In this way its influence can be brought to bear most effectually upon the National Government in support of our principles.
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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Join us, all who would have the National Government administered in the spirit of Freedom, and not in the spirit of Slavery.
It does not become the sons of the Pilgrims, and the sons of the Revolution, to be neutral in this contest.
In such a contest neutrality is treason to Human Rights.
Join in proclaiming them through the new Party of Freedom.
Thus acting, and thus constantly avowing his sentiments in favor of the abolition of Slavery, Washington is properly called an Abolitionist.
They who are responsible for Slavery should abolish it.
When the Saviour gave us the Lord's Prayer, he taught the sublime doctrine of Human Brotherhood, enfolding the equality of men.
An hereditary monarchy, an order of nobility, and the complex ranks of superior and inferior, established by the feudal system, all declare, not the equality, but the inequality of men, and all conspire to perpetuate this inequality.
Caste infuses itself into and forms the very essence of pride itself.
Disguise it as you will, it is nothing but this hateful, irreligious institution.
Here we are brought once more, in another form, to the question of the discrimination on account of color.
Their rights are found in Equality before the Law; nor can they be called to renounce one jot of this.
The month of August last witnessed at Paris a Congress or Convention of persons from various countries, to consider what could be done to promote the sacred cause of Universal Peace.
It is the cause which I would keep ever foremost, and commend always to your support.
By no subtle compromise or adjustment can men suspend the commandments of God.
These, while declaring the duty of opposing Slavery and its influence, wherever they exist under the National Government, always recognize that other duty of loyalty to the Union and the Constitution.
We propose to wait and work patiently under and through the Constitution, that our purposes may be peaceably accomplished in the spirit of that instrument and of our fathers.
That I may place this matter beyond question, I beg leave to repeat and reaffirm what I said on a former occasion: "We reverence the Constitution of the United States, and seek to guard it against infractions, believing that under the…
We reverence the Union of the States, believing that the peace, happiness, and welfare of all depend upon this blessed bond.
Sumner avows that what is called his Faneuil-Hall Speech contains his calm, deliberately formed, and well-matured opinions,--opinions by which his action would be governed in the event of his election to the office of United States…
Not a glorious word of it can or shall be rubbed out.
The trust conferred on me is one of the most weighty which a citizen can receive.
Nor do I believe it possible, whatever the delusion of the hour, that any part can be permanently lost from its well-compacted bulk.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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