Sam Brownback: “I take the Senate floor today to mark the anniversary of a noble and courageous effort made on behalf of our Nation by…”

“I take the Senate floor today to mark the anniversary of a noble and courageous effort made on behalf of our Nation by some of the brave residents, of our then very young State of Kansas. Mr. President, 135 years ago today in the year 1862, the first Kansas colored infantry were the first union black troops of the Civil War to engage in combat--October 28th and 29th at Island Mound, or Toothman's Mound, near the town of Butler in Bates County, MO, near my hometown. The intrepid first Kansas colored infantry's contribution at Toothman's Mound helped prompt President Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation barely 2 months later and inspired hundreds of thousands of other black soldiers to take up arms in the cause of Union and free soil--undoubtedly influencing the outcome of that war and perhaps proving decisive in preserving government of the people, by the people, and for the people in the world as we know it. Let me emphasize, the survival of our experiment in self-government was at stake, and these individuals paid the price to ensure that our Constitution would not perish from the Earth. One of the easy mistakes when reading history is to assume that the outcome of great struggles was inevitable. This is not so. History is contingent, dependent on the choices and actions of real people. Things might have been very different if a few brave people hadn't acted as they did.”