Charles Sumner

It shows how they are intending to press this measure through Congress so as to obtain for Virginia the independence of a State.

When one begins to act with such allies, I can well imagine that he loses something of his original devotion to the great fundamental principles of our Government.

Why are the loyal people of Virginia to be thus exposed?

I trust that Congress will exercise it so that life and liberty and property shall be safe.

And so you may go through all these Reconstruction statutes, and you will find that under all of them the whole subject is brought back ultimately to the discretion of Congress.

To that end Congress must look into the circumstances of the case; it must consider what the condition of the people there is,--whether this new government is loyal, whether it is in the hands of loyal people.

No, Sir; it was there with a view to a practical result, to meet precisely the case now before the Senate,--that is, a seeming compliance with the requirements of our Reconstruction policy, but a failure in substance.

I call it far-reaching: it will reach just as far as the endeavor to counteract it; it is coextensive with the Constitution itself.

No one of these States, by anything that it may do hereafter, can escape from that far-reaching power.

The Congress of the United States will have forevermore the power to protect Reconstruction.

PRESIDENT,--I have but one word to say, and it is one of gratitude to the Senator from Indiana for the complete adhesion he now makes to a principle of Constitutional Law which I have no doubt is unassailable.

To save that Legislature the Senator from Nevada presses forward to sacrifice the people of the State.

What, Sir, is a Legislature chosen as this recent Legislature has been chosen in Virginia, composed of recent Rebels still filled and seething with that old Rebel fire,--what is that Legislature in the scale, compared with the safety of…

I suggest to that Senator, that, if we do not oppose this bill, we sacrifice the people of the State.

Let us, Sir, so act that we shall have hereafter no regrets; let us so act that the people of Virginia hereafter may be safe, and that they may express their gratitude to the Congress of the United States which has helped to protect them.

Will it press hastily, heedlessly, recklessly, to a conclusion, which, when reached, it may hereafter find occasion to regret?

Now I would not have it placed on that ground; I present it as a question of business; and I, as a Senator interested in the decision of this business, wish to have time to peruse these papers and to obtain that knowledge which will enable…

Let us consider it, let us approach it carefully, and give to it something of that attention which the grandeur of the interest involved requires.

The Senator must bear in mind that what we do now with reference to Virginia we do permanently and irrepealably, and that we affect the interests of that great State, and I submit also the safety of a large portion of its population.

We must be able to look into the papers, to examine the evidence, and, if my friend will pardon me, to examine also the law, to see whether the conclusion on which he stands so firmly is one on which the Senate can plant itself forevermore.

I am anxious that the Senate should exercise it only after adequate knowledge and inquiry.

Does it not teach us to be cautious before we commit this great State of Virginia back to the hands of the people that have swayed it in war against the National Government?

When the belligerence of the insurgents is recognized there will be a case for neutrality, and not before.

Therefore there can be no neutrality on the part of our Government between Spain and her revolted subjects, until they come up to the condition of a people.

Until the belligerence of these people is recognized, they are not of themselves a power, they are not a people.