Returning to our forefathers for their principles, let us borrow also something of their courage and union.
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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Let us summon to our sides the majestic forms of those civil heroes whose firmness in council was equalled only by the firmness of Washington in war.
Union, then, must be our watchword,--union among men of all parties.
By such union we consolidate an opposition which must prevail.
Let me call upon you, then, men of all parties, Whigs and Democrats, or howsoever named, to come forward and join in a common cause.
In the crisis before us, it becomes us to forget past differences, and those names which have been the signal of strife.
Only remembering our duties, when the fire-bell rings at midnight, we ask not if it be Whigs or Democrats who join us to extinguish the flames; nor do we make any such inquiry in selecting our leader then.
Our leader must be the man who is the ablest and surest representative of the principles to which we are pledged.
Let Massachusetts, nurse of the men and principles that made our earliest revolution, vow herself anew to her early faith.
Politics and morals, no longer divorced from each other, become one and inseparable in the holy wedlock of Christian sentiment.
Such a union elevates politics, while it gives a new sphere to morals.
Released from topics which concern only the selfish squabble for gain, and are often independent of morals, they come home to the heart and conscience.
A novel force passes into the contests of party, breathing into them the breath of a new life,--of Hope, Progress, Justice, Humanity.
From this demonstration to-day, and the acclaim wafted to us from the Free States, it is easy to see that the great cause of Liberty, to which we now dedicate ourselves, will sweep the heart-strings of the people.
It will smite all the chords with a might to draw forth emotions such as no political struggle ever awakened before.
It will touch the souls of mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters, until the sympathies of all swell in one irresistible chorus of indignation against the deep damnation of lending new sanction to the enslavement of our brother man.
Come forward, then, men of all parties! let us range together.
Come forth, all who thus far have kept aloof from parties! here is occasion for action.
All who in any way feel the wrong of Slavery, take your stand!
Join us, lovers of Truth, of Justice, of Humanity!
The young man who is not willing to serve in her cause, to suffer, if need be, in her behalf, gives little promise of those qualities which secure an honorable age.
I would, if I could, utter truth which, while approved by the old, should sink deep into the souls of the young, filling them with strength for all good works.
Wherever we turn is Progress,--in science, in literature, in knowledge of the earth, in knowledge of the skies, in intercourse among men, in the spread of liberty, in works of beneficence, in the recognition of Human Brotherhood.
Thrones, where Authority seemed to sit secure, with the sanction of centuries, are shaken, and new-made constitutions come to restrain the aberrations of unlimited power.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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