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Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 4, Chapter 49: letters to Europe.—test oath in the senate.—final repeal of the fugitive-slave act.—abolition of the coastwise slave-trade.—Freedmen's Bureau.—equal rights of the colored people as witnesses and passengers.—equal pay of colored troops.—first struggle for suffrage of the colored people.—thirteenth amendment of the constitution.— French spoliation claims.—taxation of national banks.— differences with Fessenden.—Civil service Reform.—Lincoln's re-election.—parting with friends.—1863-1864. (search)
anied by an elaborate argument against the constitutionality, of the fugitiveslave legislation of Congress. Feb. 29, 1864: Works, vol. VIII. pp. 118-175. Sumner took the radical ground in the report that the clause in the Constitution relating to persons held to service or labor did not apply to fugitive slaves. (Ante, p. 392.) Lieber questioned in a letter this peculiar interpretation, and Sumner replied to him at length, March 14 and 17, 1864, maintaining that on the principle of the Somerset case slavery was so odious and contrary to natural right that it could not be legalized or recognized by inference or indirect language. The bill encountered not only Democratic opposition, led by Buckalew, Hendricks, and Reverdy Johnson, but also resistance from a number of Republican senators, led by Sherman and Foster, who sought to save the statute of 1793. Sherman's amendment, excluding this early statute from repeal,—legislation which in his view was constitutional and preserving the