January 28th, in the course of the debate, Mr. Sumner said:—
Mr. President,—Listening with interest to this debate, and noting the various propositions to modify the original resolution of the Committee, especially that of the Senator [Mr. Wade] who has urged it so vehemently, and then again the modification even of this modification, I have been reminded of the story told by Byron[56] of Mr. Fox, afterwards British minister at Washington, and now sleeping in our Congressional burial-ground, who said of himself, after an illness in Naples, that he was “so changed that his oldest creditors would hardly know him.” But no illness could work a greater change than is promised in the resolution of the Committee. In the form it is about to assume, its oldest supporter will hardly know it. The ancient legend of the ship of Theseus is revived. That famous ship, which bore the Athenian hero on his adventurous expedition to Crete, was piously preserved in the arsenal of Athens, where its decaying timbers were renewed, until, in the lapse of time, every part of the original ship had disappeared, and nothing but the name remained. Are we not witnessing a similar process, to end, I trust, in a similar disappearance?
In its original form, the resolution so earnestly maintained by my friends from Ohio and Michigan called for retaliation in kind,—eye for eye, tooth for tooth, cruelty for cruelty, freezing for freezing, starvation for starvation, death for death. The President was commanded to imitate Rebel barbarism in all respects, point by point. This command I felt it my duty to resist. I said nothing against retaliation according to the laws and usages of civilized nations, for that I know is one of the terrible incidents of war; but I resisted a principle which civilization disowns. The resolutions I offered as a substitute were intended as a sort of “earthwork” in support of this resistance. Perhaps they have already accomplished their purpose, inasmuch as Senators have evacuated their original position.
The question is solemn enough, and yet, as I recall the original resolution, I am reminded of an incident, more comic than serious, which occurred at Paris, while occupied by the conquering Prussians, in 1814. A Prussian soldier was brought before the Governor, charged with unmercifully beating a Frenchman, at whose house he was billeted, for not supplying a bottle of Berlin weissbier, which the Prussian insisted upon drinking. The Governor spoke of unreasonableness in the demand, and declared that he should be obliged to inflict severe punishment, when the Prussian soldier set up the Law of Retaliation. “I was a little boy,” said he, “when a French dragoon beat my father because he was unable to find a bottle of claret in our whole village, and I then swore, that, if ever I reached France, I would beat a Frenchman for not getting me a bottle of weissbier. Am I not right?” This was retaliation in kind, and retrospective in operation, like that of the original resolution.
Much as this resolution is changed, so that it no longer requires retaliation in kind, I think it might be changed still further. It is not enough, on such an occasion, and especially after avowals made in this Chamber, to say that retaliation shall be according to the principles of Public Law. Montesquieu, in his “Spirit of Laws,” exhibits the uncertainty of this language. These are his words:—
“All nations have a Law of Nations,—even the Iroquois, who eat their prisoners. They send and receive ambassadors; they know the Laws of War and Peace. The evil is, that their Law of Nations is not founded on true principles.”[57]
The resolution, therefore, for the sake of certainty, and to give double assurance that humanity shall not suffer, ought to be still further amended, by limiting the retaliation to the usages of civilized society. This amendment becomes the more needful since Senators argue that by the principles of public law the intolerable cruelties of the Rebellion may be retaliated.
I desire to repeat my unalterable conviction that these cruelties cannot be retaliated in kind. And here I call attention to the opinions of an illustrious citizen, only recently removed from the duties of this world. I refer to the late Edward Everett, who, in a speech at Faneuil Hall, a few days before his lamented death, thus testifies in what may be called his dying words:—