation Bill, he grafted an amendment
30:01
Speaker 1: for the abolition of the coastwise slave trade. In no
30:04
Speaker 1: other way had he been able to force the continued
30:07
Speaker 1: existence of this barbarism. Upon the attention of the Senate.
30:11
Speaker 1: Mister Sherman, as Chairman of the Finance Committee, deprecated the amendment,
30:14
Speaker 1: not because he was opposed to the proposition, but that
30:17
Speaker 1: he wanted his bill kept free from disputed extraneous political questions.
30:22
Speaker 1: But Sumner was firm, uncompromising, and so in the end
30:25
Speaker 1: the Senate and not he yielded, and the writer passed
30:28
Speaker 1: with the bill. Thomas H. Hendricks of Indiana, in the
30:31
Speaker 1: course of a speech and opposition to Sumner's Amendment for
30:34
Speaker 1: the abolition of the coastwise slave trade, uttered the following
30:37
Speaker 1: significant remarks, I'm surprised that any Senator should oppose the
30:41
Speaker 1: proposition of the Senator of Massachusetts, for we all know
30:44
Speaker 1: that eventually it will be adopted. The objection as to
30:47
Speaker 1: its materiality or proper connection with the measure is but
30:51
Speaker 1: an objection of time. No gentleman can question that the
30:55
Speaker 1: Senator from Massachusetts will eventually carry his proposition. Why then,
30:59
Speaker 1: can test the man longer? It may as well come
31:02
Speaker 1: now as at any time. The fact is Sumner was
31:04
Speaker 1: the anti slavery, trail finder and path opener for the government.
31:08
Speaker 1: Where he made away, Congress and President were in time
31:11
Speaker 1: sure to follow. His earnestness and radicalism were not always
31:16
Speaker 1: relished by the administration and his associates in the government. That, however,
31:20
Speaker 1: did not make him less. So it was for him
31:22
Speaker 1: to press forward himself and to urge forward others in
31:25
Speaker 1: this emergency, whether they chose to hear and heed him
31:28
Speaker 1: or not. He had an intolerant and compromising manner towards
31:32
Speaker 1: slavery and toward anyone who sought to buttress its barbarisms,
31:35
Speaker 1: with the authority of the nation whose life it was
31:38
Speaker 1: seeking to destroy, which was at times, no doubt a
31:41
Speaker 1: sore thorn in the sides of the cautious conciliatory. President
31:45
Speaker 1: Edward Stanley, provisional Governor of North Carolina, arouses the hot
31:49
Speaker 1: indignation of this man, with his passionate hatred of slavery,
31:52
Speaker 1: by an attempt to revive the Black Code of that state,
31:54
Speaker 1: which made the teaching of negros a criminal offense. When
31:58
Speaker 1: Sumner heard of this shame attempt, he hurried to lay
32:01
Speaker 1: the matter before mister Lincoln. Not finding that usually placid
32:04
Speaker 1: and Jockos, magistrate a the executive Mansion, Sumner followed him
32:08
Speaker 1: to the War Department. They relate his case before mister
32:11
Speaker 1: Stanley's master, but mister Stanley's master, possibly worn out with
32:15
Speaker 1: the abolish and badgery with which he was treated by
32:18
Speaker 1: mister Sumner, whenever they met, either by accident or appointment,
32:21
Speaker 1: and possibly struck also by the apparent triviality of the
32:25
Speaker 1: subject and the inopportunity of the visit, quite lost his patients,
32:29
Speaker 1: exclaiming petulantly, do you take me for a school committee man?
