APPENDIX.
The bill to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes, reported by Mr. Trumbull from the Judiciary Committee, came up in regular order in the Senate, Monday, July 22, when, on his motion, the following amendment was adopted, every Republican voting for it: “That whenever any person, claiming to be entitled to the service or labor of any other person under the laws of any State, shall employ such person in aiding or promoting any insurrection, or in resisting the laws of the United States, or shall permit him to be so employed, he shall forfeit all right to such service or labor, and the person whose labor or service is thus claimed shall be thenceforth discharged therefrom, any law to the contrary notwithstanding.”[237] This very moderate proposition was the beginning of Emancipation. In the House of Representatives it was changed in form, but not in substance, and the Bill was approved by the President August 6, 1861.[238]
This address appeared in numerous journals, and also in the Rebellion Record, besides being circulated extensively in pamphlet form at home and abroad. Evidently the hostility to Emancipation was softening, although the old spirit found utterance in some of the newspapers.
The New York Herald thus declared itself.
“The Hon. Charles Sumner, the famous orator of the Satanic Abolition school, which first introduced into our happy republic the elements of dismemberment and dissolution, as the Old Serpent introduced sin and death into the Garden of Eden, held forth last evening at the Cooper Institute before the Young Men’s Republican Union of New York. His audience were Abolitionists of the true-blue stamp, and the design of his harangue was to stir up in this city mutiny and rebellion against the Government in the interest of General Fremont, around whom the revolutionary forces of fanatical Puritanism have been gathering ever since he issued his proclamation emancipating the negroes of Missouri.…
“Till the head of the serpent of Abolitionism is crushed by the heel of Abe Lincoln, there can be no salvation for the South, and no hope of redeeming its rebels from the fatal error and delusion into which they have been led by the Antislavery propagandists and sympathizers with John Brown.”
But this same journal spoke otherwise of the auditory.
“Rarely has there been such a large audience assembled in the Cooper Institute,—never one of such general reputation and intelligence. Several hundred ladies were present. As Mr. Sumner made his appearance on the platform, he was hailed with enthusiastic applause.”
The New York Journal of Commerce followed the Herald.
“It was a labored, but concealed, attack on the Constitution and its framers. Mr. Sumner did not dare speak his sentiments fully, and boldly attack Washington and the illustrious Fathers. He preferred the insidious course of instilling into the minds of his audience sentiments of hatred to the Constitution, so that they might look complacently hereafter on the Abolition revolution which he contemplates.”
An extract from the Principia, at New York, the organ of Abolitionists insisting always upon the utter unconstitutionality of Slavery, will suffice on the other side.
“Our readers at a distance will be interested and encouraged to know that the most radical portions of it received the most enthusiastic applause from the immense assemblage, on that occasion, without eliciting the slightest expression of dissent. This was remarkably true, even of that portion of it which defended the Abolitionists from the charge of having caused our present national troubles, and, on the contrary, gave them ample and due credit for keeping alive the flame of Freedom by their opposition to Slavery, and forewarning the country of the evils it was bringing upon us. To ourselves and a remnant of our old associates, on the platform and in the meeting, who remembered the scenes of mob violence in this city in 1833-34, and the attempted renewal of the same riots in the same Cooper Institute only about two years since, when Cheever and Phillips were interrupted and threatened, the contrast was most striking and cheering.”
Correspondents expressed themselves warmly.
Richard Warren, of Plymouth stock, wrote from New York:—
“Congratulating you, Sir, and our country, that the day now seems not far distant when America is to fulfil the destiny assigned to her, and be throughout all her borders a land of freemen without slaves, and honoring you for the labor you have so well performed in the past and in the present, I have to express the gratification with which I listened to your true words on Wednesday last in this city, and to subscribe myself as one who heard you at Plymouth,[239] and who always hears you when opportunity offers.”
Richard J. Hinton, the courageous and liberal journalist, was moved to write from Kansas:—
“Having just finished the perusal of your late oration in New York City, I cannot let the opportunity pass of sending my thanks, and I know therein I speak for Kansas, for the emphatic opinions and masterly exposé of the cause of, and remedy for, this most stupendous rebellion. Such things as you there so eloquently express give the soldiers of Freedom in Kansas heart and courage in the work of giving Freedom to all.”
