Charles Sumner

Our colored fellow-citizens must be admitted to complete equality before the law.

I, Sir, am anxious to see universal amnesty; but with it must be asserted also universal justice.

Strange, Sir, that the sensibilities of so many are aroused in favor of amnesty, and yet those same Senators are so dull when the rights of men are presented!

I had indulged the longing that those especially in favor of amnesty for all would adopt that other greater and more comprehensive principle of justice for all.

I had trusted that this benign measure was so clear and refulgent with justice that no Senator would rise in his place to oppose it.

But I do know full well, for the Senator has often declared it, that he acts under interpretations of the Constitution which it seems to me belong to the period anterior to the war rather than since the war.

I know too well his heart, his excellent and abounding nature, his New-England home, to attribute to him any such indifference.

I had hoped that there would be nothing but welcome and consideration for a measure so truly beneficent, and which is absolutely needed to crown and complete the great work of Reconstruction.

Here are our colored fellow-citizens, many millions strong, all of whom have votes, and all unite in asking it.

Why not go forward promptly, swiftly, according to the merits of this measure, and give it, like a benediction, to the land?

Why continue on the country the burden of the injustice which this bill proposes to relieve?

It is a great act of justice, to which, as I understand, the political parties of the country, in solemn convention, are pledged.

Now, Sir, I am against delay in the enactment of this measure.

If watchwords are needed now, let them be: Immediate Emancipation and Justice in Cuba!--Success to the Spanish Republic!--Honor and Gratitude to Emilio Castelar! and Peace between our two Nations!

The Spanish Republic and Emilio Castelar do not deserve the menace of war from us.

Nor can we forget the noble President, whose eloquent voice, pleading for humanity and invoking our example, has so often charmed the world.

But other flames, not less vindictive, are now seizing and devouring fellow-men, our fellow-countrymen, in fair and beautiful places where all smiles but the benefactor Health.

Pestilence is a conflagration, and human life is the sacrifice.

To arrest this contagion, to help those exposed to its ravages, we perform a simple duty, as when we direct water upon the bursting blaze.

Such are the favoring conditions of climate and the general security of health in our country, that we are rarely disturbed by contagion.

The Fire Fiend has been more active than the other demon, and property has suffered more than life.

If Boston should be startled by hearing to-day that pestilence had appeared in one of our new-found possessions, as in Charlestown,--or even in Brookline, which will not be annexed,--we should feel the ties of neighborhood.

It is hard to hear of suffering anywhere without longing to relieve it.

It is easy for lawyers and politicians to find excuses according to their desires; but no fine-spun theory or technicality should be allowed to prevail against the commanding principle.

Wherever the question presents itself, whether in Congress, or the Legislative Chambers of the District, or the popular assembly, there should be a solid vote against every discrimination on account of color.