Such a character was a perpetual protest, and Napoleon in the pride of colossal power confessed it.
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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He spoke, and with a voice that had been silent for a generation bravely recalled the sacred cause of which he was the veteran, and that tri-color flag which was the symbol of Liberty, Equality, and Public Order.
Overtopping others in character, he was conspicuous also in debate.
Though not a rhetorician, he spoke with ease and effect, while every word had the inspiration of noble ideas, often expressed with sententious force.
Especially was he moved whenever Liberty came in question; nor did the disasters falling upon him and his house, or any other consideration, make him hesitate to vindicate the Revolution, alike in substantial results and in principles.
The inspiration which was his own inner light he imparted to others.
We bow not the neck, We bend not the knee, But our hearts, Lafayette, We surrender to thee.
It belongs to the glory of Lafayette that he inspired this sentiment, and it belongs to the glory of our country to have felt it.
Clearly his own preference was for a Republic on the American model, but he yielded this cherished idea, satisfied that at last Liberty had prevailed, while peace was assured to his blood-stained country.
If the republican throne fell short of his just expectations, it was because, against high injunction, he had put trust in princes.
He could not understand how men who had fought for their own liberty could deny liberty to others.
As at the beginning, so at the end, he was all for Human Rights.
Living for all, his renown became the common property of the whole Human Family.
Judge him by the simple record of his life, and you will confess his greatness.
Judge him by the motives of his conduct, and you will bend with reverence before him.
More than any other man in history he is the impersonation of Liberty.
His face is radiant with its glory, as his heart was filled with its sweetness.
His was that new order of greatness destined soon to displace the old.
Many will come after him, but there were none before him.
He was founder, inventor, poet, as much as if he had built a city, discovered ether, or composed an epic.
On his foundation all mankind will build; through his discovery all will be aided; by his epic all will be uplifted.
Early and intuitively he saw man as brother, and recognized the equal rights of all.
Especially was he precocious in asserting the equal rights of the African slave.
Call him less a force than an influence, less “king of men” than servant of Humanity,--his name is destined to be a spell beyond that of any king, while it shines aloft like a star.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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