The cry for reform is everywhere,--from New York to New Orleans.
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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Everybody says there must be reform, so that the Government in all its branches shall be above suspicion.
An aroused community in the commercial metropolis of our country has unexpectedly succeeded in overthrowing a corrupt ring by which millions of money had been sacrificed.
What I propose is a searching inquiry, according to the magnitude of the interests involved, to ascertain if this is without just grounds.
For the first time has the United States, within my knowledge, fallen under suspicion of violating the requirement of neutrality on this subject.
The popular branch in all these considerable countries is much more numerous than it is now proposed to make our House of Representatives.
At any rate, it shows that other nations are not deterred by anything in political experience from having a House with these large numbers; and this perhaps is of more value because European writers, political philosophers for successive…
I call attention to this fact because it illustrates by the experience of other nations what may be considered as a rule on this subject.
So that you will find in all these countries,--Great Britain, France, Prussia, Austria in its two Parliaments, Italy, and Spain,--that the number adopted for the lower House is much larger than any now proposed for our House of…
That every discrimination against any citizen on account of color, by the use of the word “white,” or any other term in law, statute, ordinance, or regulation, National or State, is hereby repealed and annulled.
Anything else is sacrifice of the colored race; anything else is abandonment of an imperative duty.
Now, Sir, would you have your work effective, you should delay amnesty until a bill for civil rights has passed the House, and reaching this Chamber the two measures will then be on a complete equality.
They will take note that amnesty has been secured, while nothing is secured to them.
I wish them to understand, that here in this Chamber, with a large majority of Republicans, the sacrifice has been accomplished; and let them observe how.
Is it not a wrong which ought to ring through the land?
Amnesty is adopted; but where are the equal rights of the colored race?--still afloat between the two Houses on an imperfect bill.
The rights of the colored race have been sacrificed in this Chamber, where the Republican Party has a large majority,--that party, by its history, its traditions, and all its professions, bound to their vindication.
Such, Sir, is the indifference with which the Senate treats the rights of an oppressed people!
All this winter I have stood guard here, making an earnest though unsuccessful effort to secure those rights, insisting always that they should be recognized side by side with the rights of former Rebels.
I will not characterize the transaction; but to me it is painful, for it involves the sacrifice of the equal rights of the colored race,--as is plain, very plain.
I here declare from my seat that I am for amnesty, provided it can be associated with the equal rights of the colored race; but if not so associated, then, so help me God, I am against it.
How often must I repeat, “Be just to the colored race before you are generous to former rebels”?
PRESIDENT, I long to vote for amnesty; I have always hoped to vote for it; but, Sir, I should be unworthy of my seat as a Senator if I voted for it while the colored race are shut out from their rights, and the ban of color is recognized…
Therefore, Sir, do I insist that Amnesty shall not become a law, unless at the same time the Equal Rights of All are secured.
Why will you not accord to the colored race the same amnesty you offer to former Rebels?
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