32:33
Speaker 1: Not at all, Summer applied. I take you for President
32:35
Speaker 1: of the United States. And I come with a case
32:37
Speaker 1: of wrong in attending to which your predecessor, George Washington,
32:40
Speaker 1: if alife, might add to his renown such earnestness and dignity,
32:46
Speaker 1: smooth and rougher temper of George Washington's worthy successor, who, thereupon,
32:50
Speaker 1: with perfect kindness, considered the case with his friend. At last,
32:54
Speaker 1: after nearly two years of terrible conflict and destruction of
32:57
Speaker 1: life to save the Union with slavery, mister Lincoln was
32:59
Speaker 1: ready to try the other horn of the dilemma and
33:02
Speaker 1: test the cell mobility of the nation without slavery. To
33:05
Speaker 1: this end, on September twenty two, eighteen sixty two, he
33:08
Speaker 1: announced his purpose to grasp emancipation as an instrument in
33:11
Speaker 1: the struggle. On that date he issued his preliminary Proclamation,
33:15
Speaker 1: which declared that the slaves in all states and rebellion
33:18
Speaker 1: on January one, eighteen sixty three, should be thenceforward and
33:21
Speaker 1: forever free. Directly, the President had firmly seized emancipation as
33:26
Speaker 1: a weapon for putting down the rebellion. Sumners started the
33:29
Speaker 1: agitation for colored troops two weeks after the preliminary proclamation
33:33
Speaker 1: was issued. He launched from the platform of Vaniuyux Hall
33:36
Speaker 1: the proposition to turn the slaves into soldiers. He pointed
33:39
Speaker 1: to Crispus atticts, to Peter Salem, and to heroic instances
33:42
Speaker 1: during the War for the Union as proof positive that
33:45
Speaker 1: the negroes possessed the stuff out of which good fighters
33:48
Speaker 1: were formed. Strike slavery, the origin and mainspring of rebellion,
33:52
Speaker 1: with the strong arm of the slave. Destroy the rebellion
33:55
Speaker 1: by destroying slavery and arming the blacks. Emancipation and colored
33:59
Speaker 1: troops are the powder and ball which Providence hath ran
34:02
Speaker 1: into the cannon of the north. Empty the providential broadside
34:05
Speaker 1: into the flanks of the foe. These and more he
34:08
Speaker 1: thundered in the ears of the government and the country.
34:11
Speaker 1: Other and mightier voices were thundering for colored troops. Also,
34:14
Speaker 1: passionate voices of lamentation of frightful reverses of broken and
34:18
Speaker 1: flying armies of bafful friends of the Union, whose hearts
34:21
Speaker 1: were growing sick at the gloomy the almost hopeless outlook
34:24
Speaker 1: for a speedy restoration of peace to a bleeding and
34:27
Speaker 1: distracted land. As early as July eighteen sixty two, the
34:31
Speaker 1: disastrous fortunes of the Union forces were constraining the government
34:35
Speaker 1: in its emergency to make use of all the means
34:38
Speaker 1: which the state of the country had been within its
34:40
Speaker 1: reach for the suppression of the rebellion. Military necessity was
34:44
Speaker 1: plainly demanding that the services of the Blacks in some
34:47
Speaker 1: capacity should be enlisted on the side of the nation,
34:50
Speaker 1: and so, on the seventeenth of that month, the President
34:52
Speaker 1: affixed his approval to a bill authorizing him to recede
34:55
Speaker 1: into the service of the United States for the purpose
34:58
Speaker 1: of constructing entrancements, or performing camp service, or any other labor,
35:02
Speaker 1: or any military or naval service for which they may
35:04
Speaker 1: be found competent persons of African descent, and such persons
35:08
Speaker 1: shall be enrolled and organized under such regulations not inconsistent
35:12
Speaker 1: with the Constitution and laws as the President may prescribe.
35:16
Speaker 1: This was the first cautious step taken toward carrying Africa
35:19
Speaker 1: into the war, the beginning in fact of colored troops.
35:22
Speaker 1: On February ninth, eighteen sixty three, mister Summer introduced in
35:26
Speaker 1: the Senator bill for the enlistment of slaves and other
35:29
Speaker 1: persons of African descent, But the measure was allowed to
35:32
Speaker 1: sleep the sleep of death in the Military Committee to
35:34
Speaker 1: which it was referred. It was not until a year
35:37
Speaker 1: afterward that the subject was revived in the House by
35:39
Speaker 1: Thudeus Stevens, when the employment of colored troops was expressly authorized.
