We know, also, that, after long and protracted struggle, only during this last year was the last tax on knowledge overthrown, being the paper duty.

And yet, Sir, Senators would take up the cast-off taxes of Great Britain, and do even worse.

And shall our Republic, founded on knowledge, whose duty and mission are to make knowledge cheap, impose, for the first time, a tax on books?

What, Sir! a tax on books a tax on knowledge?

And, Sir, if you would know what gave to New England those elements of prosperity and of influence, which are, I think, sometimes recognized, you will find them in that very education at the public cost.

It was because those early settlers, founders of communities, saw that the mind should be clothed, and willingly undertook to clothe it.

Now I would have the country act according to this illustrious precedent, which has done so much for the national name, and remove every impediment in the path of knowledge.

If our fathers were right in establishing free schools, it is right for us now to insist upon free books.

The undersigned, on reviewing these circumstances, which are so inconsistent with the administration of justice in its most ordinary forms, have been at a loss to account for the spirit manifested in the prosecution.

It is difficult to account for such elaborate and persistent harshness, without yielding to the prevailing belief that other motives than the vindication of justice have entered into this case.

Excessive bail” is forbidden by the Constitution; but it would be difficult to say what bail could be “excessive,” if this was not.

Such a case must make us fear, that, under this Act, justice may be sacrificed.

It might make honest merchants hesitate to enter into business relations with the Government.

Look at this carefully, and the wonder increases that these proceedings were ever instituted.

Their conduct cannot be tortured or twisted into fraud.

As well undertake to spin sunbeams into cables, or extract oil from Massachusetts granite.

It is difficult to imagine the origin of these unfortunate proceedings, which, beginning in unheard-of harshness, threaten to end in unexampled injustice, unless arrested by the President.

I have been summoned before the Select Committee of the Senate for investigating frauds in Naval Supplies; and if the wool don’t fly, it won’t be my fault.

Some positive reparation should be made to citizens who have been so deeply injured.

I do not know those parties; but I am interested in public liberty, and I have seen no abler defender of it, since the beginning of the war, than you have shown yourself to be on this occasion.

Sumner was regarded as not only a defence of the individual citizen, but a contribution to good government.

In the absence of a more adequate motive than the evidence discloses, I am wholly unable to believe in the existence of criminal or fraudulent intent on the part of one of such well-established good character as is the accused.

That on this contract, involving from one million to twelve hundred thousand dollars, the contractors should attempt a fraud which at the most could profit them only one or two hundred, or even one thousand dollars, is to my mind beyond…

That they did not, in such a case, strike for greater gains proves that they did not, with guilty or fraudulent intent, strike at all.

We speak with moderation and care, we lay no charges, but we fear that an ill-judged lenity to Rebels in this State will leave little to us and our children but the bare name of freedmen.