In its consideration, he called attention to cases like the following:-- “PUBLIC SALE. The undersigned will sell at the court-house door, in the city of Annapolis, at twelve o’clock, M., on Saturday, 8th December, 1866, a negro man named Richard Harris, for six months, convicted at the October term, 1866, of the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court, for larceny, and sentenced by the Court to be sold as a slave. “Terms of sale, cash. “WM. BRYAN, “_Sheriff Anne Arundel County_. “December 3, 1866.” He then remarked:-- It seems to me, Sir, that these cases throw upon Congress the duty at least of inquiry; and I wish the Committee on the Judiciary, from which proceeded the Constitutional Amendment abolishing Slavery, would enlighten us on the validity of these proceedings, and the necessity or expediency of further action to prevent their repetition. I do not know that the Civil Rights Bill, which was afterward passed, may not be adequate to meet these cases; but I am not clear on that point. When the Constitutional Amendment was under consideration, I objected positively to the phraseology. I thought it an unhappy deference to an original legislative precedent at an earlier period of our history. I regretted infinitely that Congress was willing, even indirectly, to sanction any form of slavery. But the Senate supposed that the phrase “involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,” was simply applicable to ordinary imprisonment. At the time I feared that it might be extended so as to cover some form of slavery. It seems now that it is so extended, and I wish the Committee to consider whether the remedy can be applied by Act of Congress, or whether we must not go further and expurgate that phraseology from the text of the Constitution itself. After remarks by Mr. Reverdy Johnson and Mr. Creswell, of Maryland, Mr. Sumner said:-- The remarks of the Senator from Maryland [Mr. JOHNSON] seem to justify entirely the resolution I have brought forward. I have simply called attention to what was already notorious, but with a view to action. I am not sure, that, under the Constitutional Amendment, this abuse may not be justified, and I desire to have the opinion of the Committee after ample consideration.