Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 4

[71] absolute prohibition. Though there were supposed to be only ten thousand slaves within the limits of the proposed State, he declared himself unalterably opposed to any more slave States, and insisted that however small the number, all history showed that ‘it takes but little slavery to make a slave State with all the virus of slavery.’¹ Failing to change the terms of the bill, he voted against the admission. A number of Republican senators, including Trumbull and Wilson, voted with him. Curiously enough, he often encountered in his antislavery efforts the sharpest criticism or the most strenuous resistance from senators who had the reputation of holding advanced antislavery positions,—and in this instance from Hale and Wade.

Sumner proposed an amendment to the internal tax bill, taxing slaveholders for their slaves, which encountered from several Republican senators constitutional objections, chiefly as levying a capitation tax.² Hale condemned it as recognizing property in man,—an inference which Sumner avoided by treating it as levied on a claim, and as recognizing a fact rather than a right. Sherman, who led in opposition to the amendment, took Sumner to task for not being sufficiently considerate and restrained in his description of slaveholders as a class. Sumner's proposition prevailed after a debate, but was lost on a later vote.³ Consideration for the border slave States rather than constitutional scruples determined the final action of the Senate.

Congress was not yet ready for the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act; but meantime Sumner watched every opportunity to restrict its operation and prepare the way for its repeal. He was strenuous in preventing any recognition of it in new legislation;⁴ and in calling attention to the attempts of masters to recover slaves in Washington, he introduced a resolution to prevent their seizure in the District of Columbia, to which the clause in the Constitution as to the escape of persons held to service did not apply.⁵