Especially is this clear with regard to an institution like Slavery.
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 Constitution contains no power to make a king, or to support kingly rule.
With similar reason it may be said, that it contains no power to make a slave, or to support a system of Slavery.
But if there be no such power, all national legislation upholding Slavery must be unconstitutional and void.
No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
Under this great ægis the liberty of every person within the national jurisdiction is unequivocally placed.
Show me a person within the national jurisdiction, and I confidently claim for him this protection, no matter what his condition or race or color.
The natural meaning of the clause is clear, but a single fact of its history places it in the broad light of noon.
But this Amendment is nothing less than an express guaranty of Personal Liberty, and an express prohibition of its invasion anywhere, at least within the national jurisdiction.
The Union Flag of the Republic will become once more the flag of Freedom, and at all points within the national jurisdiction will refuse to cover a slave.
Beneath its beneficent folds, wherever it is carried, on land or sea, Slavery will disappear, like darkness under the arrows of the ascending sun,--like the Spirit of Evil before the Angel of the Lord.
In all national territories Slavery will be impossible.
On the high seas, under the national flag, Slavery will be impossible.
In the District of Columbia Slavery will instantly cease.
Inspired by these principles, Congress can give no sanction to Slavery by the admission of new Slave States.
Nowhere under the Constitution can the Nation, by legislation or otherwise, support Slavery, hunt slaves, or hold property in man.
And yet politicians of the hour undertake to place these convictions under formal ban.
The generous sentiments which filled the early patriots, and impressed upon the government they founded, as upon the coin they circulated, the image and superscription of LIBERTY, have lost their power.
The slave-masters, few in number, amounting to not more than three hundred and fifty thousand, according to the recent census, have succeeded in dictating the policy of the National Government, and have written SLAVERY on its front.
And now an arrogant and unrelenting ostracism is applied, not only to all who express themselves against Slavery, but to every man unwilling to be its menial.
A novel test for office is introduced, which would have excluded all the Fathers of the Republic,--even Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin!
Could these revered demigods of history once again descend upon earth and mingle in our affairs, not one of them could receive a nomination from the National Convention of either of the two old political parties!
Out of the convictions of their hearts and the utterances of their lips against Slavery they would be condemned.
This single fact reveals the extent to which the National Government has departed from its true course and its great examples.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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