Passing from master to master, after protracted servitude, he achieved his freedom, and, regaining France, commenced that resplendent career of charity by which he is placed among the great names of Christendom.
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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Princes and orators have lavished panegyric upon this fugitive slave, and, in homage to his extraordinary virtues, the Catholic Church has introduced him into the company of Saints.
Less by genius or eminent service than by suffering are the fugitive slaves of our country now commended.
For them every sentiment of humanity is aroused.
Who could refrain, That had a heart to love, and in that heart Courage to make his love known?
Rude and ignorant they may be; but in their very efforts for Freedom they claim kindred with all that is noble in the Past.
By eloquent voice they have done much to make their wrongs known, and to secure the respect of the world.
Proscribed by you during life, they will proscribe you through all time.
For which reason the man who does not favor Liberty is to be adjudged impious and cruel.
The name Slave--that litany of wrong and woe--does not appear in the clause.
The Slave Act violates the Constitution, and shocks the Public Conscience.
With modesty, and yet with firmness, let me add, Sir, it offends against the Divine Law.
As the throne of God is above every earthly throne, so are his laws and statutes above all the laws and statutes of man.
To question these is to question God himself.
But to assume that human laws are beyond question is to claim for their fallible authors infallibility.
To assume that they are always in conformity with the laws of God is presumptuously and impiously to exalt man even to equality with God.
Clearly, human laws are not always in such conformity; nor can they ever be beyond question from each individual.
Where the conflict is open, as if Congress should command the perpetration of murder, the office of conscience as final arbiter is undisputed.
Each person, after anxious examination, without haste, without passion, solemnly for himself must decide this great controversy.
Any other rule attributes infallibility to human laws, places them beyond question, and degrades all men to an unthinking, passive obedience.
The mandates of an earthly power are to be discussed; those of Heaven must at once be performed; nor should we suffer ourselves to be drawn by any compact into opposition to God.
Such, also, by the lips of judges and sages, is the proud declaration of English law, whence our own is derived.
In this conviction, patriots have braved unjust commands, and martyrs have died.
The good citizen, who sees before him the shivering fugitive, guilty of no crime, pursued, hunted down like a beast, while praying for Christian help and deliverance, and then reads the requirements of this Act, is filled with horror.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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