Charles Sumner: “Everywhere within their borders the States are the peculiar guardians of personal liberty.”

Again I repeat, so long as the War System prevails under the sanction of International Law, these painful incongruities will be apparent.

Controlled by such a code, employing such representatives, sustained by such agencies, animated by such Furies, and producing such fruits of tears and bitterness, it must be open to question.

They belong to a system so essentially irrational, that all the admitted virtues of many of its agents cannot save it from judgment.

Above all, welcome to the united regenerated Democracy of the North, which spurns the mockery of a Republic, with professions of Freedom on the lips, while the chains of Slavery clank in the Capitol!