As this is a resolution of instruction, simply to consider the expediency of what is proposed, I presume there can be no objection to it.
Afterwards, on motion of Mr. Sumner, the bill, with all pending propositions, was recommitted to the Committee on Claims.
TRIBUTE TO HON. JAMES HINDS, REPRESENTATIVE OF ARKANSAS.
Speech in the Senate, January 23, 1869.
Mr. Hinds, while engaged in canvassing the State of Arkansas on the Republican side, was assassinated. The Senators of Arkansas requested Mr. Sumner to speak on the resolution announcing his death.
MR. PRESIDENT,—It is with hesitation that I add a word on this melancholy occasion, and I do it only in compliance with the suggestion of others.
I did not know Mr. Hinds personally; but I have been interested in his life, and touched by his tragical end. Born in New York, educated in Ohio, a settler in Minnesota, and then a citizen of Arkansas, he carried with him always the energies and principles ripened under our Northern skies. He became a Representative in Congress, and, better still, a vindicator of the Rights of Man. Unhappily, that barbarism which we call Slavery is not yet dead, and it was his fate to fall under its vindictive assault. Pleading for the Equal Rights of All, he became a victim and martyr.