The Secretary read as follows: Addy equip( the Swim (bnpenhmt (a(bmilep)(of Geneva. B6 eufchatel. Team and Bern!) in {near of Ike freedmen, will of the assembly enncocaledat Genrva on the2W}!March. 1866, by the genevaConvention. To the PreCsiodnegnrteasnsd oftho U.S.A.: Mr. President, Messrs. Members of Congress: For 4 years wo have. as it were. lived with you, have borne your grievances, beeprepderedJoyous at your deliverance, and have gloried in your success. When the election of Lincoln announced to the world that you had had enough of the systemwhich abused you, enough of comp icit and compromise with slavery, of man huntin o ained by slavery, of conquest! for the profit O slavery. of polities in term of the party of slave, we gavothan s to God. When your Union win isrnpted bey revolt, when your prosperity was on pied, (tervial.) when mpny voicesbad prophesied the dissolution of the Union, we hailed the commencementot a new and a better life for your people. When military reversesmenacedyam noblecause. we still believed that it would not perish. Wlie n Europelent, or seemedto lend, an intervention in favor of the South toward violating your blockndes and in recognition of the rehelcon ederaey.we always believedthat somethingwould interposeitself between the design and the execution; that your grand principle would intervene and through that you would becomeinvincible. When itwasgenerully believedand said that peace negotiations would render iingatory the moral results of the war. that on would COHIElOHIlSO with the pr udinesand the institutions of the South. we always believed that you would notluy down your arms until you had destroyedyour real enemy, is to any.slavery. When the death of Lincoln plunged us in mourn“ing. We believed that Lincolns successurwould stake his honor on the continuance and the completion of his work. Finally, when you have announcedto the world that the constitutional ampndment was adopted that already there was no Hnklo slave upon the so:of the Union, we have heard within expresrahl emuotion this glorious progress.this greatestevent of our “I0t is thin sentiment which we would manifest today as a duty.of sligh iuiportaiice though the to: timnny may be. it shall not be said that the voice of Switzerlan sbbuld not make itself heard in your. plause. You have far surpassed the hopesof those. w 10 hoped the most . At the samemomentin which your trails terminated you pronounced the tulisiiiauie word 0! freedom. It will make itself heardthrough out the New world: the Spanish treaty will he suppressed; you Will annihilate Brazilian slavery. A whola;race sutferingin bondage shall be freed at the soon. These are rare daysin the historyof mankind. when solities and the Gospel inuvo hand in hand these axis of sunshine uno souredby a cloud., tter such days.in resuming the course of ordinary life. we should guard against dangersfrom contin figllUlQS and set aside obstacles. To finish is more iflieult than to begin: to make sure its application more arduous than the annunciation of a principle. The labors that await you today are not less important and are more complox and difficult to sur mount than those uf yesteriay. But the onegoes not without the other. Sad will be the condition of your on franehised slaves if you make not citizens of thein. Between slavery and liberty realliberty there are no l)?0llllllllglplMO Thus what do the enemies of the Union now rediotl that freedomwill destroy the freedmen: that tired of them.you will succuni to the camp of the fatiguing problem; that you will no longer listen to the voiceof the poor negroes: that it Will not matter to you whether they remain or depart. whether they live or die; that in the rude contact.With your prejudicesand contemptthey Will finish. as the Indians haveperished; that your phar ical abolition will tind itself resulting in their extermination; that the pure glory of today will turn to shame on the morrow. We protest against such dark resages weask that they may be brandedwith falseiood. We know that your acts will so brand theui and verysoon. The ine re you desire the dark question to cease troubling the U.S. the more you will feel that it must be disposed of. Unfinished questions have no pity for the reposeof mankind. how shall that completion be attained? But 2 things remain to he done: to maintain your Freedmens Bureau and to suppress all civil and political distinctions on account ofcolor. To refuse Federal protcction to the slaves that were a protection in ispeusable to the transition is togive them u purely and iiim ly to the laws. the administration. the tribunals of the South. It would be to decree