Orestes A. Brownson, whose able and learned pen was so active on the same line with Mr. Sumner, wrote from Elizabeth, New Jersey:—
“I have read with great pleasure your discourse on the ‘Origin and Mainspring of the Rebellion.’ It is conclusive, and powerfully so, and does you infinite credit. I see you are afraid of some attempt at compromise. I am very much afraid of it. There must be no compromise. The battle must be fought out, and we must settle the question once and forever, whether we are a nation or are not. Everything, I fear, depends on the vigilance, firmness, and patriotism of Congress.”
Henry C. Wright, the veteran of Abolition, wrote:—
“I am sixty-four years old. Thirty of those years have been almost exclusively spent in a war of ideas against Slavery, as a Garrisonian Abolitionist. Conquer by suffering! Victory or death! Resistance to tyrants, obedience to God! Such have been the watchwords of the battle. You know what it has cost those who have waged this war of ideas. But I felt fully rewarded last evening in seeing that audience so earnestly listening to such sentiments as fell from your lips. What a revolution in thought and feeling in twenty-five years! Never again let man be discouraged in a conflict between humanity and its incidents.”
A citizen of Washington confessed the change in his mind from this speech.
“I have through all my life been a Democrat, and I confess I have had no great love for you, or what I thought to be your principles. But a cardinal principle in my ethics is, that men should always be ‘open to conviction.’ I am happy to confess that I have been doubly deceived: first, in the principles and intentions of the Democratic party; and, second, in the principles and intentions of the Republicans,—or Abolitionists, as we call them. A friend handed me your great oration delivered in New York, and I am so favorably struck with its logic and patriotism that I am completely proselyted. Mr. Sumner, I want my children and my children’s children to know that I am a ‘Sumner man.’”
These expressions from different parts of the country show the wakeful sympathy which prevailed.
WELCOME TO FUGITIVE SLAVES.
Remarks in the Senate, on a Military Order in Missouri, December 4, 1861.
The first regular session of Congress, after the breaking out of the Rebellion, opened on Monday, December 2, 1861. Mr. Sumner renewed at once his movement against Slavery.
December 4th he submitted the following resolution, as a mode of calling attention to an abuse, and of obtaining a hearing while he exposed it.
“Resolved, That the Secretary of War be requested to furnish to the Senate copies of any General Orders in the military department of Missouri relating to fugitive slaves.”
On this he spoke briefly.
MR. PRESIDENT,—My attention has been called, by letter from St. Louis, to certain General Orders purporting to be by Major-General Halleck, in command of the Department of Missouri, relating to fugitive slaves, wherein it is directed that such persons shall not be received within his camps, or within the lines of his forces when on march, and that any such persons now within such lines shall be thrust out; and the reason strangely assigned for this order is, that such fugitive slaves will carry information to the Rebels.
It is difficult to speak of an order like this, and keep within bounds. Beside being irrational and inhuman on its face, it practically authorizes the surrender of fugitive slaves beyond any constitutional obligation. Such an order must naturally be disheartening to our soldiers, and it gives a bad name to our country, both at home and abroad.
General Halleck is reported to be a good tactician; but an act like this, with which he chooses to inaugurate his command, does not give assurance of great success hereafter. He may be expert in details of military science; but something more is needed now. Common sympathy, common humanity, and common sense must prevail in the conduct of this war. I take the liberty of saying—and I wish that my words may reach his distant head-quarters—that every fugitive slave he surrenders will hereafter rise in judgment against him with a shame which no possible victory can remove.
A letter from St. Louis, written the day after these remarks, shows the necessity for them, and also how promptly they reached Missouri, thanks to the telegraph.
“We thank you most kindly for your motion yesterday, and I beg to inclose you some extracts which will show you the workings of that unfortunate Order No. 3. The slaves advertised, in some instances, to my own knowledge, belong to Secessionists in Price’s army. For that matter, they may all belong to that class of people. Is it not an inhuman act for these poor people to be made outlaws for no crime, only that they refused to join their traitor masters in onslaught on our beneficent Government?”
SLAVERY AND THE BLACK CODE IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
Remarks in the Senate, on a Resolution for the Discharge of Fugitive Slaves from the Washington Jail, December 4, 1861.
