This is hard, very hard, for me to bear; for I long to do something at this critical moment for the cause.
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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For a while, at least, I must leave to others the precious satisfaction of laboring for Liberty and the redemption of our country.
God bless Ohio for her glorious testimony already, and her more glorious promises!
It is hard to renounce the opportunity which you offer me; for I have constantly hoped to visit Illinois during the present contest, and in plain language put to her people the questions which they are to decide by their votes.
Are you especially against the extension of Slavery BY FORCE?
Are you against the erection of the Slave Oligarchy as the dominant power in our Republic?
Are you against the violation of the constitutional rights of American citizens?
Audacious sophistry, often exposed, but still flaunting abroad, may seek to deceive you.
It may foam with abuse and bristle with perversion of fact; but it cannot obscure the unquestionable truth, which now stares everybody in the face, that a vote for Buchanan is a vote for all these bad things.
It is a vote not simply for the extension of Slavery, but also for the extension of Slavery BY FORCE, involving, besides, the erection of the Slave Oligarchy as the dominant power in our Republic, and the violation of the constitutional…
Hers will be the path of Liberty, which is, of course, the path of true patriotism.
With his example before her, Illinois cannot wander again into the support of Slavery.
Nothing but necessity could keep me thus aloof, a mere looker-on, while the great battle of Freedom is waged.
Yet the impulse and ardor of my convictions do not allow me to be content in any such retirement.
I wish to enter the strife, and give such powers as I can to the righteous cause.
Everywhere the people are aroused, at least away from the pavement of great cities, where, too often, human perversity is such as to suggest that “God made the country and man made the town.
The Territory of Kansas has been made the victim of countless atrocities, in order to force Slavery upon its beautiful, uncontaminated soil.
By lawless violence a Government has been established there, which, after despoiling the citizen of all his dearest rights, has surrounded Slavery with the protection of pretended statutes.
And the question is distinctly submitted to the American people, “Are you ready to sanction these enormities?” This is the simple question.
Refusing to become partakers of such wrong, you will contribute not only to the freedom of Kansas, but also to the overthrow of the brutal and domineering Oligarchy which seeks to enslave Kansas, simply as a stepping-stone to the…
Surely, no man can hesitate, when Freedom requires his vote.
All that they can do will be twice blessed,--blessing them in their lives, and blessing distant despoiled fellow-citizens.
For myself, I would rather a thousand times serve this cause, even in the humblest capacity, than be a Governor indifferent to its appeals.
To such a charity every person must give; if in no other way, the man who has two coats must sell one, and let Kansas have the other.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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