35:44
Speaker 1: Colored troops were employed, however, many months before the tardy
35:48
Speaker 1: enactment of this law. On January twenty sixth, eighteen sixty three,
35:51
Speaker 1: Secretary Stanton gave permission to Governor Andrew to raise a
35:54
Speaker 1: colored regiment. This regiment, the afterwards famous fifty fourth was raised,
35:59
Speaker 1: and the following may or ordered to the seat of
36:01
Speaker 1: war in South Carolina, where under its gallant, young Colonel
36:04
Speaker 1: Robert G. Shaw, it demonstrated before Fort Wagner that the
36:07
Speaker 1: Blacks had the stuff of true soldiers in them. Subsequently,
36:11
Speaker 1: Massachusetts sent to other regiments of colored soldiers into the field,
36:14
Speaker 1: one of infantry and the other of cavalry. Their fighting
36:17
Speaker 1: qualities were soon established. If at first the employment of
36:20
Speaker 1: colored troops was a hard riddle to many minds, those
36:23
Speaker 1: three black regiments wrote the glorious answer, clear and large
36:26
Speaker 1: for the nation to read, and the nation, notwithstanding its
36:29
Speaker 1: prow slavery goggles, which minimized and distorted everything connected with
36:33
Speaker 1: the humanity, A man who writes of this unfortunate race
36:37
Speaker 1: was not so blind to its own emergent needs as
36:40
Speaker 1: to miss the point and immense significance of the lesson
36:43
Speaker 1: writ in the blood and of its colored contingent. But
36:47
Speaker 1: though the North was not, in these circumstances blind to
36:50
Speaker 1: its own dire needs, it proved on almost every occasion
36:52
Speaker 1: calling for justice to its colored allies, blinded enough to
36:56
Speaker 1: their simplest demands for fair and equal treatment. There is
36:59
Speaker 1: something in mean in that pro slavery spirit, which, after
37:03
Speaker 1: calling men to fight and die to preserve the life
37:05
Speaker 1: of the nation, could refuse them equal pay with the
37:08
Speaker 1: other soldiers on account of their color. Nevertheless, of such
37:11
Speaker 1: incredible meanness was the government certainly guilty toward its colored troops. Kinney,
37:16
Speaker 1: did mister Sumner few of this outrageous discrimination against his wards. Again,
37:20
Speaker 1: and again he attacked it, sought repeatedly to place the
37:22
Speaker 1: black soldiers on an equality in respect of pay and
37:25
Speaker 1: bounty with their white brothers in arms. He was not
37:28
Speaker 1: alone in efforts to this end. Wilson and Frison, and
37:32
Speaker 1: in the Senate proceeded with him the wrong and endeavored
37:34
Speaker 1: to have it redressed, but not with the moral earnestness
37:38
Speaker 1: and persistency which characterized the endeavors of Sumner in that regard.
37:42
Speaker 1: The fifty fourth and the fifty fifth Massachusetts regiments of
37:45
Speaker 1: colored troops enlisted with the understanding that there was to
37:48
Speaker 1: be no discrimination against them on account of their color,
37:51
Speaker 1: but all the same, the government paid them ten dollars
37:53
Speaker 1: a month, where it paid thirteen to the privates of
37:55
Speaker 1: white regiments. Massachusetts tried to correct this injustice on making
37:59
Speaker 1: up out of her own coffers these three dollars to
38:02
Speaker 1: the men, But when this difference was sent to be
38:04
Speaker 1: paid to those two regiments, they firmly declined to receive
38:07
Speaker 1: the money. Less by so doing they compromise their demand
38:10
Speaker 1: for equality in the army. In February and June of
38:15
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty four, mister Sumner pressed this subject upon the
38:18
Speaker 1: tension of the Senate, arguing that the wrong done had
38:21
Speaker 1: no warrant and law, since those regiments did not enlist
38:24
Speaker 1: under the Act of eighteen sixty two, which contained a
38:26
Speaker 1: special provision with reference to African troops, but under that
38:29
Speaker 1: of eighteen sixty one, which contained no such provision and
38:32
Speaker 1: authorized enlistments for three years. The question was finally settled
38:36
Speaker 1: not by the legislation, but through the interpretation of the
38:39
Speaker 1: statues by the Law Department of the government. The Attorney General,
38:43
Speaker 1: mister Bates, in affirming the equal rights of colored soldiers,
38:46
Speaker 1: put an end to this odious cast distinction in the
38:49
Speaker 1: National service and constrained the government to a step of
38:52
Speaker 1: tardy justice. The government, of both its legislative and executive
38:56
Speaker 1: branches manifested from first to last and extraordinary to med
39:00
Speaker 1: or in disposition to advance the interest of the colored race.
