Upon this foundation Mr. Sumner spoke at great length, his speech filling forty-one columns of the _Congressional Globe_. It would hardly be proper indeed to call it a speech. It was a great historic review of the foundation of the Republics of the world, an exhaustive analysis of what constituted a true republic, closing with an eloquent plea for the ballot for the freedmen. He demanded "enfranchisement for the sake of the public security and public faith." He pleaded for the ballot as "the great guarantee." The ballot, he declared, "is a peacemaker, a schoolmaster, a protector." "Show me," said he, as he approached the conclusion of his speech--"show me a creature with erect countenance and looking to heaven, made in the image of God, and I show you a man who, of whatever country or race--whether darkened by equatorial sun or blanched with the northern cold--is an equal with you before the heavenly Father, and equally with you entitled to all the rights of human nature." . . . "You cannot deny these rights without impiety. God has so linked the National welfare with National duty that you cannot deny these rights without peril to the Republic. It is not enough that you have given liberty. By the same title that we claim liberty do we claim equality also. . . . The Roman Cato, after declaring his belief in the immortality of the soul, added, that if this were an error it was an error that he loved; and now, declaring my belief in liberty and equality as the God-given birthright of all men, let me say in the same spirit, if this be an error it is an error which I love; if this be a fault it is a fault which I shall be slow to renounce; if this be an illusion it is an illusion which I pray may wrap the world in its angelic form."