Page:Sequel of Appomattox.djvu/153

Rh governments under the control of Congress. These States should, he said, "never be recognized as capable of acting in the Union … until the Constitution shall have been so amended as to make it what the makers intended, and so as to secure perpetual ascendency to the party of the Union."

Charles Sumner, the leader of the radicals in the Senate, was moved less than Stevens by personal hostility toward the whites of the South, but his sympathy was reserved entirely for the blacks. He was unpractical, theoretical, and not troubled by constitutional scruples. To him the Declaration of Independence was the supreme law and it was the duty of Congress to express its principles in appropriate legislation. Unlike Stevens, who had a genuine liking for the negro, Sumner's sympathy for the race was purely intellectual; for the individual negro he felt repulsion. His views were in effect not different from those of Stevens. And he was practical enough not to overlook the value of the negro vote. "To my mind," he said, "nothing is clearer than the absolute necessity of suffrage for all colored persons in the disorganized States. It will not be enough if you give it to those who read and write; you will not, in this way, acquire the voting force which you need there for