immortal as the Republic itself, to that pledge we are solemnly
bound; wherever our flag floats, as long as time endures, we must see
that it is sacredly observed. The performance of that pledge cannot
be intrusted to another, least of all to the old slave-masters,
embittered against their slaves. It must be performed by the National
Government. The power that gives freedom must see that freedom is
maintained."

"Three of England's greatest orators and statesmen," continued Mr.
Sumner, "Burke, Canning and Brougham, at successive periods unite in
declaring, from the experience of the British West Indies, that
whatever the slave-masters undertook to do for their slaves was always
arrant trifling; that whatever might be its plausible form it always
wanted the executive principle. More recently the Emperor of Russia,
in ordering the emancipation of the serfs, declared that all previous
efforts had failed because they had been left to the spontaneous
initiative of the proprietors." . . . "I assume that we shall not leave
to the old slave-proprietors the maintenance of that freedom to which
we are pledged, and thus break our own promise and sacrifice a race."
In concluding his speech Mr. Sumner referred to the enormity of the
wrongs against the freedmen as something that made the blood curdle.
"In the name of God," said he, "let us protect them; insist upon
guarantees; pass the bill 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 their Pharaoh."

Mr. Willard Saulsbury of Delaware made a brief reply to Mr. Sumner, not
so much to argue the points put forward by the senator from
Massachusetts, not so much to deny the facts related by him or to
discuss the principles which he had presented, as to announce that
"it can be no longer disguised that there is in the party which elected
the President an opposition party to him. Nothing can be more
antagonistic than the suggestions contained in his Message and the
speeches already made in both Houses of Congress." He adjured the
President to be true and faithful to the principles he had
foreshadowed, and pledged him "the support of two million men in the
States which have not been in revolt, and who did not support him for
his high office."

Mr. Cowan of Pennsylvania, one of the Republican senato