MR. SUMNER. Who has felt the grievance, and testifies that the remedy can only be through the Nation. There is where he differs from my friend. MR. MORRILL. It is not necessary to read evidence to me that the colored people think there ought to be legislation by Congress. The question between the Senator and myself is precisely this: What is your authority? MR. SUMNER. I am coming to that. This is only the beginning. MR. MORRILL. When you come to that, and make an issue with me, I shall be ready to answer. MR. SUMNER. I shall come to that in due season, and give the Senator the opportunity he desires. I shall speak to the question of power. Meanwhile I proceed with the letter:-- “I have read with joy your recently presented Supplementary Civil Rights Bill. It meets my hearty approval. In the name of God and down-trodden humanity, I pray you press its enactment to a successful consummation. “Such a law, firmly enforced, coupled with complete amnesty”-- You see the point, Mr. President,--“coupled with complete amnesty”-- “for political offences to those who once held us in bondage, will furnish, as I believe, the only sound basis of reconstruction and reconciliation for the South.” Now my friend will not understand that I exaggerate this letter. I do not adduce it as authority, but simply as testimony, showing what an intelligent colored fellow-citizen thinks with regard to his rights on two important points much debated: first, as to the necessity of remedy through the National Government; and, secondly, as to the importance of uniting this assurance of Equal Rights with Amnesty, so that the two shall go together. Before coming directly to the authority on which my friend is so anxious, I call attention to another communication, from the President of the Georgia Civil Rights Association, which I think should be read to the Senate. It is addressed to me officially; and if I do not read it, the Senate will not have the benefit of it. There is no Senator from Georgia to speak for the Civil Rights Association. I shall let them speak by their President, Captain Edwin Belcher:-- “I realize more and more, every day, the necessity of such a measure of justice as your ‘Supplementary Bill.’ When that becomes a law, the freedom of my race will then be complete.” I call attention to that point. This writer regards the pending measure essential to complete the Abolition of Slavery; and I hope you will not forget this judgment, because it will be important at a later moment in vindicating the constitutional power of Congress. “When that becomes a law, the freedom of my race will then be complete,”--not before, not till then, not till the passage of the Supplementary Civil Rights Bill. Down to that time Slavery still exists. Such, Sir, is the statement of a man once a slave, and who knows whereof he speaks; nor can it be doubted that he is right.