December 4th, Mr. Wilson introduced a joint resolution for the release of certain persons confined in the county jail for the County of Washington in the District of Columbia, which was read a first and second time. A debate ensued, in which the jail and the judiciary of the District were severely handled. Mr. Hale hoped that Mr. Wilson, who had introduced the resolution, would “pursue his inquiries further, and find out where the cause of all this evil is, and apply the remedy.” Mr. Fessenden, after calling attention to the administration of justice in the District and hoping for an inquiry, concluded: “It is well, perhaps, that we should begin here; it is a tangible point; but I hope it will be followed up to any extent that may be necessary in order to accomplish the purpose.” Mr. Sumner at once took advantage of the debate, and turned it against Slavery and the Black Code.
MR. PRESIDENT,—The Senator from Maine [Mr. Fessenden] has pointed to abuses of the judiciary in this District, and he insists that at last we shall have decent men on the bench. But that is not going far enough, Sir. Something more is needed. We must have decent laws. A Black Code still prevails in this District, imported from the old legislation of Maryland, which is a shame to the civilization of our age. If any one wishes to know why such abuses exist in prisons and in courts as have been so eloquently portrayed, I refer him to that Black Code. There you will find apology for every outrage. If, therefore, Senators are really in earnest, if they are determined that the national capital shall be purified, that the administration of justice here shall be worthy of a civilized community, they must expunge that Black Code from the statute-book: but to do this is to expunge Slavery itself; and here we are brought precisely to the point.
Senators mistake, if they treat this question merely on the outside. They must penetrate its interior. Why is that prison so offensive as I know it to be?—for it has been my fortune to visit it repeatedly. It is on account of Slavery, with the Black Code, which is its offspring. Why is justice so offensively administered in this District? It is on account of those brutal sentiments generated by Slavery, and manifested in the Black Code, which the courts here but enforce.
I listened with gratitude to my distinguished friend from New Hampshire [Mr. Hale], when he reviewed this subject, and announced that he would soon bring in a bill to remove the evil. He did not tell us what the bill would be; but the Senator is apt to be thorough. I doubt not that he understands the case; but I am sure, that, to meet it, he must deal directly with Slavery, the fountain and origin of all the noisome inhumanity exposed before us to-day.
This was the first open word against Slavery in the District since the breaking out of the Rebellion.
The resolution of Mr. Wilson was referred to the Committee on the District of Columbia. He followed at once by another resolution, which was referred to the same committee, where, among other things, the committee was “instructed to consider the expediency of abolishing Slavery in the District, with compensation to the loyal holders of slaves.”
December 16th, Mr. Wilson introduced a bill “for the release of certain persons held to service or labor in the District of Columbia,” which was afterwards referred to the Committee on the District, who reported it with amendments February 14, 1862. The further part Mr. Sumner took on this question will appear hereafter.
THE LATE SENATOR BINGHAM, WITH PROTEST AGAINST SLAVERY.
Speech in the Senate, on the Death of Hon. Kinsley S. Bingham, late Senator of Michigan, December 10, 1861.
MR. PRESIDENT,—There are Senators who knew Mr. Bingham well, while he was a member of the other House. I knew him well only when he became a member of this body. Our seats here were side by side, and, as he was constant in attendance, I saw him daily. Our acquaintance soon became friendship, quickened by common sympathies, and confirmed by that bond which, according to the ancient orator, is found in the eadem de Republica sensisse.[240] In his death I have lost a friend; but the sorrow of friendship is deepened, when I think of loss to the country.
If he did not impress at once by personal appearance or voice or manner, yet all these, as they became familiar, testified continually to the unaffected simplicity and integrity of his character. His life, so far as not given to his country, was devoted to the labors of agriculture. He was a farmer, and, amidst all the temptations of an eminent public career, never abandoned this vocation, which does so much to strengthen both body and soul. More than merchant, manufacturer, or lawyer, the agriculturist is independent in condition. To him the sun and rain and the ever-varying seasons are agents of prosperity. Dependent upon Nature, he learns to be independent of men. Such a person, thus endowed, easily turns from the behest of party to follow those guiding principles which are kindred to the laws of Nature. Of such a character our friend was a beautiful example.
