“The outrages upon the dead will revive the recollections of the cruelties to which savage tribes subject their prisoners. They were buried, in many cases, naked, with their faces downward; they were left to decay in the open air; their bones were carried off as trophies, sometimes, as the testimony proves, to be used as personal adornments; and one witness deliberately avers that the head of one of our most gallant officers was cut off by a Secessionist, to be turned into a drinking-cup on the occasion of his marriage. Monstrous as this revelation may appear to be, your Committee have been informed, that, during the last two weeks, the skull of a Union soldier has been exhibited in the office of the sergeant-at-arms of the House of Representatives, which had been converted to such a purpose, and which had been found on the person of one of the Rebel prisoners taken in a recent conflict.”[275]
The report sustained the allegations of Mr. Sumner, when he moved the inquiry, besides giving new force to the term “The Barbarism of Slavery.”
TESTIMONY OF COLORED PERSONS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
Remarks in the Senate, on the Emancipation Bill, April 3, 1862.
MR. PRESIDENT,—In addressing the Senate on this bill, urging the duty of ransom, I exposed an early, inhuman, and wicked statute of Maryland, belonging to that offensive mass originally adopted at the time of the cession as the law of the District, and ever since recognized, although never voted on, and having only a surreptitious authority. I refer to that unjust statute making colored persons incompetent to testify, where a white is a party. I quoted the precise words, still the law of the District.[276] No language of mine is strong enough to express the detestation such a contrivance is calculated to arouse in every bosom not entirely given over to injustice.
The time has come for a change. At least, while providing for the release of those now detained in Slavery,—unconstitutionally, as I hold,—we must see that the proceedings are without embarrassment from that outrageous statute. I propose an amendment, and here I have the consent of my friend, the chairman of the Committee [Mr. Morrill], in the hope of removing this grievance in the inquiries under the bill.