A power to regulate is not a power to destroy or to disfranchise.
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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In an evil hour Human Rights may be struck down, but it cannot be merely by “regulations.” The pretension that under such authority this great wrong may be done is another illustration of that extravagance which the champions do not shrink…
It is natural that those who do not sympathize strongly with the Equal Rights of All should doubt.
The elective franchise, once recognized, can never be denied,--once conferred, can never be resumed.
In standing by them you stand by all that is most dear in the Republic.
It is sufficient to say that the present treaty does no such thing, and that, whatever may have been the disposition of the negotiators, the real root of evil remains untouched in all its original strength.
War cannot be justified merely on a technicality; nor can the concession of ocean belligerency to rebels without a port or prize court.
All this stealthy fleet, charged with hostility to the United States, was a part of the great offence.
This plain statement, without one word of exaggeration or aggravation, is enough to exhibit the magnitude of the national losses, whether from the destruction of our commerce, the prolongation of the war, or the expense of the blockade.
This, of course, is to break the contract in another way.
To stop that extra interest we must keep faith.
Beyond the ignominy, which all of us must bear, will be the influence of such a transgression in discrediting Republican Government and the very idea of a Republic.
Who shall fix the measure of this great accountability?
Not one law for one group of stars, and one law for one group of men,--but one law for all stars, and one law for all men.
Great powers are at hand, ministers of human progress.
To save that Legislature the Senator from Nevada presses forward to sacrifice the people of the State.
I wish to purge the Legislature of its Rebels.
To my mind it is contrary to reason that the establishment and control of these two great agencies should be committed to a disloyal Legislature,--in other words, to a Legislature that cannot take the test oath.
The peace which we covet must enter into our finances; the reconciliation which we long for must embrace the disordered business of the country.
Therefore do I say, as an essential stage in what we all desire, Down with the taxes!
They hand over to the future what I wish to see accomplished at once, and what I cannot doubt with a firm will can be accomplished at an early day.
No longer below par, they will continue to advance, while the national credit lifts its head unimpeached, unimpeachable.
It is a patch or plaster only, when we need a comprehensive cure.
But, on the other hand, the condition of the currency bears directly upon all efforts for increased loans; and this is of practical importance on the present occasion.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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