In him all the private virtues commingled. Truthful and frank, he was full of gentleness and generous sympathy. He had risen from humble fortunes, and his heart throbbed warmly for all who suffered in any way. Especially was he aroused against wrong and injustice, wherever they appeared, and then his softer sentiments were changed into an indomitable firmness,—showing that he was one of those admirable natures where
“Mildness and bravery went hand in hand.”
It was this character which gave elevation to his public life. Though companions about him hesitated, though great men on whom he had leaned apostatized, he stood sure and true always for the Right. Such a person was naturally enlisted against Slavery. His virtuous soul recoiled from this many-headed Barbarism, entering into and possessing the National Government. His political philosophy was simply moral philosophy applied to public affairs. Slavery was wrong; therefore he was against it, wherever he could justly reach it. No matter what form it took,—whether of pretension or blandishment,—whether, like Satan, stalking lordly, or sitting squat like a toad,—whether, like Mephistopheles, cozening cunningly, or lurking like a poodle,—whether, like Asmodeus, inquisitorial even to lifting the roofs of the whole country,—he was never deceived, but saw it always, in all its various manifestations, as the Spirit of Evil, and was its constant enemy. And now, among the signs that Freedom has truly triumphed, is the fact that here, in this Chamber, so long the stronghold of Slavery, our homage can be freely offered to one who so fearlessly opposed it.
There was something in our modest friend which seemed peculiarly adapted to private life. Had he not been a public man, he would have been, in his own rural neighborhood, at home, the good citizen, active and positive for human improvement, with an honored place in that list whose praise Clarkson pronounces so authoritatively. “I have had occasion,” says this philanthropist, “to know many thousand persons in the course of my travels, and I can truly say that the part which these took on this great question [of the Abolition of the Slave-Trade] was always a true criterion of their moral character.”[241] But he was not allowed to continue in retirement. His country had need of him, and he became a member of the Michigan Legislature and Speaker of its House, Representative in Congress, Governor, and then Senator of the United States. This distinguished career was stamped always with the plainness of his character. The Roman Cato was not more plain or determined. He came into public life when Compromise was the order of the day, but he never yielded to it. He was a member of the Democratic party, which was the declared tool of Slavery, but he never allowed Slavery to make a tool of him. All this should now be spoken in his honor. To omit it on this occasion would be to forget those titles by which hereafter he will be most gratefully remembered.
There were two important questions, while he was a member of the other House, on which his name is recorded for Freedom. The first was the famous proposition introduced by Mr. Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, for the prohibition of Slavery in the Territories. On this question he separated from his party, and courageously voted in the affirmative. Had his voice at that time prevailed, Slavery would have been checked, and the vast Conspiracy under which we now suffer would have received an early death-blow. The other question on which his record is so honorable was the Fugitive Slave Bill. There his name is found among the noes, in generous fellowship with Preston King among the living, and Horace Mann among the dead.
From that time forward his influence for Freedom was felt in his own State, and when, at a later day, he entered the Senate, he became known instantly as one of our surest and most faithful Senators, whose inflexible constancy was more eloquent than a speech. During all recent trials he never for one moment wavered. With the instincts of an honest statesman, he saw the situation, and accepted frankly and bravely the responsibilities of the hour. He set his face against concession in any degree and in every form. The time had come when Slavery was to be met, and he was ready. As the Rebellion assumed its warlike proportions, his perception of our duties was none the less clear. In his mind, Slavery was not only the origin, but vital part of the Rebellion, and therefore to be attacked. Slavery was also the mainspring of the belligerent power now arrayed against the Union,—therefore, in the name of the Union, to be destroyed. While valuing the military arm as essential, he saw that without courageous counsels it would be feeble. The function of the statesman is higher than that of general; and our departed Senator saw that on the counsels of the Government, even more than on its armies, rested the great responsibility of bringing this war to a speedy and triumphant close. Armies obey orders, but it is for the Government to organize and to inspire victory. All this he saw clearly; and he longed impatiently for that voice, herald of Union and Peace, which, in behalf of a violated Constitution, and in the exercise of a just self-defence, should change the present contest from a bloody folly into a sure stage of Human Improvement and an immortal landmark of Civilization.
