But there can be no rule of good faith binding on private individuals which is not binding on the Nation, while there are exceptional reasons for extraordinary scrupulousness on the part of the Nation.
Charles Sumner
The Public Record
Charles Sumner was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874. Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading American advocate for the abolition of slavery, and after the war he was a key figure in the Reconstruction era, during which he and other Radical Republicans successfully fought to end slavery and ensure basic rights for Black Americans. He continued advocating for racial equality until his death, lobbying in his final days for a civil rights bill that served as a model for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Historians credit Sumner with coining the phrase "equality before the law," which he first used as part of an early attempt to integrate Boston's public school system.
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The subtraction from the interest by taxation is kindred in dishonesty to the increase of the Gaulish subsidy by adding to the months.
It is an imitation of the Roman governor, a lieutenant of Cæsar, who, after an agreement by the people of Gaul to pay a certain subsidy monthly, arbitrarily changed the number of months to fourteen.
To tax the bonds is to break the contract because you have the power.
It is in two conspicuous forms that Repudiation flaunts: first, in the barefaced proposition to tax the bonds, contrary to the contract at the time the money was lent; and the other, not less barefaced, to pay interest-bearing bonds with…
But it is vain to expect this important change from a political party which emblazons Repudiation on its banners.
Therefore do I say that the time has passed when the Nation can be excused for refusing to pay according to its promise.
But as the necessity ceases, the obligations of justice revive.
Necessity may excuse an action not in itself just, but it is without the force to render it just; for justice is immutable.
Our failure was originally sanctioned only under the urgency of war; but this sanction cannot extend beyond the urgency.
A failure to pay may be excused, but never justified.
If we can, we ought; for this is nothing but the honest payment of what we owe.
Nay, more, it is my conviction, not only that we can have specie payments at that time, but that we ought to have them.
The Acts and the Debt are parts of one system, being the means and price of peace.
Repudiation of the Reconstruction Acts, with all their securities for Equal Rights, is naturally followed by repudiation of the National Debt.
Let the Reconstruction Acts be maintained in peace, in other words, let peace be established in the Rebel States, and the menace of Repudiation will disappear from the scene,--none so poor to do it reverence.
The Nation is solemnly pledged to guard its Unity, and to make Human Rights coextensive with its boundaries.
And now it is for us, their children, to keep this Unity, and to perform all the national promises thus announced.
It was in the name of “the good people of these Colonies,” called “one people,” that our fathers put forth the Declaration of Independence, with its preamble of Unity, and its dedication of the new Nation to Human Rights.
There is an irresistible protest against such a sacrifice, which comes from the very heart of our history.
It is as a Nation--all together making one--that we have a place at the council-board of the world, to excite the pride of the patriot and the respect of foreign powers.
The true patriot would not consent to see the sacrifice of the Nation more than the true mother before King Solomon would consent to see the sacrifice of her child.
Great as is the magic of a State, there is to my mind a greater magic in the Nation.
Important as are the functions of a State in the administration of local government, especially in resisting an overbearing centralization, they must not be exalted above the Nation in its own appropriate sphere.
In their name was the Rebellion begun, and now in their name is every measure of Reconstruction opposed.
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