Charles Sumner

That such an outrage could go unpunished shows the little regard of the President for human rights, whether in white or black.

For months the Navy of the United States was kept hovering on the coast, holding that insulted people in constant dread and anxiety, while President Grant was to them like a hawk sailing in the air, ready to swoop upon his prey.

Here was indignity not only to the Black Republic with its population of six hundred thousand, but to the African race everywhere, and especially in our own country.

The Admiral would have done no such thing to any white ruler, nor would our country have tolerated such menace from any Government in the world.

Not content with this audacious dictatorship, he proceeded to strike at the independence of the Black Republic by open menace of war, and all without the sanction of Congress, to which is committed the power to make war.

I refer to the outrage he perpetrated upon Hayti, with its six hundred thousand blacks engaged in the great experiment of self-government.

His great success in war, and the honors he has won, cannot change the record of his conduct toward your people, especially in contrast with the life-time fidelity of his competitor, while there are unhappy “antecedents” showing that in…

Horace Greeley earnestly desired that colored citizens should vote, and ably championed impartial suffrage; but President Grant was on the other side.

President Grant, except as a soldier summoned by the terrible accident of war, never did anything against Slavery, nor has he at any time shown any sympathy with the colored race, but rather indifference, if not aversion.

Horace Greeley from early life was earnest and constant against Slavery, full of sympathy with the colored race, and always foremost in the great battle for their rights.

So do I,--believing most sincerely that the best interests of the whole country are associated with the completest recognition of your rights, so that the two races shall live together in unbroken harmony.

No man or party can expect power except for the general welfare.

I know your infinite wrongs, and feel for them as my own.

It is true that I am the friend of your race, and I am glad to be assured that in your opinion I have held a consistent course in the Senate and elsewhere as the special advocate of your rights.

Not without anxiety do I wait, but with the earnest hope that the Convention will bring the Republican Party into ancient harmony, saving it especially from the suicidal folly of an issue on the personal pretensions of one man.

But I do fear a quarrelsome pilot, unused to the sea, but pretentious in command, who occupies himself in loading aboard his own unserviceable relations and personal patrons, while he drives away the experienced seamen who know the craft…

Much rather would I see the party to which I am dedicated, under the image of a life-boat not to be sunk by wind or wave.

A National Convention which is a Presidential ring cannot represent the Republican Party.

Here, too, are wire-pullers; and when the great Office-Holder and the great Office-Seeker are one and the same, it is easy to see how naturally the engine responds to the central touch.

The Caucus is at last understood as a political engine moved by wire-pullers, and it becomes more insupportable in proportion as directed to personal ends.

Higher than party are country and the duty to save it from Cæsar.

Not without earnest effort against the betrayal can I suffer its ideas and principles to be lost in the personal pretensions of one man.

But a bad example must be corrected as a bad law.

Necessarily the public service takes its character from its elected chief, and the whole country reflects the President.

If he fraternizes with jobbers and Hessians, where is the limit to the demoralization that must ensue?