the reestablishment of slavery with the addition of hatred and by consequence.of atrocity. To conserve political ox clusion to the black race.as a race.would be to deny the principle. even the name.for which the Nort has so valiantly combated. That prudent measuresshould accompany the conferring of the right of suffrage in the South that or instance. it should be limited to those who can read and write. without distinction of color we can well understand. But what we cannot understand. nor can any of those who teach and sustained your cause is the exclusion of the race. If the southern States were readmitted to Congress without imposing a them. as a condition. the equality of races.we ould by itterly do lore it; we would how the head in humility and so ness and await in fear a recommenecment of those hastilities between the South and North. Between the Republicans and the Democrats. the end of which had seemed only to have come round. But what would most disturb all our hopes would be to see those freedmen who had spilled their blood for the defense of the Union rewarded for their devotion by being deprived of those rights which are. in all republican governments the appanage of those brave men who are called to bear arms for their country. at the sometime that the rebels.who had torn the bosom of thoir country and begged the intervention of the foreigner not only reeniey the rights they had before the war. but made the arbiters absolute of the fate of loyal citizens. To give to those guilty of hlgh treason th e powerto reuce good citizens to the position of political pariahs sto reward treachery and to discourage patriotism t9give in to those who pronounced selfgovernment imposstble and self lnuihilating. That one condition necessary to future peace should imposed on the rebel States. The sense.namely, of the above.we doubtnot you understand for you have already imposed upon them an affirmative vote upon the amendment abolishing slavery. One step more and your task is finished. By the side of the abolition of slavery it remains to you to equalize the races before the law. What is abolition without equality 1 It remains to you to decide that ie rebel states. before recnter in Congress should abolish all distinctions based on color. Political frannice: in all respects should be enjoyed equally by blacks and whites. These guarantees obtained open to them your arms and hasten toward ageneral reconciliation, Avoid any unnecessary prolongationof the present interregnum. (regime except wnnel.) d year to other glories that of reestablishing the power of [our Government at the immediate close of a bitter civilWar. Liberty is bold and st.r on; and of what useare her boldness and strength if s O cannot trust and pardon? It is repugnant to us to conceive your stoppin half [by] and conferring upon the former slaves liberty Ill out equality or in other words liberty without the conditions of freedom: liberty without dignity; liberty with an unopened future. without possible progress liberty without that upon which it becomes treat and attains its cud; thus you would re constitute a newslave part in Congress further oppresions of slaves thro bout the South, Seeking for pIoteraycoeuyocuan would prroeno organize iHthltiflmtplulnllietywtahreawt fiorrsdts. runs; and when those whom you have declared free feel that they have neither protectionnor rights. Nor means of regular action. they are almost inf libly driven to employothermeans. CivilWar would follow. lo it possible that the blood of the blacks Sllttl on the other side of the Potomac. that crucl oppressions. would not s ced that war and that the generous instincts of theNorth wouldnot reawaken I They would complain. they would denounce iniqui tics. they would intervene morally and the ancient quarrel would blaze forth again. As faithful friends t we havehetter hopes foryou. We have said much. convinced that you will easily perceive that there is a warm sympathy in the depths of our fears and that our sincerity is strengthened by respect and by attachment. May He who has guarded you and protectedyou thus far continue to guard and protect you to the end; that lie may empower you to finish what you have begun to treat as follow citizens and to love as brothers those who. thanks to you. are no longer in slavery and that He may accomplish for you now and hereafter all those good wisheswith which our hearts are filled. ll. SERMENT and others.for Geneva. ADllLIll CllIl 1ST and others. for Biilc. ROBHRT LISSUT and others.for Neufchatol. F. BlANCllETlI and others.for Tessin. BERN ARD and others.for Home. M. BECHET. for the Canton Do Vaud. Guava, April 10.1866.