By the application of ether, the dreaded pain of the surgical knife, and even the pangs of Nature, are soothed or removed, while Death is disarmed of something of its terrors.
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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All confess the beauty of that act, where prophecy seems fulfilled, by which a Ship of War was consecrated to a purpose of charity.
Such a Congress forms a truer epoch of Christian Progress--does it not?--than the Congress of Vienna, with the bespangled presence of great autocrats distributing the spoils of war, as the sailing of the Jamestown is a higher Christian…
In selecting this theme, I would not minister to the pride or gratulation of the Present, nor would I furnish motives for indifference or repose.
Rather would I teach how small is the Present and all it contains, compared with the Future, and how duties increase with the grandeur upon which we enter, while we derive new encouragement from knowledge of the law which is our support…
The ignorant live only in the Present, whether of time or place.
Man, in his origin and history, was surrounded with fable; nor was there any correct idea of the principles determining the succession of events.
Revolutions of states were referred sometimes to chance, sometimes to certain innate elements of decay.
Plutarch did not hesitate to ascribe the triumphs of Rome, not to the operation of immutable law, but to the fortune of the Republic.
Like mortals on earth, they were supposed to have a period of life, and a length of thread spun by the Fates, strong at first, but thinner and weaker with advancing time, till at last it was cut, and another nation, with newly twisted…
In likening the life of a nation to the life of an individual man, there was error, commended by seeming truth, not yet entirely banished.
It prevails still with many, who have not received the Law of Human Progress, teaching that all revolutions and changes are but links in the chain of development, or, it may be, turns in the grand spiral, by which the unknown infinite…
The ancients saw that there were changes, but did not detect the principles governing them, while a favorite fable and popular superstition conspired to turn attention back upon the Past, rather than forward to the Future.
Songs and fables have ever exerted a powerful control over human opinion; nor is it possible to estimate the influence of this story in shaping unconsciously the thoughts of mankind.
It is easy to understand that the youth of Antiquity,--let me say, too, the youth of later ages,--nay, of our own day, in our own schools and colleges,--nurtured by this literature, should learn to neglect the Future, and rather regard the…
The blessings of Peace are here foreshadowed, while the Golden Age seems to be not only behind, but also before.
Thus, notwithstanding the prejudice of superstition and the constraint of ignorance, has the human heart, in longings for a better condition on earth, gone forward as the pioneer of Humanity.
The popular doctrine of an immediate millennium, inculcated by a succession of early fathers, took the place of ancient fable; and a Golden Age was placed in advance to animate the hope and perseverance of the faithful.
All the legitimate influences of Christianity were in the same direction.
Confucius, in his sublime morals, taught us not to do unto others what we would have them not do unto us; but the Chinese philosopher did not declare the ultimate triumph of this law.
It was reserved for the Sermon on the Mount to reveal the vital truth, that all the highest commands of religion and duty, drawing in their train celestial peace, and marking the final goal of all Progress among men, shall one day be…
There is nothing of good so vast or beautiful, nothing so distant or seemingly inaccessible, as to fall beyond the reach of these promises.
Though imperfectly understood, or recognized, in the night of ignorance and prejudice, they were heralds of the dawn.
Long before Philosophy deduced the Law of Human Progress from the history of man, the Gospel silently planted it in the human heart.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
Politicians like Charles Sumner
