There have been taxes here before; and in other countries there have been taxes as enormous: but there has been no such tax here before; and in no other country has any such tax been levied at once, without the preparation and education of…
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
Confiscation and liberation are other War Powers of Congress, incident to the general grant of such powers, which it remains for us to employ.
Yes, Sir, in vain do we gather mighty armies, and in vain do we tax our people, unless we are ready to grasp these other means, through which the war can be carried to the homes of the Rebellion: I mean especially the criminal homes of the…
By the confiscation of property, the large Rebel estates, where treason laid its eggs, will be broken up, while by the liberation of slaves the Rebels will be deprived of an invaluable ally, whether in labor or in battle.
But I confess frankly that I look with more hope and confidence to liberation than to confiscation.
To give freedom is nobler than to take property, and on this occasion it cannot fail to be more efficacious, for in this way the rear-guard of the Rebellion will be changed into the advance-guard of the Union.
The war began in Slavery, and it can end only with the end of Slavery.
It was set in motion and organized by the Slave Oligarchy, and it cannot die except with this accursed Oligarchy.
Therefore, for the sake of peace, and to restore the Union, every power should be enlisted by which Slavery, which is the soul of the war, can be reached.
Through liberation alone can we obtain that complete triumph, bringing with it assured tranquillity, without which the war will stop merely to break forth anew, and peace will be nothing but an uneasy truce.
Among all the powers of Congress incident to our unparalleled condition, there is none so far-reaching, as there is none so beneficent,--there is none so potent to beat down rebellion, as there is none other by which peace can be made…
Besides the hardship of prize-money at the expense of our own fellow-citizens, there is the uncivilized character of the whole system, which should make us pause.
Create the admirals,--bestow this new title, this consideration, this introduction wherever the admiral goes, this equality, if you please, with the admirals of other nations and other fleets; but do not undertake to vie with those nations…
And there shall be no exclusion of any witness on account of color.
The Senate is making rules for the courts of the United States, and now by its vote sanctions the rule that a witness who happens to have a color different from ours is incompetent to testify, he cannot be heard in court.
The practical effect of such exclusion is, that any outrage by a white man on a colored person, if no other white person is present, must go unpunished; and the Senate of the United States refuses to interfere against this cruelty.
If there is any outrage at this moment in the form of law, and actually within our reach, it is what I now hold up to the indignation of the country and of mankind.
It is hard to think that human beings can be placed thus defenceless by Act of Congress,--that masters or overseers, being white, may offer to colored persons any offence, any brutality, and the testimony of the witnesses, merely because…
I shall vote for the bill on its final passage, because in other respects I think it ought to be a law; but I enter my protest against the conclusion of the Senate.
He condemns Chief-Justice Taney for declaring that colored persons are not citizens, and then, with marvellous logic, proceeds to say that he will not interfere to overturn the rule by which the testimony of colored persons is excluded…
I am not one whit behind him in condemnation of that judgment, which must forever stand forth among the inhumanities of this generation.
But permit me to remind the Senator that the rule he sustains is not less inhuman.
To me it is unintelligible as painful that the Senator should interfere to save any such inhumanity.
I use strong language, but it is only in this way that I can fitly characterize the doctrines of the Supreme Court and of the Senator.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
Politicians like Charles Sumner
