is simple and direct. It seems to me that it cannot fail to be of considerable advantage. The business of these offices will be better done, and there will be a staff of educated experts, familiar with foreign life, whose knowledge and experience, even if not always in the service of Government, will pass into the capital stock and resources of the country. Nothing is clearer than that the education of the people is a source of national wealth, even of national power.

But the Senator from Vermont says that education is needed more in the diplomatic service than in the consular. Granted; it is needed very much in the diplomatic service; but because needed there, is that any reason why we should not supply it here? The argument, it seems to me, was hardly worthy of that Senator. Let a proposition be brought forward for an educational system applicable to our diplomatic representatives, and we will entertain it. Meanwhile let us act on that before us, which, I submit, is eminently practical in character. Who are our consuls? They are not diplomatic or political agents in the common sense of the term; they are commercial agents. To discharge their duties fitly, they should be familiar with the interests of commerce, how it is conducted, and the language it employs, where they happen to be. And permit me to say, that a great country like ours, one of whose chief sources of wealth and of grandeur is commerce, must not hesitate to supply the education needed to secure commercial representatives not unworthy of the Republic they represent.

As the consul is a commercial representative, he is on this account especially the agent of a commercial country. If our commerce were less, our interest in having

good consuls would be less. But with the surpassing growth of our commerce this interest enlarges. To send abroad consuls without proper education must necessarily bring the national character into disrepute, and jeopard the concerns intrusted to them. For the sake of our good name abroad, which is part of our national possessions, and also for the sake of those vast commercial concerns which encircle the globe, I hope that this proposition, which is a small beginning in the right direction, will not be rejected.

March 16th, the debate was continued, and Mr. Sumner spoke again. The amendment was adopted, Yeas 20, Nays 16, and the bill passed the Senate. The House disagreed to the amendment, but afterwards accepted the report of a conference committee, authorizing the appointment of "consular clerks, not exceeding thirteen in number at any one time, who shall be citizens of the United States, and over eighteen years of age at the time of their appointment, and shall be entitled to compensation for their services respectively at a rate not exceeding one thousand dollars per annum, to be determined by the President."1

1 Statutes at Large, Vol. XIII. p. 189.

THE LATE HON. OWEN LOVEJOY, OF THE HOUSE

OF REPRESENTATIVES.

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, ON THE RESOLUTIONS UPON HIS DEATH, MARCH 29, 1864.

MR

R. PRESIDENT, It is proposed to adjourn in honor of OWEN LOVEJOY, whose recent death we mourn. Could his wishes prevail, Senators would continue in their seats and help enact into law some one of the several measures pending to secure the obliteration of Slavery. Such an act would be more acceptable to him than any personal tribute.

He spoke well always, but he believed in deeds rather than words, although speech with him was a deed. It was his contribution to that sublime cause for which he toiled always. Words may be often "the daughters of earth," but there was little of earth in his. Proceeding from a pure and generous heart, they have so far prevailed, even during his life, that they must be named gratefully among those good influences by which the triumph has been won. How his enfranchised soul would be elevated, even in those abodes to which he is removed, at knowing that his voice is still heard on earth, encouraging, exhorting, insisting that there shall be no hesitation anywhere in striking at Slavery,- that this unpardonable wrong, from which alone the Rebellion draws its wicked life, must be blasted by Presidential

proclamation, blasted by Act of Congress, blasted by constitutional prohibition, blasted in every possible way, by every available agency, and at every occurring opportunity, so that no trace of the outrage may continue in the institutions of the land, and especially that its accursed footprints may no longer defile the national statute-book! In vain you pass resolutions in tribute to him, if you neglect that cause for which he lived, and hearken not to his voice.

Shortly before he went away from Washington to die, I sat by his bedside. There, too, within call, was the beloved partner of his life. He was cheerful; but his thoughts were mainly turned to his country, whose fortunes in the bloody conflict with Slavery he watched with intensest care. He did not doubt the great result; but he longed to be at his post again, to teach his fellow-citizens, and to teach Congress, how vain to expect an end of the Rebellion without making an end of Slavery. It is only just to his fame that now, on this occasion of commemoration, all this should be faithfully told. To suppress it would be dishonest. I could not speak at his funeral, if I were expected to unite in robbing his grave of any of these honors derived from his transcendent courage and discernment in the trials of the present hour.

The Journals of the House show how faithfully he began his labors at the present session. On the 14th of December he introduced a bill, whose title discloses its character: "A bill to give effect to the Declaration of Independence, and also to certain provisions of the Constitution of the United States." It proceeds to recite that all men are created equal, and endowed by the Creator with the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the

fruits of honest toil; that the Government of the United States was instituted to secure those rights; that the Constitution declares that no person shall be deprived of liberty without due process of law, and also provides (Article six, clause two) that "this Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding"; that it is now demonstrated by the Rebellion that Slavery is absolutely incompatible with the union, peace, and general welfare for which Congress is to provide; and it therefore enacts that all persons heretofore held in slavery in any of the States or Territories of the United States are declared freedmen, and are forever released from slavery or involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime on due conviction. On the same day he introduced another bill, to protect freedmen and to punish any one for enslaving them. These were among his last public acts. And now they testify how honestly he dealt with that question of questions in which all other questions are swallowed up. It is easy to see that he scorned the wicked fantasy that man can hold property in man. This pernicious delusion, which is the source of such intolerable pretensions on the part of slave-masters, and, worse still, of such intolerable irresolution on the part of many professing opposition to Slavery, could get no hold of him. He knew that it was a preposterous falsehood, as wicked as false, born of prejudice and supreme credulity, and therefore he brushed aside as cobweb all the fine-spun snares of law or Constitution so ingeniously woven in its support. Recognizing Freedom as the God-given birthright