But your indifference, especially after this debate, will not tend to elevate the national character either at home or abroad.
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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Now while we debate, the national character is compromised at Paris, at London, at Berlin, at Geneva, where all these things are known as much as in this Chamber.
Here at least must be that honest independence which shall insist at all times upon purity in the Government, no matter what office-holders are exposed.
What sort of good name is that which has a cloud gathering about it?
Not in secrecy, but in daylight, must we live.
Our good name is not to be preserved by covering up anything.
They reflect upon our country and hurt its good name who at the first breath of suspicion fail to act.
When I hear of wrong, I insist at all hazards that it shall be made right, knowing that in this way I best serve my country and every just cause.
I am for our country with the aspiration that it may be always right; but I am for nothing wrong.
The objection of Senators is too much like the old heathen cry, “Our country, right or wrong.” Unhappy words, which dethrone God and exalt the Devil!
Therefore, because I would have my country irresistible in its demands, do I insist that it shall place itself above all suspicion.
Surely we shall be stronger, infinitely stronger, in demanding our own rights, if we show a determination to allow no wrong among ourselves.
Is that any reason why I should not also insist upon inquiry into the conduct of officials at home, to the end that the Government may be saved from reproach?
If these historic claims, so interesting to the American people, are to be pressed at the cost of purity in our own Government, they are not worth the terrible price.
I do not adduce them to show that the War Department did sell arms to belligerent France, but that even in Berlin the imputation upon us was known and actually reported by our Minister.
Why, Sir, our own State Department furnishes official evidence that the alleged sale of arms to the French by our Government is known in Berlin itself, right under the eyes of the Emperor.
Nay, Sir, the very suggestion of the Senator is an insult to him, which he is too just to resent, but which cannot fail to excite a smile of derision.
I simply try to relieve my country from an odious suspicion, and to advance the cause of good government.
Hail, holy light!”--no matter from what star or what nation it may shine.
Once the black could not testify against the white, and now in some places the testimony of a Chinese is rejected.
I know no rule of senatorial duty or of patriotism which can prevent me from obtaining information of any kind from any body, especially when the object is to pursue fraud and to unmask abuse.
Therefore, when officials fall under suspicion, I should feel myself disloyal to the Government, if I did not insist on the most thorough inquiry.
Now, Sir, I have been from the beginning in favor of civil-service reform.
I introduce no “politics,” but only a question which has become urgent, affecting the civil service of the country.
This could be only by a searching investigation in such way as to satisfy all at home and abroad that there was no whitewashing.
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