Political Quotes

On the record
I say it contains an odious and offensive principle; and I doubt if the Senator from Iowa would undertake to say that an exclusion from rights on account of color would be properly characterized otherwise than as odious and offensive.
Said by
Charles Sumner
Massachusetts

Editor's note · Context

Sumner condemns a specific principle in a constitution as odious and offensive, questioning its justification.

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Out of this pernicious prejudice have proceeded that persecution and neglect which are the too frequent lot of the world's pioneers.

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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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At Baltimore the delegation of the most important State in the Union, known to be in favor of the Wilmot Proviso, was refused admission to the Convention.

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They are but leaders of the two contending factions into which the Slave Power is divided.

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