“The honorable Senator would be very quick to demand the interference of all the powers of this Government in behalf of an arrested American citizen, if he were black. But, Sir, those arrested happen to be of another color,--not a color which appeals to his sympathies, but a color that allows him to belittle their arrest and incarceration,--that enables him to say here in the Senate that our Government have done everything that they could do, all that was necessary. It is true in his judgment, I have no doubt; for, if you only write letters, if you only publish and utter productions of the brain, if you only present views, the honorable Senator is satisfied. Those are his means, except when the progress through the thoroughfares of the city or the country of an American citizen of African descent is involved. Then views are at once thrown to the dogs, and he demands the interference of the Government, the police authority; if it be a railroad company, repeal their acts of incorporation! No matter how much capital stands in the way,--it may be $10,000,000 that is affected,--repeal their acts at once! How dare they impiously set up their tyranny over one human being who is stamped with American citizenship?… The law as proposed to be passed under the direction of the honorable Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations amounts to nothing.… I hope, without detaining the Senate any longer, that we shall not add to our too great delay upon these questions the offence and insult that the passage of this Act would be as proposed by the Committee.[259] To this attack Mr. Sumner replied as follows:--