On the record
I can never banish from my mind that picture of Washington taking his first oath to support the Constitution of the United States, when nowhere on the land within the national jurisdiction breathed a single slave.
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gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Sumner reflects on Washington's oath and the absence of slavery at that historic moment.
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Nor should we be too impatient to witness the fulfilment of our aspirations.
They are but leaders of the two contending factions into which the Slave Power is divided.
They belong to a system so essentially irrational, that all the admitted virtues of many of its agents cannot save it from judgment.
It is true, doubtless, that there are various races of men; but there is but one great Human Family, in which Caucasian, Ethiopian, Chinese, and Indian are all brothers, children of one Father, and heirs to one happiness.
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