39:04
Speaker 1: Fear of the border states was probably responsible for much
39:07
Speaker 1: of this singular conduct, but colour phobia in the government
39:10
Speaker 1: itself played without doubt an important part in its production.
39:14
Speaker 1: The records of those years are full of examples of
39:17
Speaker 1: this character. Here is an instance in point Henry Wilson,
39:20
Speaker 1: as early as January eighteen sixty four, embodied in a
39:22
Speaker 1: bill to promote enlistments a clause declaring that when any
39:26
Speaker 1: man or boy of African descent, or in service or
39:29
Speaker 1: labor in any state under its laws, should be mustered
39:31
Speaker 1: into the military or naval service of the United States,
39:34
Speaker 1: he and his mother, wife, and children shall be forever free.
39:39
Speaker 1: This perfectly just and very moderate measure required a year
39:42
Speaker 1: and a month before its friends could secure its enactment
39:45
Speaker 1: into law. Future generation, exclaimed Sumner in his closing remarks
39:49
Speaker 1: upon the bill. Future generations will read this amazement that
39:52
Speaker 1: a great people, when national life was assailed, hesitated to
39:56
Speaker 1: exercise a power so simple and beneficent. And this amazement
39:59
Speaker 1: will no bounds. As they learned that Congress haggled for
40:02
Speaker 1: months on a question whether the wives and children of
40:04
Speaker 1: our colored soldiers should be admitted to freedom. Slavery died hard.
40:08
Speaker 1: Fugitive slaves were hunted in the District of Columbia. Even
40:11
Speaker 1: after the passage of the District Emancipation Bill. The poor
40:15
Speaker 1: fleeing creatures were returned again and again to their owners
40:18
Speaker 1: by the Union armies. These acts became so frequent in
40:21
Speaker 1: general that Congress in them the summer of eighteen sixty
40:23
Speaker 1: two prohibited military and naval officers from erecting themselves into
40:28
Speaker 1: commissioners for the Return of Fugitive Slaves on pain of
40:31
Speaker 1: being dismissed from the service. In February eighteen sixty four,
40:35
Speaker 1: mister Sumner reported from the Committee on Slavery and Free
40:38
Speaker 1: Men a Bill for the repeal of all Acts for
40:40
Speaker 1: the Rendition of Fugitive Slaves. The bill he accompanied with
40:44
Speaker 1: a comprehensive report reviewing the history and influence of slavery
40:47
Speaker 1: in the government in its relation to these acts, inclosing
40:49
Speaker 1: with a demand for their entire and instant repeal. But
40:52
Speaker 1: notwithstanding that the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued more than
40:56
Speaker 1: thirteen months before, and that the Secretary of War had
40:58
Speaker 1: more than a year previously given Governor Andrew official permission
41:01
Speaker 1: to raise a regiment of colored troops, and that at
41:04
Speaker 1: the time of its introduction in the Senate, several colored
41:06
Speaker 1: regiments were in the field fighting the battles of the country.
41:09
Speaker 1: Yet the history of its passage through Congress was another
41:12
Speaker 1: repetition of the old shameful story that the repeal of
41:16
Speaker 1: the Fugitive Slave Act should be bitterly opposed by the Democrats.
