Thus, whichever way we approach it, the absurdity of this pretension becomes manifest.
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.
gutenberg.org
Claiming for all the largest liberty of a true Civilization, it compresses all within the constraints of Justice; nor does it allow any man to assert a right to do what he pleases, except when he pleases to do right.
Beyond all doubt, no majority can be permitted to pass on the question, whether fellow-men shall be bought and sold like cattle.
The very act of voting upon the question of reducing men to bondage is a heinous wrong, for it assumes that we may do unto others what we would not have them do unto us.
The assumption, that Slave-Masters, under the Constitution, may take their slaves into Territories and continue to hold them as in States, stands on two pretensions,--first, that man may hold property in man, and, secondly, that this…
But we have seen that the pretended property in man stands on no reason, while the two special arguments by which it is asserted--first, an alleged inferiority of race, and, secondly, the ancient curse of Ham--are grossly insufficient to…
Thus the normal condition of the Territories is confirmed by the Constitution, which, when extended over them, renders Slavery impossible, while it writes upon the soil and engraves upon the rock everywhere the law of impartial Freedom…
I have spoken frankly and from the heart,--if severely, yet only with the severity of a sorrowful candor, calling things by their right names, and letting historic facts tell their unimpeachable story.
I have spoken in patriotic hope of contributing to the welfare of my country, and also in assured conviction that this utterance to-day will find response in generous souls.
I believe that I have said nothing which is not sustained by well-founded argument or well-founded testimony, nothing which can be controverted without direct assault upon reason or upon truth.
Then will the Barbarism of Slavery be repelled, and the pretension of property in man be rebuked.
Such an act will be the first stage in those triumphs by which the Republic, lifted in character so as to become an example to mankind, will enter at last upon its noble “prerogative of teaching the nations how to live.
Of the many colonies following our example and independence Hayti was the first, and yet, by strange perversity, is not even now recognized by our Government.
Thus, Sir, speaking for Freedom in Kansas, I have spoken for Freedom everywhere, and for Civilization; and as the less is contained in the greater, so are all arts, all sciences, all economies, all refinements, all charities, all delights…
The sacred animosity of Freedom and Slavery can end only with the triumph of Freedom.
President, in the heroic ages of the world men were deified for the possession and the exercise of some virtues,--wisdom, truth, justice, magnanimity, courage.
We do not intend to contribute, by any conduct on our part, to increase the devotees at the shrine of this new idol.
But I have read enough to approve, and rejoice that you have been permitted thus truly, fully, and faithfully to expose the ‘Barbarism’ of Slavery on that very floor on which you were so cruelly and brutally stricken down by the spirit of…
I am ready to shoulder my musket and march to the Capitol, and there sacrifice my life in defence of Free Speech and the Right.
During the delivery of this exasperating bill of charges, specifications, and denunciation of that ‘sum of all villanies,’ Slavery, a profound and most ominous silence prevailed on the floor of the Senate and in the galleries.
We say ominous silence, because we can only recognize it as something fearfully ominous,--ominous of mischief,--ominous of the revival in this capital and throughout the country of the Slavery agitation, with a tenfold bitterness compared…
The speech of Charles Sumner yesterday was probably the most masterly and exhaustive argument against human bondage that has ever been made in this or any other country, since man first commenced to oppress his fellow-man.
There was something sublime in the ardor and boldness and majesty with which he spoke.
Nothing could surpass the effect of the concluding paragraphs, in which he predicted a Republican triumph in November next.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
Politicians like Charles Sumner
