As it is the only Union party, so the Republican party is the only Constitutional party.
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
In that Preamble it is declared that the Constitution is made to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our…
It is to establish justice: but Slavery is injustice.
It is to insure domestic tranquillity: but Slavery insures domestic discord and insurrection.
It is to provide for the common defence: but Slavery causes common weakness.
It is to promote the general welfare: but Slavery perils the general welfare.
Finally, it is to secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity: but Slavery sacrifices these blessings.
Such is the Preamble, which is the key to the Constitution.
The Republican party alone adopts its principles, as it alone adopts most honestly and sincerely the often declared opinions of its founders.
The man who asks you here in Massachusetts to vote against it is either very weak, and believes in his own bad reasoning, or very artful, and laughs in his sleeve at your credulity, or very spiteful, and allows all things, even his…
Look at your opponents here, and you will find that weakness, duplicity, and spite are the three main springs to their conduct.
Frankness is not a virtue of our opponents, else we should have this issue between us more fairly stated.
You will see, that, amidst all disguises and subterfuges, the great question perpetually recurs: Are you for Freedom, or are you for Slavery?
On this single question you are to vote; and no cry of “Disunion” can change the issue.
Are you for a National Government administered in the spirit of the Fathers?
Are you for the prostration of the Slave Oligarchy which now rules the country?
But the animosity between Freedom and Slavery is not less implacable and self-forgetful.
Freedom, which is the breath of God, is a great leveller; but it raises where it levels.
Slavery, which is the breath of Satan, is also a great leveller; but it degrades everything, carrying with it master as well as slave.
Choose ye between them; and remember that your first duty is to stand up straight, and not bend before absurd threats, whether uttered at the South or repeated here in Massachusetts.
Let people cry, “Disunion.” We know what the cry means, and we answer back: The Union shall be preserved, and made more precious by its consecration to Freedom.
On my way to this place, my attention was attracted by a banner, flaunting over the highway, with these words: “TRUST THE PEOPLE.” Nothing could be fairer or more seductive.
In those simple words is embodied a principle, long unknown, and to this day often denied, which may be called the mainspring of Democratic institutions.
Here is an implied assertion of the right of the people to govern themselves.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
Politicians like Charles Sumner