41:19
Speaker 1: Was not at all surprising, but we confess to no
41:22
Speaker 1: little astonishment in noticing that Senator Sherman obstructed his passage
41:26
Speaker 1: through the Senate, that he actually sought to emasculate the
41:29
Speaker 1: bill by an amendment which save the Fugitive Slave Law
41:32
Speaker 1: of seventy ninety three in full force on the statute book,
41:35
Speaker 1: and that this proposition was adopted and grafted on the
41:37
Speaker 1: bill by the Senate. Mister Foster of Connecticut on April twenty,
41:41
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty four, made an elaborate argument in vindication of
41:44
Speaker 1: the Act of seventeen ninety three. With mister Sherman's pro
41:49
Speaker 1: slavery amendment grafted upon his bill, mister Sumner wisely refrained
41:52
Speaker 1: from pressing it to a vote by desertment, as he
41:55
Speaker 1: not infrequently did in similar circumstances, to await the action
41:58
Speaker 1: of the House, which on June fifteenth passed a bill
42:01
Speaker 1: repealing all the fugitive Slave Acts. This measure, mister Sumner
42:05
Speaker 1: reported in the Senate and pressed to a vote. It
42:07
Speaker 1: was not until the twenty eighth of June that this
42:09
Speaker 1: bill became a law, that is, more than five months
42:11
Speaker 1: after the date on which mister Summer introduced the proposition
42:14
Speaker 1: in the Senate. However, thanks to his persistency, Congress had
42:18
Speaker 1: at last made and into those wicked laws and dealt
42:20
Speaker 1: another blow to the expiring slave hydra. The main proposition, ever,
42:25
Speaker 1: is to strike slavery whenever you can hit it, retorted
42:29
Speaker 1: Sor to John Sherman. During the consideration of the bill
42:32
Speaker 1: to Liberate the Wives and children of Colored Soldiers, mister
42:35
Speaker 1: Sherman had moved to postpone consideration of the measure, with
42:37
Speaker 1: a view that we may act upon the main proposition
42:40
Speaker 1: to it, the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery. Sumner was certainly
42:44
Speaker 1: not less earnest and persistent for the adoption of the
42:46
Speaker 1: constitutional amendment than was mister Sherman. But he did not
42:49
Speaker 1: feel that, because the Joint Resolution was on its passage
42:52
Speaker 1: through Congress, that all anti slavery efforts would to be
42:55
Speaker 1: pretermitted in the meantime, And without doubt it behooved him
42:59
Speaker 1: who was bent on the death of slavery, as no
43:01
Speaker 1: other member of the government was to continue without cessation
43:05
Speaker 1: the struggle for its destruction. For the Joint Resolution was
43:08
Speaker 1: more than a year on its way through both branches
43:10
Speaker 1: of Congress, and it was two years in all from
43:12
Speaker 1: its introduction to the final ratification of the Amendment by
43:15
Speaker 1: the requisite number of states, and proclamation of that fact
43:18
Speaker 1: by mister Seward, the Secretary of State. Sumner was right
43:22
Speaker 1: to take nothing for granted where slavery was concerned, to
43:26
Speaker 1: regard the enactment of no measure, however, just an expedient
43:29
Speaker 1: which involved the abolishment of the curse as a foregone conclusion.
43:32
Speaker 1: He was strongly and sternly unwilling to commit the fate
43:35
Speaker 1: of the slaves in any degree to the Chapter of
43:38
Speaker 1: Accidents and Chances. He was for striking the failed destroyer
43:41
Speaker 1: of the freedom of the colored race and of the
43:43
Speaker 1: peace of the Union, whenever and wherever Congress could do so,
43:46
Speaker 1: and this was at all times and under all circumstances.
43:50
Speaker 1: His main proposition, the final breaking down of cast distinction
43:54
Speaker 1: on the street cars of the District of Columbia, was
43:56
Speaker 1: achieved largely through his active and persistent hostility took in
44:00
Speaker 1: hitting it. He knew well that he was hitting one
44:03
Speaker 1: of the many heads of the monster wrong of the land,
44:06
Speaker 1: and it was characteristic of him that, when he began
44:08
Speaker 1: to operate with his club upon one of those baleful heads,
44:12
Speaker 1: he desisted not until that particular foe of freedom was
44:14
Speaker 1: subdued and beaten to the earth. When after another of
44:18
Speaker 1: the street car lines of the Capital, he attacked as
44:20
Speaker 1: they entered the Senate to obtain renewals of their franchises
44:24
Speaker 1: with his invariable amendment to their respective bills for incorporations,
44:28
Speaker 1: provided that there shall be no regulation excluding any person
44:31
Speaker 1: from any car on account of color. The last of
44:34
Speaker 1: these street railway companies to succumb was the Washington and
44:37
Speaker 1: Georgetown Company, which in February eighteen sixty five surrendered to
44:41
Speaker 1: the genius of equality before the law. After this time
44:44
Speaker 1: it was illegal for any street railway company in the
44:47
Speaker 1: District of Columbia to exclude from its cars any person
44:50
Speaker 1: on account of color. But even then mister Sumner did
44:53
Speaker 1: not put aside his club and will that he did not,
44:56
Speaker 1: for the fight for equality of the cars were not
44:58
Speaker 1: yet finished. Washington and Georgetown Company neglected to comply promptly
45:03
Speaker 1: with the provisions of the law by keeping up the
45:05
Speaker 1: discrimination against colored persons who sought to enter its cars.
