It is for the Senate to determine if the time has not come for this opposition to cease.
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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Conceding search for the suppression of the slave-trade, we furnish no excuse and open no door for that other search, always so justly offensive, which finally brought war in its train.
Such a concession now is only an addition to international policy demanded by the civilization of the age.
Therefore I see no reason why the sensibilities of its partisans should be consulted.
But whatever doubts might have prevailed at an earlier period, when the question was less understood, it is plain now that this objection is wholly superficial and untenable.
But nobody now doubts that this commission was proper.
War would not be confined to the two governments representing respectively the two hostile principles, Slavery and Liberty.
To insist that the restrictions of the Constitution, evidently intended for the national judicature, are applicable to these outlying tribunals, is to limit the treaty power and to curtail the means of justice beyond the national…
Mixed courts are familiar to International Law, and our country cannot afford to reject them, least of all on a discarded technicality which would leave us isolated among nations.
It remains only that we make haste to ratify the treaty, nor miss the great opportunity.
Foreign nations will not fail to recognize this open pledge to Human Rights, and the Rebels will discern a new sign of the national purpose.
The Rebellion itself will feel the blow, and ambitious Slavery foresee its doom.
It is much in a diplomatic career to sign any treaty, but it was an event to have signed a treaty promising the final extinction of an infinite scandal and curse to humanity.
It would rage with internecine fury among ourselves.
The terror of the law, with these provisions for its enforcement, sufficed at last to deter the perpetrators of this inhuman crime, and the ocean, so often traversed by slave-ships, became like a peaceful metropolis with a well-ordered…
It was enough that at last we were in earnest.
PRESIDENT,--In offering the resolution, I felt that I was doing good service to the Commissioners appointed to carry out our recent measure of Emancipation, and I felt also that I was helping to correct possible abuses in anticipation of…
I am sure that freedom and truth will be gainers, when such conduct is laid bare.
Admit that States may fly out of the Union, and where will you stop?
The character, if not the efficiency, of our armies is concerned in the complete enforcement of the late legislation with regard to slaves.
If this legislation be set at defiance, or evaded, I think that our military strength will be impaired, and I am sure that our good name must suffer.
I am grateful to the Senator from Iowa for the frankness with which he exposed and condemned the recent orders of several of our generals.
When an officer falls bravely in defence of his country, honest pride mingles with the regret that we feel.
But when an officer falls as General Hooker has now fallen, there is nothing but regret.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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