"The Senator says the original law only embraced within its provisions the refugees in the rebellious States; and now this bill is extended to all the States, and he wants to know the reason. I will tell him. When the original bill was passed, slavery existed in Tennessee, Kentucky, Delaware, and in various other States. Since that time, by the constitutional amendment, it has been every-where abolished."
Mr. Saulsbury, aroused by the mention of his own State, interrupted the speaker: "I say, as one of the representatives of Delaware on this floor, that she had the proud and noble character of being the first to enter the Federal Union under a Constitution formed by equals. She has been the very last to obey a mandate, legislative or executive, for abolishing slavery. She has been the last slaveholding State, thank God, in America, and I am one of the last slaveholders in America."
Mr. Trumbull continued: "Well, Mr. President, I do not see particularly what the declaration of the Senator from Delaware has to do with the question I am discussing. His State may have been the last to become free, but I presume that the State of Delaware, old as she is, being the first to adopt the Constitution, and noble as she is, will submit to the Constitution of the United States, which declares that there shall be no slavery within its jurisdiction." [Applause in the galleries.]
"It is necessary, Mr. President, to extend the Freedmen's Bureau beyond the rebel States in order to take in the State of Delaware, [laughter,] the loyal State of Delaware, I am happy to say, which did not engage in this wicked rebellion; and it is necessary to protect the freedmen in that State as well as elsewhere; and that is the reason for extending the Freedmen's Bureau beyond the limits of the rebellious States.
"Now, the Senator from Indiana says it extends all over the United States. Well, by its terms it does, though practically it can have little if any operation outside of the late slaveholding States. If freedmen should congregate in large numbers at Cairo, Illinois, or at Evansville, Indiana, and become a charge upon the people of those States, the Freedmen's Bureau would have a right to extend its jurisdiction over them, provide for their wants, secure for them employment, and place them in situations where they could provide for themselves; and would the State of Illinois or the State of Indiana object to that? The provisions of the bill which would interfere with the laws of Indiana can have no operation there.