Charles Sumner

When I voted for that article, I meant what it said,--that Slavery should cease absolutely, entirely, and completely.

Any other interpretation dwarfs the great Amendment, and permits Slavery still to linger among us in some of its insufferable pretensions.

And I say the article abolishes Slavery entirely, everywhere throughout this land,--root and branch,--in the general and the particular,--in length and breadth, and then in every detail.

Here I know no half, no three-quarters; I know nothing but the whole.

Then must every word in the Constitution be interpreted so that Liberty and Equality shall not fail.

Show me any words in the Constitution applicable to human rights, and I invoke at once the great truths of the Declaration as the absolute guide to their meaning.

And now, Sir, I am prepared to insist, that, whenever you are considering the Constitution, so far as it concerns human rights, you must bring it always to that great standard; the two must go together; and the Constitution can never be…

I need no volume of law, no dog-eared page, no cases to sustain me.

I insist that the Declaration is of equal and coördinate authority with the Constitution itself.

I have lived through a period of history, and do not forget that I here heard our great title-deed arraigned as “a self-evident lie.” There are Senators now, who, while hesitating to adopt that vulgar extravagance of dissent, are willing…

That, Sir, is the great victory of the war; for in that are consummated all the victories of many bloody fields,--not one victory, or two, but the whole,--gleaming in those principles of Liberty and Equality which are now the pivot jewels…

There is another rule, and the National Constitution, from beginning to end, speaks always for the Rights of Man.

The Constitution was interpreted always, in every clause and line and word, for Human Slavery.

I say a new rule of interpretation for the National Constitution, according to which, in every clause and every line and every word, it is to be interpreted uniformly and thoroughly for human rights.

Not in one place or two places or three places, but almost everywhere, from the Preamble to the last line of the latest Amendment; in the original text and in all our recent additions, again and again.

And now, Sir, after these brief illustrations, where our colored fellow-citizens have spoken for themselves, showing the necessity of legislation by the Nation, because only through the Nation can the remedy be applied, I come to the…

Such, Sir, is the statement of a man once a slave, and who knows whereof he speaks; nor can it be doubted that he is right.

When that becomes a law, the freedom of my race will then be complete,”--not before, not till then, not till the passage of the Supplementary Civil Rights Bill.

I realize more and more, every day, the necessity of such a measure of justice as your ‘Supplementary Bill.’ When that becomes a law, the freedom of my race will then be complete.

In the name of God and down-trodden humanity, I pray you press its enactment to a successful consummation.

Who has felt the grievance, and testifies that the remedy can only be through the Nation.

I am fully persuaded that nothing short of national legislation, and national authority for its enforcement, will be found sufficient for the maintenance of our God-given rights as men and women, citizens of this great and free country.

I am also thoroughly persuaded that this needed legislation should come from the National Congress.

This colored citizen is impressed, as the Senator is not, with the necessity of further legislation for the perfection of his rights as an American citizen.

Grateful to God and the Republicans of this country for our emancipation and the recognition of our citizenship, I am nevertheless deeply impressed with the necessity of further legislation for the perfection of our rights as American…