Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1864-07-14

IEAs-Messrs Anthony, Brown, Chandler, Clark, Con-
ness, DIXON, Fessenden Foot, Crimes Hale, Harlan,
Harris, Hicks Howard, Howe Lane of Iudians Lane Of
Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, POmeroy Ramsey Sprague,
Sumner, Ten Eyck; Trumbull. Wade, and wisoa-0.
NAYs-Messrs. Buckalew, Carle, Cowan Davis, John
son, McDougal Powell Richardson, Riddle, Salisbury,
Van Winkle and Willey-l2.
ABsEsT-Messr collsmer, DoolittIe. Foster. Hard,
| ing, Hendricks, Nesmith, Sherman, Wilkinson, and
Wright-1O.
| 30 the bill WAS passed as it came from the
House Of Representatives, and in the same terms
| as Mr.. SUMNER had conceived his original bill on
the subject.
We have referred to these acts Of legislation and
to the leading part which Senator SUMNER had in
their enactment, because their passage serves to
mark new epoch in our parliamentary history
1t is no reflection the talents influence Of any
other member Of the Senate to say that these mea-
sures could not have been passed under the direc-
ton of any Senator less tenacious in his corvic-
tions of public duty or less capable of enforcing
them by argu nent than the distinguished Senator
from Massachusetts,. His political friendsin many
instances would have willingly evaded or postponed
them, but we see in what he was able to accom-
plsh, in the face of this obvious reluctance only
new illustration of the supremacy fairly achieved
by those who wish strongly where they wish at all.
Mr.. SUMNER is an earnest anti-slavery man, and if
there were those among his political friends who at
first sought, for one reason or another, to escape
some Of the conclusions to which he challenged
their adhesion, he finally succeeded in vindicating
for his measures either the active support or
passive acquiescence of the recalcitrants in his
party with the single exception, we believe,
of Mr.. CowAN, of Pennsylvania, who, having
convictions Of public duty equally strong with
those of Senator SUMNER, though pointing in
different direction, was not moved from his
steadfastness but proved the integrity of his opin-
ieved the obligations imposed or. him by his oath
of office. Those who may not concur with him in
his view of duty will at least honor him for having
had the courage Of his opinions" Being equally
clear in his convictions of constitutional duty
when called on the 10Th of April and on the 23d
of June to vote upon the question of repeating the
law of 1893 in relation to fugitive slaves, he did
not vote differently on the different occasions and
thus proved that if he voted in the first place to
retain that law it was from no Consideration less
imperious than q constraining sense of constitu-
tional duty, and that if he did not vote, in the
second place. to repeal it, he refrsined from acting
in opposition to the abiding sense of that duty,
and thus equally preserved a conscience void of of
fence in his eyes and in the eyes Of his coun-
trymen Those who voted differently on the diff
ferent occasions, or who purposely abstaincd from
voting at all on the latter occasion, we're doubt
less equally sincere and equally able to justify their
conduct, but they could not have been at all times
as clear in their Intellectual conceptions of public
duty as those who were of constant mind in the
matter of their votes on this important question