Sir, such an exhibition is more than sufficient. You cannot consent to any such thing. In organizing these governments, all that we can do is to protect life and property, and generally to provide the machinery of administration. Further we cannot go, and protect institutions in themselves an outrage to civilization.
In the debate that ensued Mr. Sumner remarked:—
In this country there is but one “institution,” as all the world knows, and the phrase “and institutions,” when carefully introduced, means only one institution, which I need not name.
Mr. Trumbull united with Mr. Sumner in criticizing the bill.
“I was for it in the Committee; but since I have seen the operation of these laws in the Southern States, and the manner in which persons acting in behalf of the United States undertake to execute them, I have changed my opinion in regard to the propriety of such a clause as this, and I agree with the Senator from Massachusetts. I cannot consent by my vote, and I never will consent by my vote, to give sanction to a law that punishes a man for teaching another to read the word of God.”
The bill was allowed to drop. But this debate had its influence in showing how impossible it was to recognize “institutions” existing in a State before the Rebellion. Slavery and the Black Code were not to obtain license under any such terms. Here was a point in Reconstruction.
TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE.
Remarks in the Senate, on the Duties upon Imported Books and Rags, July 8, 1862.