45:09
Speaker 1: When this illegal action was brought to mister Sumner's knowledge,
45:12
Speaker 1: he wrote a sharp note to the president of the
45:14
Speaker 1: company calling his attention to the failure of his agents
45:17
Speaker 1: to obey the law, and serving notice on him that
45:20
Speaker 1: unless the breach was meant that he, mister Sumnit would,
45:22
Speaker 1: at the next session of Congress, move the forfeiture of
45:25
Speaker 1: the charter of the corporation. This determinant front brought the
45:29
Speaker 1: company to its senses and consummated the final opening of
45:32
Speaker 1: the street cars of the District of Columbia to all persons,
45:35
Speaker 1: regardless of race or color. Slavery is dying on sea
45:39
Speaker 1: and land. Rebellion everywhere through the length and breadth of
45:41
Speaker 1: the South is collapsing under the tremendous trip hammring of Grant,
45:45
Speaker 1: Sherman and the Union Armies, reinforced now with more than
45:48
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty thousand Colored soldiers, Sherman begins his
45:52
Speaker 1: masterly march to the sea. Now Atlanta falls before the
45:54
Speaker 1: advances of his resistless legions, now Savannah, now Charleston. Now
45:58
Speaker 1: Grant has begun thoseen essant and mighty blows which are
46:01
Speaker 1: to drive the rebels from Richmond, to beat to pieces
46:04
Speaker 1: the proud and hitherto invincible army of Northern Virginia, and
46:07
Speaker 1: to force Lee to surrender all these great events were
46:09
Speaker 1: coming to pass. While say lay writhing in death, throws
46:13
Speaker 1: terrible in life, it was appalling in death. Its last
46:15
Speaker 1: act was worthy of it, that act which added the
46:18
Speaker 1: assassination of a president to the Black Mountain of its
46:21
Speaker 1: matchless horrors and iniquities. Lincoln and Sumner, though unlike, were
46:27
Speaker 1: nevertheless the best of friends. No more faithful supporter had
46:30
Speaker 1: mister Lincoln than was mister Sumner. They, notwithstanding frequent differences,
46:35
Speaker 1: were cordially appreciative of the virtues of each other. Sumner
46:38
Speaker 1: heartily and unwaveringly urged the President's claims to renomination and
46:42
Speaker 1: re election. Others of the radical and anti slavery wing
46:44
Speaker 1: of the Republican Party preferred Chase, but close friends as
46:47
Speaker 1: were Sumner and Chase, the former never disguised as a
46:50
Speaker 1: sided preference for mister Lincoln as his own successive. Lincoln
46:54
Speaker 1: was slow, excessively cautious, perhaps, yet he was in the
46:57
Speaker 1: main inclined ambolition word a rate, he was a bird
47:01
Speaker 1: in the hand, while all other candidates were regarded by
47:03
Speaker 1: Sumner as politically so many birds in the bush. He
47:07
Speaker 1: very wisely refused to imperil the anti slavery accomplishments and
47:10
Speaker 1: prospects of the war in the crisis of a change
47:12
Speaker 1: of administration. The circumstances of his last conference with the
47:17
Speaker 1: President are infinitely creditable to the heads and hearts of both.
