Year: 1865

Pennsylvania, in Reply TO Chns.


Summer.


Mr.. COwan-Mr. president, am not dis
posed to allow the speech of the honorable
Senator from Massachusetts, (NIr Sumner)
to go to the country without a very brief
reply. If that speech be true, and if it be a
correct picture Of the South, then God help
us then thi. Republic this Union is at an
end then the great war which we waged
for the Union wasa folly then all the blood
and treasure which we have expended in
that war in order to restore ourselves to COM
panionship with the people Of the South
have been equally follies. But, Mr. Presi-
dent, is it true? Or is not this a series of
cr pdTte statements made up by anonymous
letter writers, people who are down there
in the enjoyment of place and power, people
who are interested that the disturbed condi-
| ton of things which exists there now shall
| always continue because they make profit of
| it? Is there any man who has had any ex-
| perence in the trial Of causes, any man who
knows any thing about the nature of evi-
| dence, who does not know that the honora-
| bic Senator could have sent his emissaries
into any one county in the lately rebellious
States and gathered up from the expressions
of knaves and fools and discontented single
| idead people far more than he has given us
| in this speech?


We are told here of the exceptional in
stances of bad conduct on the part of the
| people of the South. Why what large
volume it would take to hold all that If
a man were to go about any where in the
loyal States and hunt up what he might sup
pose to be reasonable expressions, heretical
| expressions, how many could he find ? And
yet we are treated to all this here as if it
| was the whole of the evidence in the case.
One man out of ten thousand is brutal to a
negro, and that is paraded here as type OF
the whole people of the South, whereas no.
thing is said Of the other nine thousand nine
hundred and nincty-nine men who treat the
negro well. One man expresses great deal
| of dissatisfaction at the present state of af-
| thing is said of the ether ten thousand men
who are contented to accept it and make the
most Of it.


What then, are we to do? We are to
suppose that the people of the Southern
States lately in rebellion have common
sense and when their utterances are in ac-
cordance with what is common sense and
the dictate Of their own interest, VIC have 2





ing to what we have Just heard, every thing
that has come from the people Of these
States and from their public bodies, from the
representatives, Of these people, is to be taker
as false and why? Because some cottor
agent some correspondent Of a Radical
newspaper in the North, some ofice-holdel
who has been making profit Of the state oi
things there, chooses to say it is all false.


The heresy of State Rights is not destroy.
cd there, the honorable Senator says Have


wenot heard from almost all the public mel


of the South that that question was put {,


the arbitrament Of the sword, that they havt


lost and that they submit? Have they moi


acquicscCd in the abolition Of slavery-tha


thing of all others which was the last, in Tn,


opinion Of everybody, that they woald sub


nit TO?


But still further guarantees are wanted


we are not told what they are. What ar


they? What is wanted? Everybody ad


mts that the negro ought to have his natu


raj rights secured to him. believe all tn
= moderate, conservative men Of this Chambe
are fully agreed that every man should hav
his natural rights secured-the right to lif
liberty and the pursuit of Happiness; tn
protection Of property, limbs, and reputs
: ton; that he slould have the right to su
and be sued, and TO testify in courts of iui
tice. The negro has not hitherto been a
lowed in the Southern States to testify j


courts Of justice, and why? Because he wa
: a slave, and If had been a citizen of III
Southern States when slavery prevaile


there, ! would have resisted his right to te
: tify in the courts. A witness, like vote
: ought TO be a free man; he should not b
= long to another man. What chance would
: litigant have against the master of slaves,
: the slaves could testify? 1t seems TO n
= that the slaves ought not to testify for IL


same reason that the wife ought not TO testii


either for or against the husband Woul
you ask a negro 10 testify against his maste
e 10 go back to that master to be subjected
: his i'll viii because ofhis testimany? Woul


you allow him to testify for the master
against party On the other side? Certainl
e not.


# But now this state Of things has pass
2 away. Now the people Of the Southei
= States, themselves, Sc far as / unders,ar
= them, are in favor Of opening the courts


all these classes of people And, sir, th'
n must open them for their own security.
e m willing to leave that to themselves the
l. wn interests will compel them to allow q