That these forms, as instituted by our ancestors, operated as a check and control on the actions of the majority, and that they were in many instances a shelter and protection to the minority against the attempts of power.
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
A man cannot be on a committee “of a thing he is against.” In other words, if he is against the inquiry for which a committee is created, he cannot be on it.
One against an inquiry, or believing that there is no occasion for it, is repudiated by this rule, so just and benign, and also so venerable with years.
Parliamentary Law, in the creation of special committees, always seeks those who care for the business, whatever it may be.
There is good law as well as sense in his saying, that a child is not put to a nurse that cares not for it.
The phrase “against the Body of the Bill” is strong and suggestive, showing the purpose to exclude those who were unfriendly to the measure.
Thus, on submission of the question by the Speaker, the House unanimously decided that they would “not have a man that hath been against the Body of the Bill to be a Committee.” According to the report, “All said No”; and that unanimous…
In legislation, plainly, those who believe an inquiry necessary are the most proper persons to conduct it, and being so, they are selected by Parliamentary Law.
Very little reflection shows how natural is this rule as an instrument of justice.
Especially is it important in the Senate, where, without such protection, a tyrannical majority might deter a minority from originating unwelcome inquiries.
And here again I declare that I have nothing to conceal, nothing that I would not willingly give to the world under any examination and cross-examination; but I am unwilling to aid in the overthrow of a rule of law which stands on…
It is important that they should not become a precedent.
I make this statement, because I would not have the protest I deem it my duty to offer open to suspicion that there is anything I desire to conceal or any examination I would avoid.
There is not an act, letter, or conversation at any time, that I would save from investigation.
Willingly would I submit to the most searching scrutiny, not only in the present case, but in all my public life.
Did it not become the Government of the United States at this time, when making these large sales, almost gigantic, so that its suspicion was necessarily aroused, to institute inquiry into the real character of the purchaser?
There is the true principle: “By the sending of men or war material one takes part in the war.
The neutral State must neither send troops to a belligerent, nor put ships of war at its disposal, nor furnish subsidies to aid it in making the war.
The act is wrong in itself, and the penalty results from his violation of moral duty as well as of law.
For myself I have but one desire, which is, that this effort, begun in the discharge of a patriotic duty, may redound to the good of our country, and especially to the purity of the public service.
By the very name it bears, and by its lofty dedication to the rights of human nature, is it vowed to all those things which contribute most to civilization, keeping its example always above suspicion.
As no man “liveth to himself,” so no nation “liveth” to itself; especially is this the condition of the Great Republic.
How often do I insist that we cannot at any moment, or in any transaction, forget these great responsibilities!
For the sake of others as well as of ourselves must we guard our conduct.
If we fail, then does Republican Government everywhere feel the shock.
Politicians like Charles Sumner
