It is only necessary that people should see things as they are, and they will easily see how to deal with them.

Now, beyond all question, Slavery is the great original malefactor and omnipresent traitor,--more deadly to the Union than all Rebel leaders, civil or military.

Therefore, as you are in earnest against the Rebellion, you will not spare Slavery.

Look throughout the whole Rebel territory, and you do not find a single officer legally qualified to discharge any function of Government.

But a State is known only through its functionaries, constitutionally empowered to act; and since all these have ceased to exist, the State, with its unnatural institutions, has ceased to exist also, or it exists only in the lifeless…

In the absence of any legitimate authority in this territory, Congress must assume the necessary jurisdiction.

These all concede to Congress jurisdiction over the territory; nor can such jurisdiction be justly questioned.

Thus far the Republic of Hayti has been left without sympathy or support from our country.

But I cannot doubt that it is better to follow the authoritative precedents of our history, and proceed as Congress is accustomed to proceed in the organization and government of other territories.

And as to Slavery, if there be any doubt that it died constitutionally and legally with the State from which it drew its malignant breath, it might be prohibited by the enactment of that same Jeffersonian ordinance which originally…

They will learn that a man’s rights do not depend on his color.

Nor is the influence of Hayti to be neglected in adjusting that balance of power which is daily becoming of increased importance in the West Indies.

This is the first time, within the recollection of your correspondent, that any bill having the negro in it, directly or indirectly, has been passed by the Senate without debate.

What a good time is coming, when the negro questions shall all have been legislated upon, and when the African race will no longer be a bone of contention in our legislative halls!

Among all the petitions presented during that time to this House and the Senate, from people in all sections of the country, there has not been, so far as I have been able to discover, a single petition from any person, white or black…

By this bill, if it is to pass, you would allow all over the South the employment by the slaveholder of his slaves to carry the mail, and to receive compensation for the labor of such slaves out of the Federal Treasury.

And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you.

Sumner never had strong faith in the practicability of Compensated Emancipation on a large scale, and was always against Gradual Emancipation; but he welcomed any step towards Emancipation, being assured, that, when once begun in any way…

In full view,” he said, “of my great responsibility to my God and to my country, I earnestly beg the attention of Congress and the people to the subject.” Many breathed freer.

Sumner visited the President, and said: “Do you know who at this moment is the largest slave-holder in this country?

It is Abraham Lincoln; for he holds all the three thousand slaves of the District, which is more than any other person in the country holds.” He then expressed astonishment that the President could postpone the approval a single night.

He was willing to vote money for Emancipation, but would not recognize the title of the master implied in compensation.

On this point his reasoning is conclusive, and is an appeal to the national self-respect which ought not to be disregarded.

Viewing it rather in the light of ransom for the slave than compensation to the master for a right surrendered, he upholds it as a duty springing from the complicity of the whole country in the existence heretofore of the system in the…

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.