Yes! the government of the United States is now (let it be said with shame), not, as at the beginning, a government merely permitting, while it regretted Slavery, but a government openly favoring and vindicating it, visiting also with its…
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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During late years the Slave Power has introduced a new test for office, which would have excluded Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin.
And now, in the madness of tyranny, it proposes to extend this curse over new soil not yet darkened by its presence.
In the prosecution of its purposes, the Slave Power has obtained the control of both the great political parties.
Their recent nominations were made to serve its interests, to secure its supremacy, and especially to promote the extension of Slavery.
Whigs and Democrats,--I use the old names still,--professing to represent conflicting sentiments, concur in being representatives of the Slave Power.
Van Buren--and I honor him for his trumpet call to the North--sounded the true note, when he said he could not vote for either.
The election of either would be a triumph of the Slave Power, entailing upon the country the sin of extending Slavery.
The lovers of Freedom, from both parties, and irrespective of all party associations, must unite, and by a new combination, congenial to the Constitution, oppose both candidates.
For myself, if two evils are presented to me, I will take neither.
It is not merely expedient for us to defend Freedom, when assailed, but our duty so to do, unreservedly, and careless of consequences.
No honest, earnest effort in a good cause can fail.
It helps to strengthen the weak with new virtue,--to arm the irresolute with proper energy,--to animate all with devotion to duty, which in the end conquers all.
Did the martyrs fail, when with precious blood they sowed the seed of the Church?
Did the discomfited champions of Freedom fail, who have left those names in history that can never die?
Did the three hundred Spartans fail, when, in the narrow pass, they did not fear to brave the innumerable Persian hosts, whose very arrows darkened the sun?
Overborne by numbers, crushed to earth, they left an example greater far than any victory.
Our example will be the main-spring of triumph hereafter.
It will not be the first time in history that the hosts of Slavery have outnumbered the champions of Freedom.
But where is it written that Slavery finally prevailed?
The heart of Ohio beats responsive to the heart of Massachusetts, and all the Free States are animated with the vigorous breath of Freedom.
Whatever may be said to the contrary by politicians, Freedom is the only question now before the American people.
Of course the debt must be paid; nor should we lose time in paying it, nor postpone it to the next generation.
These questions being out of the way, what remains for those who, in casting their votes, regard principles rather than men?
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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