MR. SUMNER. So I understood, Sir, and it was to that motion that I spoke. I argued that the bill and all pending questions should be referred to the Committee,--and on what ground? That the election was carried by a colossal fraud. The Senator complains because I did not go further, and say whether I would have a new election or not. The occasion did not require it. I am not in the habit, the Senator knows well, of hesitating in the expression of my opinions; but logically the time had not come for the expression of any opinion on that point. My argument was, that there must be inquiry. To that point the Senate knows well I have directed attention from the beginning of this debate. I have said: “Why speed this matter? Why hurry it to this rash consummation? Why, without inquiry, hand over the loyalists of Virginia, bound hand and foot, as victims?” That is what I have said; and it is no answer for my friend to say that I do not declare whether I would have a new election or not. When an inquiry has been made, and we know officially and in authentic form the precise facts, I shall be ready to meet all the requirements of the occasion,--so, at least, I trust. My friend, therefore, was premature in his proposition to me. May I remind him of that incident in the history of our profession, when a very learned and eminent chief-justice of England said to a counsellor at the bar, “Do not leap before you come to the stile,”--in other words, Do not speak to a point until the point has arisen?[193] The point which the Senator presents to me had not yet arisen; the question was not before the Senate, whether there should be a new election or not. There was no such motion; nor did the occasion require its consideration. My aim was in all simplicity to show the reasons for inquiry. Now it may be, that, when that inquiry is made, it will appear that I am mistaken,--that this election is not the terrible fraud that I believe it,--that the loyal people, black and white, will hereafter be secure in the State of Virginia under the proposed Constitution. It may be that all that will become apparent on the report of your Committee. It is not apparent now. On the contrary, just the opposite is apparent. It is apparent that loyalists will not be secure, that freedmen will suffer unknown peril, unless you now throw over them your protecting arm. That is my object. I wish to secure safety. I wish to surround all my fellow-citizens in that State with an impenetrable ægis. Is not that an honest desire? Is it not a just aspiration? I know that my friend from Indiana shares it with me; I claim no monopoly of it, but I mention it in order to explain the argument which I have made. * * * * *