Such a Senator can be ill spared at this hour. His cheerful confidence, his genuine courage, his practical instinct, his simple presence, would help the great events now preparing, nay, which are at hand. Happily he survives in noble example, and speaks even from the tomb. By all who have shared his counsels he will ever be truly remembered, while the State which trusted him so often in life, and the neighbors who knew him so well in his daily walks, will cherish his memory with affectionate pride. Marble and bronze are not needed. If not enough for glory, he has done too much to be forgotten; and hereafter, when our country is fully redeemed, his name will be inscribed in that faithful company, who, through good report and evil report, held fast to the truth.
“By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell, a weeping hermit, there.”[242]
THE LATE SENATOR BAKER, WITH CALL FOR EMANCIPATION.
Speech in the Senate, on the Death of Hon. Edward D. Baker, late Senator of Oregon, December 11, 1861.
This occasion was remarkable for the presence of President Lincoln, thus described in the Congressional Globe:—
“The President of the United States entered the Senate Chamber, supported by Hon. Lyman Trumbull and Hon. O. H. Browning, Senators from the State of Illinois; he was introduced to the Vice-President, and took a seat beside him on the daïs appropriated to the President of the Senate. J. G. Nicolay, Esq., and John Hay, Esq., Private Secretaries to the President of the United States, took seats near the central entrance.”
MR. PRESIDENT,—The Senator to whom we now say farewell was generous in funeral homage to others. More than once he held great companies in rapt attention, while doing honor to the dead. Over the coffin of Broderick[243] he proclaimed the dying utterance of that early victim, and gave to it the fiery wings of his own eloquence: “They have killed me because I was opposed to the extension of Slavery, and a corrupt Administration”; and as the impassioned orator repeated these words, his own soul was knit in sympathy with the departed; and thus at once did he win to himself the friends of Freedom, though distant.
“Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.”
There are two forms of eminent talent which are kindred in effect, each producing instant impression, each holding crowds in suspense, and each kindling enthusiastic admiration: I mean the talent of the orator and the talent of the soldier. Each of these, when successful, gains immediate honor, and reads his praise in a nation’s eyes. Baker was orator and soldier. To him belongs the rare renown of this double character. Perhaps he carried into war something of the confidence inspired by the conscious sway of great multitudes, as he surely brought into speech something of the ardor of war. Call him, if you will, the Rupert of battle; he was also the Rupert of debate.
His success in life attests not only a remarkable genius, but the benign hospitality of our institutions. Born on a foreign soil, he was to our country only a step-son; but, were he now alive, I doubt not he would gratefully declare that the country was never to him an ungentle step-mother. Child of poverty, he was brought, while yet in tender years, to Philadelphia, where he began life an exile. His earliest days were passed at the loom rather than at school; and yet from this lowliness he achieved the highest posts of trust and honor, being at the same time Senator and General. It was the boast of Pericles, in his funeral oration, in the Ceramicus, over the dead who had fallen in battle, that the Athenians readily communicated to all the advantages which they themselves enjoyed, that they did not exclude the stranger from their walls, and that Athens was a city open to the Human Family.[244] The same boast may be repeated by us with better reason, as we commemorate our dead fallen in battle.
From Philadelphia the poor man’s son was carried to the West, where he grew with the growth of that surpassing region. He became one of its children; and his own manhood was closely associated with its powerful progress. The honors of the bar and of Congress were soon his; but impatient temper led him from these paths into the Mexican War, where he gallantly took the place of Shields—torn with wounds and almost dead—at Cerro Gordo. But the great West, beginning to teem with population, did not satisfy his ambition, and he repaired to California. With infancy rocked on the waves of the Atlantic, and manhood formed in the broad and open expanse of the Prairie, he now sought a home on the shores of the Pacific. There again his genius was promptly recognized. A new State, which had just taken its place in the Union, sent him as Senator; and Oregon first became truly known to us on this floor by his eloquent lips.[245]
In the Senate he took at once the part of orator. His voice was not full and sonorous, but sharp and clear. It was penetrating rather than commanding, and yet, when touched by his ardent nature, became sympathetic and even musical. Countenance, body, and gesture all shared the unconscious inspiration of his voice, and he went on, master of his audience, master also of himself. All his faculties were completely at command. Ideas, illustrations, words, seemed to come unbidden and range in harmonious forms,—as in the walls of ancient Thebes each stone took its proper place of its own accord, moved only by the music of a lyre. His fame as a speaker was so peculiar, even before he appeared among us, that it was sometimes supposed he might lack those solid powers without which the oratorical faculty itself exercises only a transient influence. But his speech on this floor in reply to a slaveholding conspirator, now an open rebel, showed that his matter was as good as his manner, and that, while master of fence, he was also master of ordnance. His oratory was graceful, sharp, and flashing, like a cimeter; but his argument was powerful and sweeping, like a battery.
