To take this right away from any portion of our fellow-subjects--even if you say they are not fellow-citizens--will be barbarous.
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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And when I consider under what influence this proposition is brought forward, I present it as a fresh illustration of the Barbarism of Slavery,--most barbarous in the unconsciousness of its Barbarism.
In all the States--even in the Slave States--a free colored man may hold property of all kinds, personal or real,--even land, in which citizenship strikes its strongest root; but you will not allow him the poor right of petition.
He may own stocks of the United States, Treasury notes, and in other ways be the creditor of the Government; but you will not allow him the poor right of petition.
He is strictly bound by every enactment upon our statute-book; and yet you will not allow him to appear before you with a prayer to modify or soften this statute-book.
He is rigidly held to pay his quota of taxes; but you will not allow him to ask for their reduction.
And still further, under all your pension laws for Revolutionary services, and for services in other wars, whether on land or sea, he is entitled to a pension precisely as if he were white; but you will not allow him to solicit aid under…
Such is a simple statement of the injustice you are about to do.
On this statement alone, without one word of argument or illustration, you will surely recoil.
But this proposition proceeds on two assumptions, each of which is radically false: first, that a free person of African descent is not a citizen of the United States; and, secondly, that none other than a citizen is entitled to petition…
First, in Massachusetts, where the present petitioners reside, all persons, without distinction of color, are treated as citizens by its Constitution adopted in 1780.
Thirdly, in New Hampshire, whose Constitution conferred the elective franchise upon “every inhabitant of the State having the proper qualifications,”--of which descent or color was not one.
Fourthly, in New York, where the Constitution conferred the elective franchise upon “every male inhabitant of full age who shall have personally resided,” &c., “if during the time aforesaid he shall have been a freeholder,” &c.,--without…
Fifthly, in New Jersey, by whose Constitution the elective franchise was conferred upon “all inhabitants of this colony, of full age, who are worth fifty pounds, proclamation money, clear estate,”--also without any discrimination of…
But not only in six of the old thirteen States all freemen without distinction of color were citizens, but also under the Articles of Confederation they were citizens.
This proposition was rejected,--two States only voting for it, eight States against it, and the vote of one State being divided; so that the term “free inhabitants” was left in its full significance, without any distinction of descent or…
And it contains not a sentence, phrase, or word of disfranchisement on account of descent or color, any more than on account of religion.
The term people here naturally means all, without distinction of class, who owe allegiance to the Government.
If there were any doubt on this point, it would be removed by the clear and irresistible meaning of the term in other parts of the Constitution.
The Constitution next provides for the “enumeration” of the people, and under this provision there is a decennial census of the whole people, without distinction of color or descent; and yet, while including all of African descent in your…
The present proposition is aggravated by well-attested facts in our history.
A colored man, Crispus Attucks, was the first martyr of our Revolutionary struggle.
Throughout the long war of seven years, while national independence was still doubtful, colored men fought sometimes in the same ranks with the whites, and sometimes in separate companies, but always with patriotic courage, and often under…
The blood of the two races mingled, and, dying on the same field, they were buried beneath the same sod.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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