The whole pretension against the proposed condition is in the name of State Rights; but it cannot be doubted that it may be traced directly to 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 Missouri Act takes up the rule asserted in the Ordinance, and declares that in certain Territories Slavery shall be prohibited forever.
The Ordinance of 1787, which is the great example, asserts the perpetuity of all its prohibitions; and this is the rule alike of law and statesmanship.
Nobody dares to praise Slavery; nobody dares to deny the Right of Petition.
The second broke forth in the “Atherton Gag,” under which the honest, earnest petitions from the national heart against Slavery, even in the District of Columbia, were tabled without reference, and the great Right of Petition, promised by…
These three pretensions entered into Congress, like so many devils, and possessed it.
The Slave-Masters forgot morals, history, and the Constitution.
The enlightened civilization of the age was beginning to be felt against Slavery, when its representatives turned madly round to confront the angel of light.
Nobody presumed to call it in question, until at last Slavery flung down its challenge to everything that was settled for Freedom.
If anything in our history is settled by original authority, supported by tradition and time, it is the binding character of the Ordinance for the Government of the Northwest Territory.
In form it is a compact, unalterable except by the consent of the parties, and therefore forever.
According to these words, which I am sure would not be disowned by the present Chief Justice of the United States, the Ordinance is a sublime act, having for its object nothing less than the perpetual maintenance of the genuine principles…
Every settler within the territory, by the very act of settlement, became a party to this compact, bound by its perpetual obligations, and entitled to the full benefit of its excellent provisions for himself and his posterity.
I know not that history records a sublimer act than this.
Deeper than all local law, deeper than all local constitutions, is this fundamental law; and such is its essential quality, that the soil which it protects cannot sustain any other than freemen.
Surely this condition, perpetual in form, would not have been introduced, had it been supposed to be inoperative,--had it been regarded as a sham, and not a reality.
It will be observed that the condition was in no respect temporary, but that it was “forever,”--thus outlasting any territorial government, and constituting a fundamental law, irrepealable through all time.
Among these is the famous prohibition of Slavery.
Here I shall encounter the familiar pretensions of another time, no longer put forth by defiant Slave-Masters, but retailed by conscientious Senators, who think they are supporting the Constitution, when they are only echoing the voice of…
Meanwhile, may they find in themselves, and in the goodness of an overruling Providence, that refuge and protection which the Senate refuses to give!
I send them at this terrible moment the sympathy and fellowship of a heart that suffers with them.
They are fellow-citizens of a common country, brethren of a common humanity, two commanding titles, both strong against the deed.
Alas for the fresh graves already beginning to yawn, while violence, armed with your verdict, goes forth, like another Fury, and murder is quickened anew!
Alas for that race so long oppressed, but at last redeemed from bondage, now plunged back into another hell of torment!
Alas for the hearts of the people, bruised to unutterable sadness, as they witness a cruel tyranny installed once more!
Politicians like Charles Sumner
