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all vengeance and every evil example, and plant themselves firmly on the sacred landmarks of civilization, under the protection of that God who is present with every prisoner, and enables heroic souls to suffer for their country.
In sustaining his Resolutions
Mr. Sumner said:—
Now, sir, I believe that the Senate will not undertake in this age of Christian light, under any inducement, under any provocation, to counsel the Executive Government to enter into any such competition with barbarism.
Sir, the thing is impossible; it cannot be entertained; we cannot be cruel, or barbarous, or savage, because the rebels, whom we are now meeting in warfare, are cruel, barbarous, and savage.
We cannot imitate that detested example.
Sir, we find no precedent for it in our own history, nor in the history of other nations. * * The Senator from Michigan, who advocates so eloquently this unprecedented retaliation, attempted a description of the torments of the rebel prisons; but language failed him. After speaking of their “ immeasurable criminality,” and the “ horrors of these scenes,” which he said were “absolutely indescribable,” he proceeded to ask that we should do these same things; that we should take the lives of prisoners, even by freezing and starvation, or turn them into living skeletons—by Act of Congress.
Mr. Sumner's amendment, to the honor of the Senate, was adopted by a large majority, although rejected in the
House.
