MR. MORRILL. That was the principal question, and on that point I desire to say precisely how the Committee found the question.....

MR. SUMNER. Then the proposition, as I understand it, is, that the Senate shall abandon its position. Why so? Because the House of Representatives will not abandon its position.

MR. MORRILL. NO, Sir, the Senator will allow me: because there did not seem to be any practical sense in adhering to it; because to adhere to it defeated the bill; because to adhere to it accomplished no earthly purpose, gave nobody any right.

MR. SUMNER.

the bill also.

For the other House to adhere on the other side defeated

MR. MORRILL. Yes.

MR. SUMNER. And the question is, Which shall adhere, the side that is right or the side that is wrong?

MR. MORRILL. And that is the question the Committee submit to the Senate.

MR. SUMNER. I hope the Senate will adhere to its original position, and I believe that the assertion of that principle at this moment is more important than the bill.

In the debate that ensued, Mr. Harlan said that he should "vote against the report of the Committee, chiefly, however, because he did not think there was a pressing necessity for the organization of another Territory in that part of our domain.' Mr. Sumner called attention to the Ordinance for the organization of the Northwest Territory, and then

said:

"

It will be observed that in this Ordinance, to which we so often refer as a commanding authority, there is no discrimination of color. Now I ask if this is not a good precedent. Like the present bill, it was applicable to a vast unsettled Territory. Senators may say that our fathers, in the Ordinance, were not practical. I am not of that number. Senators may say that our fathers, in the Declaration of Independence, were not practical. I am not of that number. Senators may say that our fathers, in the Constitution of the United States, which contains no discrimination of color, were not practical. I am not of that number. Sir, I believe that the authors of this Ordinance, and the authors of the Declaration of Independence, and the authors of the Constitu

tion, were eminently practical, when they excluded from those instruments any discrimination of color. But it is said that there are no persons in the new Territory to whom the principle is now applicable. This can make no difference. It is something to declare a principle, and I cannot hesitate to say that at this moment the principle is much more important than the bill. The bill may be postponed, but the principle must not be postponed.

MR. MORRILL. I will suggest to the Senator, if he will permit me,

MR. SUMNER. Certainly.

that the statement I made about its applicability was this it is not by possibility applicable to any man of African descent. There are some five or six thousand Indians, to whom a bill in general phrase, without limitation of "white," might possibly apply; I do not say that it would apply to them in this case.

MR. SUMNER. Practically, the subject-matter of this clause is not Indians, but the well-known African race of this continent; and it is proposed, by specious words wrapped up in a clause borrowed from another bill, to exclude them from the right of suffrage in this Territory; and the argument for this injustice, as my friend from New Hampshire [Mr. HALE] has so ably stated, is only a reproduction of that well-known ancient argument for Slavery in the Territories. How often were we in those days compelled to encounter the charge that we were not practical, — that we were urging a prohibition, when there was no occasion for it! For myself, I believe you cannot too often assert a prohibition of Slavery, nor too often assert human rights, wherever they may be called in question; and especially do I believe

in the importance of such assertion when you are laying the foundations of a new community. "Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined." These are familiar Words of childhood. Would my friend from Maine have the tree that he plants grow up with a generous and protecting shelter for all mankind, or shall it be the bent and crabbed product of unhappy prejudices which are only a growth of Slavery? I know my friend means no such thing; but I insist that the policy he recommends tends to such fatal end. For myself, Sir, I am satisfied with the Declaration of Independence; I am satisfied with the Constitution on this important subject; and, adopting the language of our Lieutenant-General in the field, I desire to say, "I will fight on this line to the end, even if it takes all summer." There is no line better than that of human rights. While fighting on that line, I cannot err; there is no pertinacity too great; there is no ardor that is not respectable. I thank General Grant for these words. They express his own steadfast purpose, and we all thank him. But each, in his sphere, may make them his own. I make them mine, wherever human rights are in question.

The report of the Conference Committee was adopted, — Yeas 26, Nays 13. And so this first battle for colored suffrage was lost.

CLAIMS ON FRANCE FOR SPOLIATIONS OF AMERICAN COMMERCE PRIOR TO JULY 31, 1801.

REPORT IN THE SENATE, OF THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, APRIL 4, 1864.

APRIL 14th, the Senate, after debate, ordered three thousand extra copies of this report, Yeas 23, Nays 19. Mr. Reverdy Johnson, while urging the extra copies, remarked: "The report is quite an elaborate one, drawn up with all the fulness which characterizes papers of this description prepared by the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. He has collected together, very accurately, I have no doubt, all the facts connected with the claims. He has given the history of the proceedings in Congress and the proceedings of the Executive, and has examined very fully all the principles of law applicable to the questions which the claims present."

The same report was subsequently adopted by the Committee on Foreign Relations, and printed by the Senate, March 12, 1867, and also January 17, 1870.

THE Committee on Foreign Relations, to whom were referred numerous petitions and resolutions of State Legislatures, taken from the files of the Senate, and also the petition of sundry citizens of New York, presented at the present session, asking just compensation for "individual" claims on France, appropriated by the United States to obtain release from important "national" obligations, have had the same under consideration, and beg leave to report.

THE

HE welfare of the Republic requires that there should be an end of "suits," lest, while men are mortal, these should be immortal.

Such is a venerable

maxim of the law, illustrated by the case before the Committee. The present claims have outlived all the original sufferers, and at least two generations of those who have so ably enforced them in the Halls of Congress. Against their unwonted vitality death has not been able to prevail.

CHARACTER OF THESE CLAIMS.

Of all claims in our history, these are most associated with great events and great sacrifices. First in time, they are also first in character, for they spring from the very cradle of the Republic and the trials of its infancy. To comprehend them, you must know, first, how independence was won, and, secondly, how, at a later day, peace was assured. Other claims have been personal or litigious; these are historic. Here were "individual " losses, felt at the time most keenly, and constituting an unanswerable claim upon France, which, at a critical moment, were employed by our Government, like a credit or cash in hand, to purchase release from outstanding "national" obligations, so that the whole country became at once trustee of these sufferers, bound, of course, to gratitude for the means thus contributed, but bound also to indemnify them against these losses. And yet these sufferers, thus unique in situation, have been compelled to see all other claims for foreign spoliations satisfied, while they alone have been turned away. At the beginning of our history, our plundered fellowcitizens obtained compensation to the amount of many million dollars on account of British spoliations. Similar indemnities have been obtained since from Spain, Naples, Denmark, Mexico, and the South American states,