I am pained by this opposition. It is out of season. I am pained by it especially from the Senator from Iowa. I do not judge him. But he will pardon me, if I say that from the beginning he has shown a strange insensibility to this cause. He is for Liberty, but he will not help us assure it to those who have for generations been despoiled of it. Sir, I am in earnest. Seriously, religiously, I accept Emancipation as proclaimed by the President, and now, by the votes of both Houses of Congress, placed under the sanction of Constitutional Law. But even Emancipation is not enough. You must see to it that it is not nullified or evaded; and you must see to it especially that the new-made freedmen are protected in the rights now assured to them, and that they are saved from the prevailing caste, which menaces Slavery under some new form; and this is the object of the present measure. Would you know the perils of freedmen ever since Emancipation? Listen, then, to the words of that true patriot, General Wadsworth, of New York, who, after his visit to the Valley of the Mississippi, and personal observation of the freedmen there, testified:-- “There is one thing that must be taken into account, and that is, that there will exist a very strong disposition among the masters to control these people and keep them as a subordinate and subjected class. Undoubtedly they intend to do that. I think the tendency to establish a system of serfdom is the great danger to be guarded against. I talked with a planter in the La Fourche district, near Thibodeauville. He said he was not in favor of secession; he avowed his hope and expectation that Slavery would be restored there in some form. I said, ‘If we went away and left these people now, do you suppose you could reduce them again to slavery?’ He laughed to scorn the idea that they could not. ‘What!’ said I, ‘these men who have had arms in their hands?’ ‘Yes,’ he said; ‘we should take the arms away from them, of course.’”[356] But this emphatic attestation is simply in harmony with accumulated testimony from other quarters. The freedmen, rejoicing in recovered rights, must for a while be saved from the traditional harshness and cruelty to which for generations they have been exposed. Call it protection,--call it what you will: the power of the Government must be to them a shield. And yet you hesitate. The Senator from Iowa renews the objections he made at an earlier stage. It will not be forgotten that he most earnestly protested against the bill, as giving to persons a control of the freedman. It was shown, I think, to demonstration, that he was mistaken. But, out of deference to his sensibilities, and that nothing might seem to be wanting, other safeguards were introduced, as amendments, on his motion, or in pursuance of his suggestions. But all this is not enough to secure his favor. He objects still.