A similar wonder is now repeated before our eyes, making the former instrument of Freedom an impediment to Freedom.
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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It foreshadows change, if not revolution,--“not only a new President, but a new government.
Let me express my gratitude that I am permitted once more to enjoy these generous utterances, no longer in dream or vision only, but in reality.
Could these venerable arches speak, what stories could they not tell,--sometimes of victory and sometimes of defeat, sometimes of gladness and sometimes of mourning, sometimes of hope and sometimes of fear!
The history of American Freedom, with all its anxieties, struggles, and triumphs, commencing before National Independence, and continued down to the very contest now about to close,--all this might be written from the voices of this Hall.
But, thank God! the days of defeat, of mourning, of fear, have passed, and these walls will record only those notes of victory already beginning to sound in our ears.
There are anniversaries in our history noticed by young and old with grateful emotion; but to-morrow’s sun will set on a day more glorious for Freedom than any anniversary since the fourth of July, 1776.
The forces for a long time mustering are about to meet face to face; but the result is not doubtful.
Every four years a new President is chosen, but rarely a new government.
To-morrow we shall have not only a new President, but a new government.
A new order of things will begin, and our history will proceed on a grander scale, in harmony with those sublime principles in which it commenced.
Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife!
Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws!
Especially must you see to it, so far as depends on you, that Representatives in Congress are chosen who shall be true to the principles of the Republican party.
And since the election of our President is now certain, your vote for Representatives becomes more important than your vote for President.
In vain you will vote for Abraham Lincoln, if at the same time you vote for a Representative who will oppose his well-known principles.
Being in harmony with the Administration, they will naturally have the ear of the President and of his Cabinet; and this alone will give them opportunities to promote the interest of Boston such as no Representative of the Opposition could…
The election of such persons would be a positive encouragement to the disunionists of the South.
Still further, it would be a premium for indifference to fellow-men struggling for their rights.
In vain have we read the story of him who, having fallen among thieves, was succored by the good Samaritan, if we approve by our votes the conduct of those who, when Kansas had fallen among thieves and was lying wounded and bleeding…
None have ever escaped with honor from that deadly embrace.
Hereafter, fellow-citizens, let it be one of your satisfactions, that in this contest you voted for Freedom.
Permit me, Sir, in the name of these Wide-Awakes, to say to you that we trust with renewed health upon this soil you may bear forward the glorious cause of Freedom upon which our country has just entered.
I join with you in gladness at the victory we celebrate to-day,--not of the cartridge-box, but of the ballot-box.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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