In the uncertainties of life, I would not defer for a day the discharge of this immeasurable obligation to fellow-citizens insulted and oppressed; nor would I postpone that much-desired harmony which can be assured only through this act of…
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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And this is the more evident, when it is considered, that, according to Abraham Lincoln, the great issue of the war was Human Equality.
Clearly, between the two the preëminence must be accorded to that for the equal rights of all, as among the virtues justice is above generosity.
Hereafter the Rebels should remember that their restoration was associated with the equal rights of all, contained in the same great statute.
Kindred in object, they should be joined together and never put asunder.
Their adoption together is better for each, and therefore better for the country, than any separate adoption.
According to the maxim in Chancery, “Whoso would have equity must do equity.” Therefore Rebels seeking amnesty must be just to colored fellow-citizens seeking equal rights.
Nobody sincerely favoring generosity to Rebels should hesitate in justice to the colored race.
Such a measure can never be out of order or out of season, being of urgent necessity and unquestionable charity.
Believing that duty to these millions is foremost, and that until they are secured in equal rights we cannot expect the tranquillity which all desire,--nay, Sir, we cannot expect the blessing of Almighty God upon our labors,--I bring…
I regretted, at the time, that the President signalized by his favor the removal of disabilities imposed upon a few thousand Rebels who had struck at the life of the Republic, while he said nothing of cruel disabilities inflicted upon…
There is no person among us now, whatever his birth or complexion, who may not claim the great name of Citizen, to be protected not less at home than abroad,--but always, whether at home or abroad, by the National Government, which is the…
Shall the cry, “I am an American citizen,” be raised in vain against perpetual outrage?
Is our citizenship a feebler safeguard than that of Rome?
Will not our “Chief Captain,” will not Senators, take heed what they do, that the scourge may not continue to fall upon a whole race, each one of whom is an American and uncondemned?
In ancient times the cry, “I am a Roman citizen,” stayed the scourge of the Lictor; and this cry, with its lesson of immunity, has resounded through the ages, testifying to Roman greatness.
An American citizen, with every office wide open to his honorable ambition, in whom are all the great possibilities of our Republic, who may be anything according to merit, is exposed to a scourge which descends upon the soul as the…
Nothing can make this terrible inconsistency more conspicuous.
Nay, Sir, he may be Vice-President, he may be President; but he cannot enter a hotel or public conveyance, or offer his child at the common school, without insult on account of color.
The doors of this Chamber swing open, and he sits here the coëqual of any Senator.
There is no office in the Republic, from lowest to highest, executive, judicial, or representative, which is closed against him.
Our rights are his rights; our equality is his equality; our privileges and immunities are his great freehold.
Whatever he may have been, he is now the same as ourselves.
Dishonor to him is dishonor to the Republic itself.
Insult to him is insult to an American citizen.
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