Do the authorities at Washington realize the fact that there is very great danger of wide-spread anarchy and bloodshed?

Do they realize that it is the supineness and imbecility, or worse, with which the Freedmen’s Bureau has been conducted at this point, that is the cause of danger, and, it may be, of much bloodshed?

God knows we speak in all sincerity, and we believe we speak the sentiment of nine tenths of the loyal men of Memphis.

When colored people have asked for wages hardly earned in the cotton-field, but not paid by rascally employers, they have been in very many cases told to go about their business, or left to get their claims as they could.

Tennessee refuses to the colored citizen his right at the ballot-box, and even his right of testimony in court.

Abandoned to themselves, with unchecked power, ancient slave-masters naturally continue the barbarism in which they have so long excelled.

Not in anger, not in vengeance, not in harshness, have I spoken, but solemnly, carefully, for the sake of my country and humanity, that peace and reconciliation may again prevail.

I have spoken especially for the loyal citizens now trodden down by Rebel power, and without representation on this floor.

Would that my voice could help them to security and justice!

It is for you to determine how long these things shall continue to shock mankind.

The blood curdles at the thought of such enormities, and especially at the thought that the poor freedmen, to whom we owe protection, are left to the unrestrained will of such a people, smarting with defeat, and ready to wreak vengeance…

Pass the bill now under consideration,--pass any bill,--but do not let this crying injustice rage any longer.

An avenging God cannot sleep while such things find countenance.

If you are not ready to be the Moses of an oppressed people, do not become its Pharaoh.

If the honorable Senator from Massachusetts, and those who think with him, desire that these people should have the right of suffrage, why not say so broadly?

The whites of the District of Columbia, in respect to the colored people, are no better than squatters, and those who for generations have squatted on the rights of others do not quietly give up.

Hereafter nobody should be allowed to squat on the rights of others, civil or political.

They are just cleaning out this section of the country of the likeliest men and women in it.

I do not know that the laws on our statute-book are sufficient to meet this untold enormity.

I desire that our Committee, in which we repose such confidence, should apply themselves to it, and see if there is any remedy for this terrible crime.

At this crisis, when the best statesmanship, inspired by the best courage, is so much needed, it is hard to part with him.

Elegant in person, elastic in step, and winning in manner, he arrested the attention of all who saw him, and when he spoke, the first impressions were confirmed.

Among the living orators of the country he had few peers.

Never before had he been so completely master of himself, and never before did he see so clear and glorious a line of duty.

He looked to nothing less than the complete enfranchisement of his country, and the redemption of all the promises of our fathers in the Declaration of Independence.