Mr.Trumbull suggested that "the senator from Maine would not be likely to get any light from the deliberations of five men unless he were himself one of them." Retorting in the same spirit, but, as he said, good-naturedly, Mr.Fessenden said he should not "hope that _any_ deliberation of anybody would enlighten the senator from Illinois." Sustaining the extreme power of confiscation, Mr.Sumner desired "the Act to be especially leveled at the institution of Slavery." He recalled the saying of Charles XII.

of Sweden, that the cannoneers were perfectly right in directing their shots at him, for the war would be at an instant end if they could kill him; whereas they would reap little from killing his principal officers.

"There is," said the senator, "no shot in this war so effective as one against Slavery, which is king above all officers; nor is there better augury of complete success than the willingness at last to fire upon this wicked king." By this means, Mr.Sumner believed that we should "take from the rebellion its mainspring of activity and strength, stop its chief stores of provisions and supplies, remove a motive and temptation to prolonged resistance, and destroy forever the disturbing influence which, so long as it exists, will keep this land a volcano, ever ready to break forth anew." Mr.Sumner, Mr.Wade, and Mr.Chandler, the senators who were regarded as most radical, desired more stringent provisions than they could secure.
The really able lawyers of the Senate, Mr.Fessenden and Judge Collamer, repressed the extreme measures which but for their interposition would have been enacted.

As the bill was finally perfected, Mr.Chandler and his colleague Mr.Howard voted against it, as did also Mr.Browning of Illinois and the Border-State Senators Davis of Kentucky, Henderson of Missouri, and Carlile of Virginia.

To the Michigan senators the bill was too weak; to the others it was too strong.