Elias Nason, The Life and Times of Charles Sumner: His Boyhood, Education and Public Career.

[294] of the colored people, of the slave-territory occupied or taken by our troops, from the bonds which still to some extent enfettered them. Early in January, 1864, he presented to the Senate a resolution for the appointment of a committee of seven, for the consideration of “all papers and propositions concerning slavery and the treatment of freedmen.” The resolution was adopted, and he himself appointed one of the committee. This was the initiatory step in that body to his grand Freedmen's Bureau Bill, which he most appropriately styled the “Bridge from slavery to freedom,” and which, after a long and arduous struggle, passed both houses, and received on the third day of March, 1865, the signature of the president. By this important measure the colored people were protected in their civil rights and privileges; and, for Mr. Sumner's efforts in carrying it through Congress, they will ever hold his name in grateful memory. On the 4th of February he spoke in favor of equal pay to colored soldiers, saying, “I wish to see our colored troops treated like white troops in every respect;” and on the 8th he introduced to the Senate a series of resolutions protesting against the restoration of any rebel States without guarantees in respect to freedmen. He thus early indicated a simple plan of reconstruction which after long debates and various modifications was