Now, Mr. President, I am unwilling to be diverted from that plain proposition into any general discussion of a merely political character. I ask your attention to the simple question on which you are to vote.
Here I meet objections brought against the amendment, so far as I have been able to comprehend them. They have chiefly found voice, unless I am much mistaken, in the Senator from Maine [Mr. Fessenden], who is as earnest as he is unquestionably able. The Senator began with a warning, and his beginning gave tone to all he said. He warned us not to forget the lessons of the past; and he warned us also not to fall under the influence of any animosity. When he warned us not to forget the lessons of the past, such was his earnestness that he seemed to me fresh from the study of Confucius. No learned Chinese, anxious that there should be no departure from the ancient ways, and filled with devotion for distant progenitors, could have enjoined that duty more reverently. We were to follow what had been done in the past. Now, Sir, I have a proper deference for the past; I recognize its lessons, and seek to comprehend them; but I am not a Chinese, to be swathed by traditions. I break all bands and wrappers, when the occasion requires. I trust that the Senator will do so likewise. The present occasion is of such a character that his lesson is entirely inapplicable. It is well to regard the past, and study its teachings. It is well also to regard the future, and seek to provide for its necessities. This is plain enough.
Then, Sir, we are not to act under the influence of animosity. Excellent counsel. But, pray, what Senator, on an occasion like this, when we strive to place in the statutes of the country an important landmark, can allow himself to act under such influence? Is the Senator from Maine the only one who can claim this immunity? I am sure he will not make exclusive claim. As he is conscious that he is free from such disturbing influence, so also am I. He is not more free from it than I am. Most sincerely from my heart do I disclaim all animosity. I have nothing of the kind. I see nothing but my duty.
And when I speak of duty, I speak of what I would emphatically call the duty of the hour. I tried the other day, in what passed between myself and the Senator from Maine, briefly to illustrate this idea. I said that we are not to act absolutely with reference to the past, nor absolutely with reference to the future, but we are to act in the present. Each hour has its duties, and this hour has duties such as few other hours in our history have ever presented. Is there any one who can question it? Are we not in the midst of a crisis? Sometimes it is said that we are in the midst of a revolution. Call it, if you will, simply a crisis. It is a critical hour, having its own peculiar responsibilities. Now, if you ask me in what this present duty specially centres, on what it specially pivots, I have an easy reply: it is in protection to the loyal and patriotic citizen, wherever he may be. I repeat it, protection to the loyal and patriotic citizen is the imminent duty of the hour. This duty is so commanding, so engrossing, so absorbing, so peculiar,—let me say, in one word, so sacred,—that to neglect it is like the neglect of everything. It is nothing less than a general abdication.
Such, I say emphatically, is the duty of the hour, in presence of which it is vain for the Senator to cite the experience of other times, when no such duty was urgent. He does not meet the case. What he says is irrelevant. All that was done in the past may have been well done; for it I have no criticism; but at this time it is absolutely inapplicable.
I return, then, to my proposition, that the duty of the hour is protection to the loyal and patriotic citizen. But when I have said this, I have not completed the proposition. You may ask, Protection against whom? I answer plainly, Against the President of the United States. There, Sir, is the duty of the hour. Ponder it well, and do not forget it. There was no such duty on our fathers, there was no such duty on recent predecessors in this Chamber, because there was no President of the United States who had become the enemy of his country.
Here Mr. Sumner was called to order by Mr. McDougall, a Democratic Senator from California, who insisted that no Senator had a right to make use of such words in speaking of the President. Confusion ensued, with various calls to order. There was question as to what Mr. Sumner really said. The presiding officer [Mr. Anthony, of Rhode Island] decided that Mr. Sumner was in order, from which decision Mr. McDougall appealed, but finally withdrew his appeal, when Mr. Sumner continued.
When interrupted in the extraordinary manner witnessed by the Senate, I was presenting reasons in favor of the measure on which we are to vote, and I insisted as strongly as I could that the special duty of the hour was protection to loyal and patriotic citizens against the President; I was replying to what fell from the Senator from Maine, who seems, if I may judge from his argument, to feel that there is no occasion for special safeguard, and that the system left by our fathers is enough. In this reply I used language which, according to the short-hand reporter, was as follows: I read from his notes:—
“There, Sir, is the duty of the hour. There was no such duty on our fathers, there was no such duty on our recent predecessors, because there was no President of the United States who had become the enemy of his country.”