47:20
Speaker 1: In June eighteen sixty four, it appears that the Smith
47:23
Speaker 1: brothers of Boston were, by order of the Navy Department,
47:26
Speaker 1: charged with fraud in the performance of certain contracts with
47:29
Speaker 1: that department. They were imprisoned in Fort Warren and Baio
47:32
Speaker 1: placed at half a million dollars. The trial of these
47:35
Speaker 1: men was held before a military tribunal, which sentenced them
47:38
Speaker 1: to two years imprisonment and to pay a fine of
47:40
Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars. Some had laid the case of the
47:43
Speaker 1: convicted men before the President and appealed to him to
47:45
Speaker 1: revoke the sentence of the court. Mister Lincoln, who was
47:48
Speaker 1: evidently impressed with mister Sumner's representation of the facts, requested
47:52
Speaker 1: him to read the report to the Secretary of the
47:54
Speaker 1: Navy in relation to the case, and to give an
47:56
Speaker 1: opinion of the same. This Sumner did at once and
48:00
Speaker 1: prepared for the President a written opinion thereon. As soon
48:03
Speaker 1: as this was done, he presented himself at the Executive mansion.
48:08
Speaker 1: It was late in the afternoon, and the illustrious object
48:10
Speaker 1: of his visit was on the point of entering his
48:13
Speaker 1: carriage for a drive. The President suggested that the transaction
48:16
Speaker 1: be put off until next day, but mister Sumner replied
48:19
Speaker 1: that it was a case which did not admit of delight,
48:21
Speaker 1: and that the President ought not to sleep that night
48:23
Speaker 1: until he had considered it. Touched by mister Sumner's earnestness,
48:28
Speaker 1: mister Lincoln made an appointment with him for eleven o'clock
48:30
Speaker 1: that evening. At that hour, and through a thunderstorm, mister
48:33
Speaker 1: Sumner joined the President, who was promptly on hand to
48:35
Speaker 1: listen to the opinion, which he had requested. At the
48:38
Speaker 1: conclusion of the reading of it, mister Lincoln said that
48:41
Speaker 1: he would write his opinion at once and invited mister
48:43
Speaker 1: Sumner to call the next morning to hear it, adding
48:45
Speaker 1: defensively that he opened shop at nine o'clock at the
48:49
Speaker 1: time appointed. Mister Sumner was on hand and read with
48:51
Speaker 1: satisfaction the President's disapproval of the judgment and sentence. While
48:56
Speaker 1: mister Sumner was making an abstract of the presidential endorsement
49:00
Speaker 1: to Lincoln, regaled him with passages from the Effusions of
49:03
Speaker 1: Petroleum v Nasby. The reading was diversified with a running
49:07
Speaker 1: commentary from the reader. For the genius to write these things,
49:10
Speaker 1: I would gladly give up my office, he repeated enthusiastically
49:14
Speaker 1: to mister Summer, as the message which he had sent
49:16
Speaker 1: the author. This singular entertainment lasted about half an hour.
49:20
Speaker 1: It was the last time that these two great men
49:23
Speaker 1: met for the transaction of public business. From March twenty three,
49:26
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five, the President left Washington to join General
49:29
Speaker 1: Grant at City Point, where he remained until after the
49:31
Speaker 1: fall of Richmond. He returned to Washington April ninth, and
49:34
Speaker 1: on the following Friday evening April fourteenth, was shot by
49:38
Speaker 1: John Wilkes Booth and died early the next morning. No
49:41
Speaker 1: more generous and glowing tribute was pronounced over the grave
49:44
Speaker 1: of the illustrious martyr to liberty and Union than while
49:47
Speaker 1: Sumner's eulogy before the municipal authorities of the City of
49:50
Speaker 1: Boston June one, eighteen sixty five, drue to his habit
49:53
Speaker 1: of ending no speech unless in some way demanded the
49:56
Speaker 1: destruction of slavery. The order did not allow such an
49:58
Speaker 1: imposing occasion to pass without calling for the total annihilation
50:02
Speaker 1: of the accursed thing with his vast, spider like web
50:04
Speaker 1: of caste and inequality. The permanent supremacy in the Republic
50:08
Speaker 1: of the ideas for which the North had fought depended,
50:11
Speaker 1: he solemnly declared above the grave of the great statesman
50:14
Speaker 1: who had met martyred him for those ideas. Upon the
50:16
Speaker 1: extension of the suffrage to the colored mint of the South.
50:19
Speaker 1: Indemnity for the past and security for the future was
50:22
Speaker 1: the one que which he had chosen to guide his
50:24
Speaker 1: feet through the mazes of reconstruction of the rebellious States.
50:30
Speaker 1: End of Chapter thirteen.