Fundamentum est autem justitiæ fides, id est, dictorum conventorumque constantia et veritas.--CICERO, _De Officiis_, Lib. I. Cap. 7. SPEECH. The Senate having under consideration the Bill for funding the National Debt and for the Conversion of the Notes of the United States, Mr. Sumner said:-- MR. PRESIDENT,--After a tempest sweeping sea and land, strewing the coast with wrecks, and tumbling houses to the ground, Nature must become propitious before the energy of man can repair the various losses. Time must intervene. At last ships are launched again, and houses are built, in larger numbers and fairer forms than before. A tempest has swept over us, scourging in every direction; and now that its violence has ceased, we are occupied in the work of restoration. Nature is already propitious, and time, too, is silently preparing the way, while the national energies are applied to the work. To know what to do, we must comprehend the actual condition of things, and how it was brought about. All this is easy to see, if we will only look. * * * * * It is a mistake of too constant occurrence to treat the financial question by itself, without considering its dependence upon the abnormal condition through which the country has passed. The financial question, in all its branches, depends upon the political, and cannot be separated. I might use stronger language. It is a part of the political question; and now that Reconstruction seems about to be accomplished, it is that enduring part which still remains. * * * * * Our present responsibilities, whether political or financial, have a common origin in that vast Rebellion, when the people of eleven States, maddened by Slavery, rose against the Nation. As the Rebellion was without example in its declared object, so it was without example in the extent and intensity of its operations. It sought nothing less than the dismemberment of our Nation and the establishment of a new power with Slavery as its quickening principle. The desperate means enlisted by such a cause could be encountered only by the most strenuous exertions in the name of Country and of Human Rights. Here was Slavery, barbarous, brutal, vindictive, warring for recognition. The tempest or tornado can typify only feebly the ravage that ensued. There were days of darkness and despair, when the national existence was in peril. Rebel armies menaced the Capitol, and Slavery seemed about to vindicate its wicked supremacy.