You wrong Human Nature, when you proclaim that the colossal barbarism bestriding nations must be maintained.
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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You wrong Justice, when you degrade it to the condition of successful force, making Might the substitute and synonym for Right.
You wrong Charity, with all the virtues in her train, when you put them under the hoof of Violence.
International War, like Slavery, is a monster chartered by Law.
Italy without Rome was like the body without its head.
Rome is the natural head of Italy, and is now at last joined with the body to which it belongs, never again to be separated.
No longer “merely a geographical expression,” according to the insulting phrase of Metternich, Italy is now a nation whose lofty capstone is Rome.
Besides the triumph of the nation, I see in this event two other things of surpassing value in the history of Liberty.
First, the union of Church and State is overthrown in its greatest example.
The Pope remains the pastor of a mighty flock, but without temporal power.
Here is a precedent, which, beginning at Rome, must be followed everywhere, until Church and State are no longer conjoined, and all are at liberty to worship God according to conscience, without compulsion from Man.
In the overthrow of his temporal power Absolutism receives a blow, and the people everywhere obtain new assurance for the future.
The poet who loved Liberty so well was right, when he refused to recognize as his country that place “where one alone sufficed against all.” But this was the condition of Rome under the Papal power.
Therefore, not only in sympathy with Italy, but in devotion to human rights, do I rejoice in this day.
Education is an essential principle with a view to the elevation of morals.
Are we not told that we shall reap as we have sown?
There is happiness in the acquisition of knowledge, which surpasses all common joys.
The student who feels that he is making daily progress, constantly learning something new, who sees the shadows by which he was originally surrounded gradually exchanged for an atmosphere of light, cannot fail to be happy.
His toil becomes a delight, and all that he learns is a treasure,--with this difference from gold and silver, that it cannot be stolen or lost.
Therefore do I say, for the sake of happiness, and also for worldly good, must the young man be faithful in study.
At college or school we acquire the elements of knowledge, and we learn also how to study,--but very little more.
If to this be added the love of study, this is the beginning of success.
All great lawyers testify to the importance of these acquisitions.
If he would be a good lawyer, he must be at home in literature.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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