Charles Sumner

How constantly have I urged, in public speech and in all my intercourse with you, that our colored fellow-citizens must insist upon their rights always, by petition, by speech, and by vote!

You can do much,--I would almost say you can do everything.

Here there must be no failure in awakening and invigorating this public opinion.

There must be a constant, watchful, public opinion behind, to see that these are enforced in letter and spirit.

Only then will be established that Equality before the Law to which now, for the first time in our history, all political parties are distinctly pledged.

This will be only by the enactment of a Civil Rights Bill which shall relieve the citizen, whoever he may be, from any exclusion or discrimination on account of his color.

Most sincerely do I congratulate you on these signal triumphs, so little to be expected when I first became acquainted with you.

The court-room, the school-house, the horse-car, and the ballot-box are all open, never to be closed.

But here in the National Capital all these terrible wrongs have ceased.

He was not allowed to testify in court; he was shut out from the public schools; he was excluded from the public conveyances, and thrust away from the ballot-box.

When I entered upon my public duties here Slavery was in the ascendant, giving the law to all the usages of life.

Meanwhile I appeal confidently to the candid judgment of those who, amidst all present differences of opinion, unite in the great objects, far above Party or President, to which my life is devoted.

The personal imputation you make upon me I repel with the indignation of an honest man.

Therefore, in proportion as you are earnest for the rights of the colored citizen, and place them above all partisan triumph, you will be glad to support the candidate whose heart has always throbbed for Humanity.

For myself, I say plainly and without hesitation, that I prefer Horace Greeley, with any Congress possible on the Cincinnati Platform, to President Grant, with his personal government and his rings,--a vote for whom involves the support of…

Opposition, whether open hostility or more subtle treachery, will yield to the steady influence of such a representative.

For the first time since the war the Equal Rights of All will have a declared representative at the head of the Government, whose presence there will be of higher significance than that of any victor in war, being not only a testimony, but…

The Democrats will be pledged, as never before, to the ruling principle that All Men are Equal before the Law, and also to the three Constitutional Amendments, with the clause in each empowering Congress to enforce the same by appropriate…

I am entirely satisfied that a canvass like the present, where the principles declared at Cincinnati are openly accepted on one side and not contested on the other, must result in a larger number of Congressional Representatives sincerely…

It is a victory of ideas, without which all other victories must fail.

Their support is the assurance that the cause he has so constantly guarded, whether of Equal Rights or Reconciliation, is accepted by Democrats; and this is the pledge of a true union beyond anything in our history.

Can we not after seven years begin a new life, especially when those once our foes repeat the saying, “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God”?

Seven years have passed since the close of our Civil War; but, unhappily, during all this period a hostile spirit has continued to exist between the contending sections, while the rights of colored fellow-citizens have been in perpetual…

I seize the opportunity to make the equal rights of all secure through peace and reconciliation; but this infinite boon you would postpone.

Never, while a sufferer, did anybody hear me speak of him in unkindness; and now, after the lapse of more than half a generation, I will not unite with you in dragging him from the grave, where he sleeps, to aggravate the passions of a…