Is he not a man whose name should check the blustering apologists of Slavery and Secession?… The Rebellion is just such a blow at the Union as Preston Brooks struck at Charles Sumner; and yet there are English hands and voices to applaud…
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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Meetings of the people in ancient Athens were opened with these words: “May the gods doom to perdition that man, and all his race, who, on this occasion, shall speak, act, or contrive anything against the Commonwealth!” With such an…
Each must do what he can: the youthful and strong by giving themselves to the service; the weak, if in no other way, by scraping lint.
Among omens which I hail with gladness is the union now happily prevailing among good men in support of the Government, whether State or National,--forgetting that they were Democrats, forgetting that they were Whigs, and disregarding old…
Another sign, not less cheering, is the generous devotion which all among us of foreign birth offer to their adopted country.
Germans fight as for fatherland, and Irishmen fight as for loved Erin; nor can our cause be less dear to the latter, now that the spirit of Grattan and O’Connell has entered into it.
Surely this is no time for the strife of party.
Thank God that my eyes have not closed without seeing this great salvation!
It is enough for me, that, in the exercise of the War Power, it strikes at the origin and mainspring of this Rebellion; for I have never concealed the conviction that it matters little where we strike Slavery, provided only that we strike…
And yet I shall not lose the occasion to challenge the scrutiny of all, even here in this commercial metropolis, where the interests of business are sometimes placed above all other interests.
Never shall the cause of Freedom go by default, if I can help it; and I rejoice, that, on that occasion, in presence of the slaveholding conspirators vaunting the ennobling character of Slavery, I used no soft words.
But you will not regret that your representative, faithful in all other things, was ever constant and earnest against Slavery, and that he announced from the beginning the magnitude of the question, and our duties with regard to it.
Say what you will, the slave is the humblest and the grandest figure of our times.
In his presence all other questions are so petty, that for a public man to be wrong with regard to him is to be wholly wrong.
With stronger reason far, I, too, might always have cried, “This I know, Slavery must be destroyed,”--Delenda est Servitudo.
And now, Gentlemen, on this serious day, when I come, as it were, to make up my account with you, let me take to myself some degree of honest pride on the nature of the charges that are against me.
I do not here stand before you accused of venality or of neglect of duty.
It is not said, that, in the long period of my service, I have in a single instance sacrificed the slightest of your interests to my ambition or to my fortune.
It is not alleged, that, to gratify any anger or revenge of my own or of my party, I have had a share in wronging or oppressing any description of men, or any one man in any description.
No! the charges against me are all of one kind,--that I have pushed the principles of general justice and benevolence too far,--further than a cautious policy would warrant, and further than the opinions of many would go along with me.
Amidst vicissitudes of war, the cause of Human Freedom has steadily and grandly advanced,--not, perhaps, as you could desire, yet it is the only cause which has not failed.
I cannot forget, that, when I last spoke to you, I urged the liberation of the slaves of Rebels, and especially that our officers should not be permitted to surrender back to Slavery any human being seeking shelter within our lines; and I…
Sumner moved to add at the end of this clause, immediately after “courts of justice,” the words “without the exclusion of any witness on account of color.
It was as a military necessity that I urged these measures; it is as a military necessity that I now uphold them, and insist upon their completest and most generous execution, so that they shall have the largest scope and efficacy.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
Politicians like Charles Sumner
