15

ance of contract most carefully guarded for a term of a few months to either of these
wretched conditions.
  But all this is only a part of the mistake in which the Senator has proceeded from
beginning to end.  I am at a loss to account for it.  I do not understand it.  That I
regret it most sincerely I need not say. I counted upon his good will with regard to
this bill.  I felt sure of his sympathies with regard to its general objects.  I do not
renounce the hope of these sympathies now.  But I cannot forbear saying that, to my
mind, the Senator has thrown himself in the way of a humane undertaking, and has
practically abandoned the claims of the oppressed race to which he and I both owe ser-
vice.  Long have they suffered; much have they been abused;  wearily have they jour-
neyed through life; and now at last, when slavery is overturned, and we seek to pro-
vide a passage from its torments to a better condition, where labor shall be quickened
and protected by liberty, and where all rights shall he respected, it is hard to find our
efforts buffeted by a cross-wind from such an unexpected quarter.









         H. POLKINHORN & SON, PRINTERS, 375 AND 377 D STREET, WASHINGTON.




			

OHS Archives/Library Pamphlet Collection

Bridge from Slavery to Freedom: Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, on the Bill to Establish a Bureau of Freedmen, in the Senate of the U.S., June 13 and 15, 1864