Happily, Slavery is abolished; but, alas! wrong is not banished from the earth, nor has it ceased to be organized in human institutions, or to be maintained by governments. In considering the question of San Domingo, I am sure you will not forget our duty to the Haytian people, counting by the hundred thousand, who now seek peace with the rest of the island, and would gladly accept our good offices. “Blessed are the peacemakers!” Here is our opportunity to obtain this blessing; but we must begin by stopping our war-dance about the island, kept up at immense cost for more than a year. Faithfully yours, CHARLES SUMNER. A. W. POWELL, ESQ. POWER OF THE SENATE TO IMPRISON RECUSANT WITNESSES. SPEECHES IN THE SENATE, MAY 18 AND 27, 1871. May 18, 1871, Z. L. White and H. J. Ramsdell, newspaper correspondents, having been taken into custody by order of the Senate, for refusing to disclose, on the requisition of a committee appointed to investigate the matter, the source whence a copy of the Treaty of Washington had been obtained which they had communicated for publication while under consideration in Executive Session, and Mr. White, whose case was first presented, on arraignment at the bar of the Senate persisting in his refusal, a resolution was thereupon offered for his commitment to the common jail until he should answer. Mr. Sumner immediately moved an amendment substituting for the common jail the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms, remarking;-- In support of that amendment I will say that the only precedent we have in our history known to me for this case is that of Nugent,[105] and he was committed to the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms. It appears from the newspapers of the time that there was a perpetual menace, as the excitement increased, that the custody should be changed to the common jail; but it does not appear that it was so changed. He continued for some two months in the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms. We all know, also, that after the Impeachment Trial a witness was taken into custody; but it was simply the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House.[106]