race; but all persons shall be equal before the law, whether
in the court-room or at the ballot-box; and this statute,
made in pursuance of the Constitution, shall be the supreme
law of the land, any thing in the constitution or laws of
any such State to the contrary notwithstanding."

According to notice given by the Chairman of the joint Committee on
Reconstruction on the part of the Senate, the proposed constitutional
amendment came up for consideration on the fifth of February.

Mr. Sumner addressed the Senate in opposition to the measure. His
speech was five hours in length, and occupied parts of the sessions of
two days in its delivery. Mr. Sumner argued that the proposed
amendment would introduce "discord and defilement into the
Constitution," by admitting that rights could be "denied or abridged
on account of race or color," and that by its adoption Congress would
prove derelict to its constitutional duty to guarantee a republican
form of government to each State, and that having already legislated
to protect the colored race in civil rights, it is bound to secure to
them political rights also.

Concerning the Committee on Reconstruction and their proposition, Mr.
Sumner said: "Knowing, as I do, the eminent character of the
committee, its intelligence, its patriotism, and the moral instincts
by which it is moved, I am at a loss to understand the origin of a
proposition which seems to me nothing else than another compromise of
human rights, as if the country had not already paid enough in costly
treasure and more costly blood for such compromises in the past. I had
hoped that the day of compromise with wrong had passed forever. Ample
experience shows that it is the least practical mode of settling
questions involving moral principles. A moral principle can not be
compromised."

He thought the proposed change in the Constitution could not properly
be called an amendment. "For some time we have been carefully
expunging from the statute-book the word 'white,' and now it is
proposed to insert in the Constitution itself a distinction of color.
An amendment, according to the dictionaries, is 'an improvement'--'a
change for the better.' Surely the present proposition is an amendment
which, like the crab, goes backward."

This measure would not accomplish the results desired by its authors.
"If by this," said he, "you expect to induce the recent slave-master
to confer the right of suffrage witho