Charles Sumner

The word of our Nation must be as good as its bond; and nobody must attempt to take a tittle from either.

I refer to the Public Faith, which must be sacredly preserved above all question or suspicion.

Here are two objects, which, when accomplished, will add infinitely to the wealth and happiness of the country, besides being the assurance that the Nation has at last reached that condition of repose so much longed for.

In dealing with the financial question, there are two other points of ever-present importance: first, the necessity of diminishing, so far as practicable, the heavy burden of taxation so oppressive to the people; and, secondly, the…

Every blow at them will rebound upon yourselves.

You who have at heart the national credit, on which so much depends, must never fail to cherish the national freedmen, treating their enemies as if they were your enemies.

Therefore, for the sake of the national finances, I insist that the national freedmen shall be secured and maintained in Equal Rights, so that local prejudices and party cries shall be unavailing against them.

Pardoned Rebels will never look with complacency upon the national debt, or the interest which testifies semiannually to its magnitude.

Foremost among these I put the absolute dependence of the national finances upon the faithful performance of all our obligations to the national freedmen.

In such a condition of affairs, inconvertible paper would be an impossibility, as much as a bill of sale for a human being.

It will come with the renovated life of the Nation, when it is once more complete in form, when every part is in sympathy with the whole, and the Rebellion, with all its offspring, is trampled out forever.

It will come with the general health of the body politic.

Such is my confidence in the resources of our country, in the industry of its people, and in the grandeur of its destinies, that I cannot doubt the transcendent future.

Andrew Johnson has postponed specie payments, and his supporters of all degrees must share the responsibility.

So far as their personal interests depended on an improved condition of the finances, they have already suffered; but it is hard that the country should suffer also.

All that he has done from the beginning has tended to protract the Rebellion and to extend the disorder of our finances.

So long as a dollar of irredeemable paper is forced upon the country, the Rebellion still lives, in its spurious progeny.

And yet there are many, who, while professing a desire for an improvement in our financial condition, perversely turn their backs upon the only means by which this can be accomplished.

Security is the first condition of Financial Reconstruction; and I am at a loss to find any road to it, except through Political Reconstruction.

How can you expect to restore the national credit, now unnaturally sensitive, while the Nation is still uneasy from those Rebel pretensions which have cost so much?

Nothing is more sensitive than Credit, which is the essential element of financial restoration.

Vain also while Equal Rights are without a sure defence against the oppressor.

Vain all attempt to reconstruct the national finances while the Rebellion was still in arms.

This is the work of Political Reconstruction, constituting the new stage after the overthrow of the Rebellion.

The citizen, lifted from Slavery, must be secured in all his rights, civil and political.