You have not forgotten that speech. Perhaps the argument against the sophism of Secession was never better arranged and combined, or more simply popularized for general apprehension. A generation had passed since that traitorous absurdity, fit cover of conspiracy, was exposed. For a while it had shrunk into darkness, driven back by the massive logic of Daniel Webster and the honest sense of Andrew Jackson.
“The times have been,
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end; but now they rise again.”
As the pretension showed itself anew, our orator undertook again to expose it. How thoroughly he did this, now with historic and now with forensic skill, while his whole effort was elevated by a charming, ever-ready eloquence, aroused to new power by the interruptions he encountered,—all this is present to your minds. That speech passed at once into general acceptance, while it gave its author an assured position in this body.
Another speech showed him in a different character. It was his instant reply to the Kentucky Senator,[246]—not then expelled from this body. The occasion was peculiar. A Senator, with treason in his heart, if not on his lips, had just sat down. Our lamented Senator, who had entered the Chamber direct from his camp, rose at once to reply. He began simply and calmly; but, as he proceeded, the fervid soul broke forth in words of surpassing power. On the former occasion he presented the well-ripened fruits of study; but now he spoke with the spontaneous utterance of his natural eloquence, meeting the polished traitor at every point with weapons keener and brighter than his own.
Not content with the brilliant opportunities of this Chamber, he accepted a commission in the Army, vaulting from the Senate to the saddle, as he had already leaped from Illinois to California. With a zeal that never tired, after recruiting men, drawn by the attraction of his name, in New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, he held his brigade in camp near the Capitol, so that he passed easily from one to the other, and thus alternated between the duties of Senator and of General.
His latter career was short, though shining. At a disastrous encounter near Ball’s Bluff, he fell, pierced by nine balls. That brain, once the seat and organ of subtile power, swaying assemblies, and giving to this child of obscurity place and command among his fellow-men, was now rudely shattered, and the bosom that throbbed so bravely was rent by numerous wounds. He died with his face to the foe,—and he died so instantly, that he passed without pain from the service of his country to the service of his God. It is sweet and becoming to die for country. Such a death, sudden, but not unprepared for, is the crown of the patriot soldier.
But the question is painfully asked, Who was author of this tragedy, now filling the Senate Chamber, as already it has filled the country, with mourning? There is a strong desire to hold somebody responsible, where so many perished so unprofitably. But we need not appoint committees, or study testimony, to know precisely who took this precious life. That great criminal is easily detected,—still erect and defiant, without concealment or disguise. The guns, the balls, and the men that fired them are of little importance. It is the power behind all, saying, “The State, it is I,” that took this precious life; and this power is Slavery. The nine balls that slew our departed brother came from Slavery. Every gaping wound of his slashed bosom testifies against Slavery. Every drop of his generous blood cries out from the ground against Slavery. The brain so rudely shattered has its own voice, and the tongue so suddenly silenced in death speaks now with more than living eloquence. To hold others responsible is to hold the dwarf agent and dismiss the giant principal. Nor shall we do great service, if, merely criticizing some local blunder, we leave untouched that fatal forbearance through which the weakness of the Rebellion is changed into strength, and the strength of our armies is changed into weakness.
May our grief to-day be no hollow pageant, nor expend itself in this funeral pomp! It must become a motive and impulse to patriot action. But patriotism itself, that commanding charity, embracing so many other charities, is only a name, and nothing else, unless we resolve, calmly, plainly, solemnly, that Slavery, the barbarous enemy of our country, the irreconcilable foe of our Union, the violator of our Constitution, the disturber of our peace, the vampire of our national life, sucking its best blood, the assassin of our children, and the murderer of our dead Senator, shall be struck down. And the way is easy. The just avenger is at hand, with weapon of celestial temper. Let it be drawn. Until this is done, the patriot, discerning clearly the secret of our weakness, can only say sorrowfully:—
“Bleed, bleed, poor country!
Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,
For goodness dares not check thee!”[247]