If you notice the proposition for a commission, say that it is summoned to make conditions which contemplate nothing less than surrender of cherished principles, so that she can have nothing to do with 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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The mistake of many persons comes from this,--they do not see that we are in the midst of a revolution, where reason is dethroned, and passion rules instead.
As well attempt to hold a man-of-war in a tempest by a little anchor borrowed from Jamaica Pond; and this is what I told the Boston Committee with regard to their petition.
I have but one prayer: Stand firm, keep every safeguard of Human Rights on our statute-book, and save Massachusetts glorious and true.
Don’t let these words be ever out of your mind, when you think of any proposition from the Slave-Masters.
They are all essentially false, with treason in their hearts, if not on their tongues.
Slavery is a falsehood, and its supporters are all perverted and changed.
More than the loss of forts, arsenals, or the national capital, I fear the loss of our principles.
In my view, the vacillation of the Republicans is more fatal than that of Buchanan.
This delay seems like a beneficent intervention of Providence to arrest the conflict, which a sudden movement would have precipitated.
May we all be loyal and true, and never desert great principles!
Let Massachusetts be true and firm, and keep our friends from division.
The news from Virginia continues to reveal the same tendency,--secession, unless constitutional guaranties are secured for Slavery.
It is evident that Virginia and the other Border States will have to decide the question, Which to choose, Union or Slavery?
Every word of concession thus far has done infinite mischief,--first, by encouraging the Slave-Masters, and, secondly, by demoralizing our own friends, and filling them with doubt and distrust.
Lincoln stands firm, I do not doubt that our cause will be saved.
Now, if the whole country is on the eve of a similar struggle, why should we not know it and act accordingly?
Why do we not hear your voice uplifted, in this critical, this dangerous hour?
Those propositions go beyond the Breckinridge platform, already solemnly condemned by the American people in the election of Abraham Lincoln.
Before the adoption of the National Constitution it was declared in Massachusetts that there could be no distinction of color at the ballot-box; and this rule of equality is to be sacrificed, while fellow-citizens are thrust out of rights…
Such are things which in the judgment of these petitioners “the North and the South may honorably accede to,” while, in consideration of these impossible sacrifices, the fee of the Fugitive Slave Commissioners is modified, and it is…
Here is a platform on which every patriot citizen can take his stand, having over him the stars of the Union.
How much better than any proposition, scheme, or vain delusion of Compromise!
On such ground, all who really love the Union of their fathers, without an if or a but, can plant themselves.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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