CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



149 



amendments have been voted on the bill by 

 friends of amnesty, by men who have heralded 

 themselves throughout the country as the 

 friends of amnesty. I merely wish to call the 

 attention of the country to their votes." 



Mr. Sawyer, of South Carolina, said: "I 

 was about to remark that my colleague has 

 saen fit to say that the friends of amnesty, or 

 those who claim to be its friends, have slaugh- 

 tered the bill by moving amendments, or by 

 voting for amendments. N"ow, Mr. President, 

 I am one of those who believe that an amnes- 

 ty bill, when passed, should be a proper one. 

 There are many features which I would be 

 willing to waive in this bill which are, never- 

 theless very objectionable ; but I am not one 

 of those whose love for amnesty is such that it 

 cannot wait a very few days for a cerfcain ver- 

 dict on the part of Congress in regard to it. 

 I have no more question that this Congress, in 

 a very short time, will pass an amnesty bill, 

 than I have that the time will come about 

 when we shall assemble again." 



Mr. Sumner said : " Mr. President, slavery, 

 in its original pretension, reappears in the 

 present debate. Again the barbarous tyranny 

 stalks into this Chamber, denying to a whole 

 race the equal rights promised by a just citi- 

 zenship. Some here thought slavery dead. 

 This is a mistake. If not in body, at least in 

 spirit or as a ghost, making our country hide- 

 ous, the ancient criminal yet lingers among us, 

 insisting upon the continued degradation of a 

 race. 



" Property in man has ceased to exist. The 

 human auction-block is departed. No human 

 being can call himself master, with impious 

 power to separate husband and wife, to sell 

 the child from its parents, to shut out the op- 

 portunities of religion, to close the gates of 

 knowledge, and to rob another of his labor and 

 all its fruits. These guilty prerogatives are 

 ended. To this extent the slave is free. No 

 longer a chattel, he is a man, justly entitled to 

 all that is accorded by law to any other man. 



" Such is the irresistible logic of his position. 

 Ceasing to be a slave, he became a man, whose 

 foremost right is Equality of Rights. And yet 

 slavery has been strong enough to postpone his 

 entry into the great possession. Cruelly, he 

 was not permitted to testify in court ; nor was 

 he allowed to vote. More than four millions 

 of people, whose only offence was a skin which 

 had been the badge of slavery, were shut out 

 from^the court-room, and also from the ballot- 

 box, in open defiance of the great promises of 

 our fathers that all men are equal in rights, 

 and that just government stands only on the 

 consent of the governed. Such was the impu- 

 dent behest of slavery, prolonged after it was 

 reported dead. At last these crying wrongs 

 were overturned. The slave testifies; the 

 slave votes. To this extent his equality is 

 recognized. 



" But this is not enough. Much as it may 

 seem compared with the past, when all was 



denied, it is too little, because all is not yet 

 recognized. The denial of any right is a wrong 

 that darkens the enjoyment of all the rest. 

 Besides the right to testify and the right to 

 vote, there are other rights, without which 

 equality does not exist. The precise rule is 

 equality before the law; nor more nor less; 

 that is, that condition before the law in which 

 all are alike being entitled, without any dis- 

 crimination, to the equal enjoyment of all in- 

 stitutions, privileges, advantages, and conven- 

 iences, created or regulated by law, among 

 which are the right to testify and the right to 

 vote. But this plain requirement is not satis- 

 fied, logically or reasonably, by these two con- 

 cessions, so that when they are recognized all 

 others are trifles. The court-house and ballot- 

 box are not the only places for the rule. These 

 two are not the only institutions for its opera- 

 tion. The rule is general ; how, then, restrict 

 it to two cases ? It is, all are equal before the 

 law not merely before the law in two cases, 

 but before the law in all cases, without limita- 

 tion or exception. Important as it is to testify 

 and to vote, life is not all contained even in 

 these possessions. 



" The new-made citizen is called to travel 

 for business, for health, or for pleasure, but 

 here his trials begin. The doors of the public 

 hotel, which, from the earliest days of our 

 jurisprudence, have always opened hospitably 

 to the stranger, close against him, and the pub- 

 lic conveyances, which the common law de- 

 clares equally free to all alike, have no such 

 freedom for him. He longs, perhaps, for res- 

 pite and recreation at some place of public 

 amusement, duly licensed by law, and here 

 also the same adverse discrimination is made. 

 "With the anxieties of a parent, seeking the 

 welfare of his child, he strives to bestow upon 

 him the inestimable blessings of education, and 

 takes him affectionately to the common school, 

 created by law, and supported by the taxation 

 to which he has, contributed, but these doors 

 slam rudely in the face of the child where is 

 garnered up the parent's heart. ' Suffer little 

 children, and forbid them not, to come unto 

 me ; ' such were the words of the divine Mas- 

 ter. But, among us, little children are turned 

 away, and forbidden at the door of the common 

 school, because of the skin. And the same 

 insulting ostracism shows itself in other insti- 

 tutions of science and learning; also in the 

 church, and in the last resting-place on earth. 



" What is the national Government, coex- 

 tensive with the Republic, if fellow-citizens, 

 counted by the million, can be shut out from 

 equal rights in travel, in recreation, in educa- 

 tion, and in other things, all contributing to 

 human necessities ? Where is that great prom- 

 ise by which the ' pursuit of happiness * is 

 placed with life and liberty, under the safe- 

 guard of axiomatic, self-evident truth ? "Where 

 is justice, if this ban of color is not promptly 

 removed ? 



" The two excuses show how irrational and 



