“Public Sale. The undersigned will sell at the court-house door, in the city of Annapolis, at twelve o’clock, M., on Saturday, 8th December, 1866, a negro man named Richard Harris, for six months, convicted at the October term, 1866, of the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court, for larceny, and sentenced by the Court to be sold as a slave.
“Terms of sale, cash.
“Wm. Bryan,
“Sheriff Anne Arundel County.
“December 3, 1866.”
He then remarked:—
It seems to me, Sir, that these cases throw upon Congress the duty at least of inquiry; and I wish the Committee on the Judiciary, from which proceeded the Constitutional Amendment abolishing Slavery, would enlighten us on the validity of these proceedings, and the necessity or expediency of further action to prevent their repetition. I do not know that the Civil Rights Bill, which was afterward passed, may not be adequate to meet these cases; but I am not clear on that point.
When the Constitutional Amendment was under consideration, I objected positively to the phraseology. I thought it an unhappy deference to an original legislative precedent at an earlier period of our history. I regretted infinitely that Congress was willing, even indirectly, to sanction any form of slavery. But the Senate supposed that the phrase “involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,” was simply applicable to ordinary imprisonment. At the time I feared that it might be extended so as to cover some form of slavery. It seems now that it is so extended, and I wish the Committee to consider whether the remedy can be applied by Act of Congress, or whether we must not go further and expurgate that phraseology from the text of the Constitution itself.
After remarks by Mr. Reverdy Johnson and Mr. Creswell, of Maryland, Mr. Sumner said:—
The remarks of the Senator from Maryland [Mr. Johnson] seem to justify entirely the resolution I have brought forward. I have simply called attention to what was already notorious, but with a view to action. I am not sure, that, under the Constitutional Amendment, this abuse may not be justified, and I desire to have the opinion of the Committee after ample consideration.
This, Sir, is not the first time in which incidents like this have occurred. I remember, that, many years ago, when I first came into this Chamber, the good people whom I represent were shocked at reading that four colored sailors of Massachusetts had been sold into slavery in the State of Texas. I did what I could to obtain their liberation, but without success. I applied directly to the Senator from Texas at that time, who will be remembered by many as the able General Rusk, beside whom I sat on the other side of the Chamber. He openly vindicated the power of the court to make such a sale, and I have never heard anything of those poor victims from that time to this. Under the operation of the Constitutional Amendment I trust they are now emancipated; but I am not sure of that, since they are in Texas.