Is it not better to establish all our own people in the enjoyment of equal rights before we seek to bring others within the sphere of our institutions, to be treated as Frederick Douglass was on his way to the President from San Domingo?
Sumner questions the wisdom of seeking to expand rights to others before ensuring equality for one's own people.
Share
More from Charles Sumner
Out of this pernicious prejudice have proceeded that persecution and neglect which are the too frequent lot of the world's pioneers.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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.
Other voices in this conversation
