These were my words when suddenly interrupted. By those words, Sir, I stand.
Mr. Doolittle [of Wisconsin]. I raise a question of order, whether these words are in order, as stated by the Senator.
The Presiding Officer. The Chair has already decided a similar point of order. The Chair will submit this question to the Senate.
The Presiding Officer decided that Mr. Sumner was in order. Mr. Doolittle appealed from this decision. Debate ensued on the appeal, when Mr. Lane, of Indiana, moved to lay the appeal upon the table. Amid much confusion, other motions were interposed. At last a vote was reached on the motion of Mr. Lane. The yeas and nays were ordered, and, being taken, resulted,—Yeas 29, Nays 10. So the appeal was laid upon the table. Mr. Sumner, who was in his seat, refrained from voting. The Senate then adjourned.
January 18th, Mr. Sumner, having the floor, continued.
It is only little more than a year ago that I felt it my duty to characterize a message of the President as “whitewashing.”[77] The message represented the condition of things in the Rebel States as fair and promising, when the prevailing evidence was directly the other way. Of course the message was “whitewashing,” and this was a mild term for such a document. But you do not forget how certain Senators, horror-struck at this plainness, leaped forward to vindicate the President. Yesterday some of these same Senators, horror-struck again, leaped forward again in the same task. Time has shown that I was right on the former occasion. If anybody doubts that I was right yesterday, I commend him to time. He will not be obliged to wait long. Meanwhile I shall insist always upon complete freedom of debate, and I shall exercise it. John Milton, in his glorious aspirations, said, “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.”[78] Thank God, now that slave-masters are driven from this Chamber, such is the liberty of an American Senator. Of course there can be no citizen of a republic too high for exposure, as there can be none too low for protection. Exposure of the powerful, and protection of the weak,—these are not only invaluable liberties, but commanding duties.
At last the country is opening its eyes to the actual condition of things. Already it sees that Andrew Johnson, who came to supreme power by a bloody incident, has become the successor of Jefferson Davis in the spirit by which he is ruled and in the mischief he inflicts on his country. It sees the President of the Rebellion revived in the President of the United States. It sees that the violence which took the life of his illustrious predecessor is now by his perverse complicity extending throughout the Rebel States, making all who love the Union its victims, and filling the land with tragedy. It sees that the war upon faithful Unionists is still continued under his powerful auspices, without distinction of color, so that all, both white and black, are sacrificed. It sees that he is the minister of discord, and not the minister of peace. It sees, that, so long as his influence prevails, there is small chance of tranquillity, security, or reconciliation,—that the restoration of prosperity in the Rebel States, so much longed for, must be arrested,—that the business of the whole country must be embarrassed,—and that the conditions so essential to a sound currency must be postponed. All these things the country observes. But indignation assumes the form of judgment, when it is seen also that this incredible, unparalleled, and far-reaching mischief, second only to the Rebellion itself, of which it is a continuation, is created, invigorated, and extended through plain usurpation.
I know that the President sometimes quotes the Constitution, and professes to carry out its behests. But this pretension is of little value. A French historian, whose fame as writer is eclipsed by his greater fame as orator, who has held important posts, and now in advancing years is still eminent in public life, has used words which aptly characterize an attempt like that of the President. I quote from the History of M. Thiers, while describing what is known as the Revolution of the 18th Brumaire.
“When any one wishes to make a revolution, it is always necessary to disguise the illegal as much as possible,—to use the terms of a Constitution in order to destroy it, and the members of a Government in order to overturn it.”[79]