The national flag, symbolizing the labors of Congress, seemed to have a double beauty, reminding him not only of country, but also of the patriotic service in which those the people trusted were then engaged.
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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Suffice it to say, that not a law can be passed, not a treaty can be ratified, not a nomination to office can be confirmed, without the action of the Senate.
The Report of the Committee, expressed in simple English, without circumlocution or equivocation, is, “Free admission to traitors here, and no questions asked.” In other words, the claimant of a seat in the Senate can enter and take it…
If this be true, then open, flaunting treason is not a disqualification, and the traitor, if allowed to go at large, may present his certificate and proceed to occupy a seat among us.
The Constitution was the work of wise and practical men, and they were not guilty of the absurdity which such an interpretation attributes to them.
This whole argument, that the claimant must be admitted to the Senate and then judged afterwards, is more generous to the claimant than just to the Senate; it is more considerate of personal pretensions than of public interests.
To admit a claimant charged with disloyalty, in the hope of expelling him afterwards, is a voluntary abandonment of the right of self-defence, which belongs to the Senate as much as to any individual.
Instead of shutting the door and keeping disloyalty out, we are asked to let it in and see if we can get it out again.
It is loyalty, which I affirm is made a qualification under the Constitution; and we have already seen, that, even if the organic law were silent, it is so essential to the fitness of a Senator for his trusts, that the Senate, in the…
But the language of the Constitution leaves no room for doubt.
These words are explicit in requiring the oath to support the Constitution.
Thus by the Constitution, explained by the earliest statutes, must the oath to support the Constitution be administered to a Senator previous to his taking his seat.
But the oath is simply evidence and pledge of loyalty; and this evidence and pledge constitute a condition precedent to admission.
As loyalty is more important than age or citizenship or inhabitancy, it has been put under the solemn safeguard of an oath.
Men are familiarly said to “qualify” for an office, when they take the necessary oath of office; so that the language of common life becomes an interpreter of the Constitution.
Resting on this conclusion, and assuming that disloyalty is a constitutional disqualification, the single question remains as to the time when evidence with regard to it may be considered.
The claimant may declare willingness to take it; but such declaration is not an answer to evidence showing disloyalty, unless you are ready to admit present professions to be a sufficient cloak for disloyalty, or, it may be, treason, in…
On a question of such importance, with positive evidence against his loyalty, the claimant cannot expect permission to purge himself on his oath.
But an oath to support the Constitution by a claimant charged with disloyalty would be open to suspicion, at least, of lubricity and slippery uncertainty not creditable to the Senate.
If not above question, it is wrong to allow the oath,--at least in the Senate of the United States, which is the exclusive judge of its own proceedings.
Throwing off the government of the latter country, the Republic of Hayti for nearly sixty years has maintained its independence before the world, and performed honorably all its duties in the family of nations.
Resolved, That Benjamin Stark, of Oregon, appointed a Senator of that State by the Governor thereof, and now charged by affidavits with disloyalty to the Government of the United States, is not entitled to take the constitutional oath of…
With two countries like these the argument for treaties is strong, without pursuing the inquiry further.
Meanwhile I do not wish to prejudge him; I have not prejudged him; I have come to no conclusion on the facts; but I have come to a perfect, fixed, and irreversible conclusion on the duty of the Senate at this time to enter into this…
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
Politicians like Charles Sumner
