e begin to realize, you are
not going to have the liberty to do--suppose you were to go with the
bayonet and present it to the other eleven States, and they, acting
under duress, not as free agents and as free men, could get some
people in their section so miserable and poor in spirit and craven in
soul as to vote to adopt in their Legislatures such an amendment,
would it command the respect of any body in this land? Not at all.
Open your doors, sir; admit the Representatives of the Southern States
to seats in this body; require no miserable degrading oath of them;
administer to them the very oath that you first took when you entered
this body, and the only oath that the Constitution of the United
States requires, and the only oath which Congress has any right to
exact, an oath to support the Constitution of the United States; and
then, if you think your Constitution is defective, if you think it
needs further amendment, or if you have not sufficiently exhausted
your bowels of mercy and love and kindness toward your sable friends
whose shadows darken this gallery every day, submit your amendments to
the States represented in the Congress of the United States; and if
they choose, acting freely as citizens of their States, to agree to
your amendments, it will command the respect of themselves, but still
it will not command mine. I should despise a people who would
voluntarily assume so degrading a position."

On the 7th of March, Mr. Sumner occupied the attention of the Senate
for three hours, with a second speech in opposition to the proposed
constitutional amendment. He used very strong language to express his
abhorrence of the proposition: "It reminds me of that leg of mutton
served for dinner on the road from London to Oxford, which Dr.
Johnson, with characteristic energy, described 'as bad as bad could
be, ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-dressed.' So this
compromise--I adopt the saying of an eminent friend, who insists that
it can not be called an 'amendment,' but rather a 'detriment' to the
Constitution--is as bad as bad can be; and even for its avowed purpose
it is uncertain, loose, cracked, and rickety. Regarding it as a
proposition from Congress to meet the unparalleled exigencies of the
present hour, it is no better than the 'muscipular abortion' sent into
the world by the 'parturient mountain.' But it is only when we look at
the chance of good from it that this proposition is 'muscipular.'
Regarding it