I have described them that you may see how little help the great ideas already germinating from bloody fields will receive from them.
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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The first is German authority in the writings of philosophers, by whom Germany rules in thought; and the second is the uprising of the working-men: both against war as acknowledged arbiter between nations, and insisting upon peaceful…
Without that fatal gift of beauty, “a dowry fraught with never-ending pain,” which tempted the foreigner to Italy, her lot has been hardly less wretched; but Germany has differed from Italy in the successful bravery with which she repelled…
Yet this was not without that painful experience which teaches what Art has so often attempted to picture and Eloquence to describe, “The Miseries of War.” Again in that same fearless spirit has Germany driven back the invader, while War…
The German mind is philosophical and scientific, and it early saw the irrational character of the War System.
But it is to Germany that we must look for the most complete and practical development of this beautiful idea.
The greatest minds in Germany have dealt with this problem, and given to its solution the exactness of science.
A treaty of peace which tacitly acknowledges the right to wage war, as all treaties now do, according to Kant is nothing more than a truce.
An individual war may be ended, but not the state of war; so that, even after cessation of hostilities, there will be constant fear of their renewal, while the armaments known as Peace Establishments will tend to provoke them.
All this should be changed, and nations should form one comprehensive Federation, which, receiving other nations within its fold, will at last embrace the civilized world; and such, in the judgment of Kant, was the irresistible tendency of…
Even in the midst of war, Philosophy will be heard, especially when she speaks words of concurring authority that touch a chord in every heart.
As Germany, beyond any other nation, has given to the idea of Organized Peace the warrant of philosophy, it only remains now that she should insist upon its practical application.
Long enough has mankind waited while the river of blood flowed on.
The working-men of Europe, not excepting Germany, respond to the mandate of Philosophy, and insist that the War System shall be abolished.
At public meetings, in formal resolutions and addresses, they have declared war against War, and they will not be silenced.
They are right; for nobody suffers in war as the working-man, whether in property or in person.
For him war is a ravening monster, devouring his substance, and changing him from citizen to military serf.
Once more, under the pretext of European equilibrium, of national honor, political ambitions menace the peace of the world.
French, German, Spanish working-men! let our voices unite in a cry of reprobation against war!
War for a question of preponderance, or of dynasty, can, in the eyes of working-men, be nothing but a criminal absurdity.
In response to the warlike acclamations of those who exonerate themselves from the impost of blood, or who find in public misfortunes a source of new speculations, we protest,--we who wish for peace, work, and liberty.
Brothers of Germany!… our divisions would only bring about the complete triumph of despotism on both sides of the Rhine.
Without us war must cease; for without us standing armies could not exist.
We would call upon and implore the peoples of France and Germany, in order to enable their own rulers to realize these their peace-loving professions, to insist upon the abolition of standing armies, as both the source and means of war…
Such is the statement, with its many proofs, by which war is exhibited as the Duel of Nations, being the Trial by Battle of the Dark Ages.
Politicians like Charles Sumner
