COLORED SENATORS,-THEIR IMPORTANCE IN SET

TLING THE QUESTION OF EQUAL RIGHTS.

LETTER TO AN INQUIRER IN SOUTH CAROLINA, JULY 3, 1868.

THE following letter, from a South Carolina paper, is one of many in the same sense which found its way to the public.

DE

SENATE CHAMBER, July 3, 1868.

EAR SIR,-I have never given any opinion in regard to the Senatorial question in your State, except to express regret that the golden opportunity should be lost of making a colored citizen Senator from South Carolina.

Such a Senator, if competent, would be a powerful support to the cause of Equal Rights. His presence alone would be a constant testimony and argument. Nothing could do so much to settle the question of Equal Rights forever in the United States. The howl against the negro, which is sometimes heard in the Senate, would cease. A colored Senator would be as good as a Constitutional Amendment, making all backward steps impossible.

I write now frankly, in reply to your inquiry, and without any purpose of interfering in your election. You will pardon my anxiety for the cause I have so much at heart.

Accept my best wishes, and believe me, dear Sir, faithfully yours,

CHARLES SUMNER.

TO THADDEUS K. SASPORTAS, Esq., Columbia, S. C.

FINANCIAL RECONSTRUCTION THROUGH PUB

LIC FAITH AND SPECIE PAYMENTS.

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, ON THE BILL TO FUND THE NATIONAL DEBT, JULY 11, 1868.

We denounce all forms of Repudiation as a national crime [prolonged cheers]; and the national honor requires the payment of the public indebtedness, in the utmost good faith, to all creditors, at home and abroad, not only according to the letter, but to the spirit of the laws under which it was contracted. [Applause.] — CHICAGO PLATFORM, May, 1868.

Fundamentum est autem justitiæ fides, id est, dictorum conventorumque constantia et veritas. - CICERO, De Officiis, Lib. I. Cap. 7.

SPEECH.

THE Senate having under consideration the Bill for funding the National Debt and for the Conversion of the Notes of the United States, Mr. Sumner said :

MR.

R. PRESIDENT,- After a tempest sweeping sea and land, strewing the coast with wrecks, and tumbling houses to the ground, Nature must become propitious before the energy of man can repair the various losses. Time must intervene. At last ships are launched again, and houses are built, in larger numbers and fairer forms than before. A tempest has swept over us, scourging in every direction; and now that its violence has ceased, we are occupied in the work of restoration. Nature is already propitious, and time, too, is silently preparing the way, while the national energies are applied to the work.

To know what to do, we must comprehend the actual condition of things, and how it was brought about. All this is easy to see, if we will only look.

It is a mistake of too constant occurrence to treat the financial question by itself, without considering its dependence upon the abnormal condition through which the country has passed. The financial question, in all its branches, depends upon the political, and cannot be