“If the Senator had made his argument yesterday, when we proposed to tax cotton, a production which goes into manufactures, what he has said would apply with great force. Cotton is a production of slave labor solely.… All his arguments apply to cotton as a subject of taxation; but he convinced a majority of the Senate yesterday that it was not expedient to tax cotton; and now he proposes to tax slaves, and how?… With all our immense resources, we cannot now collect it, except from the loyal people who live in the Border States, who now recognize our flag and are subject to our law. I am not willing to select them as the first to bear a heavy and peculiar taxation. I believe that the true course is to insist upon the tax on cotton.”[65] The special points of Mr. Sherman’s opposition appear in Mr. Sumner’s reply. MR. PRESIDENT,--I will make one remark in reply to the Senator from Ohio. He objects to my proposition as in the nature of a direct tax, or poll tax. How is this? Has not the Senator voted to tax auctioneers, lawyers, jugglers, and slaughterers of cattle, all being classes of persons in the community? MR. SHERMAN. To tax their employments. MR. SUMNER. And I propose to tax the employment of the slave-master,--that is all. It is the business of the slave-master to make the slave work. This is his high vocation. In other words, his business consists in using the service and labor of another. And to this class of persons he belongs. Is it not plain? Can there be any doubt? Look at it. He is an auctioneer of human rights, a broker of human labor, a juggler of human sufferings and human sympathies,--I might say a slaughterer of human hopes; and, Sir, if the Senator from Ohio can tax auctioneer, broker, juggler, or slaughterer of cattle, I am at a loss to understand why he cannot tax the peculiar form of these vocations all concurring in the slave-master. He is swift to tax the less, but hesitates to tax the greater. He can tax the petty employment, which is not immoral or cruel; but he will not tax the larger multiform employment, in which immorality and cruelty commingle. But the Senator says it is a capitation or poll tax. Not, Sir, in the sense of the Constitution. On this I stand. It is simply a tax on a productive claim of property, or, to borrow the language of the Senator a moment ago, on an “employment.” It is nothing but that.