If there were any obvious good to be accomplished by such a rule, if there were any exigency seeming to require the sacrifice, I should welcome it; but I put it to Senators, whether experience in Executive Session does not show that it is unnecessary.
Sumner questions the necessity of a new rule, suggesting that existing practices suffice for effective discussion.
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Nay, more,--if it would be criminal in these several clusters of States to reëstablish the Institution of War as Arbiter of Justice, then is it criminal in the Commonwealth of Nations to continue it.
The first is a heavenly sentiment, from God: the other is a device of this world.
At Baltimore the delegation of the most important State in the Union, known to be in favor of the Wilmot Proviso, was refused admission to the Convention.
Again I repeat, so long as the War System prevails under the sanction of International Law, these painful incongruities will be apparent.
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