But, as a Senator from one of the old States, I desire thus early to declare my dissent from these views, and the reasons for this dissent.
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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Taxation is a sacred right, essential to the existence of Government,--an incident of sovereignty.
In this spirit, while sustaining the bill before the Senate, I spoke for justice to the Land States.
Still further, in sustaining the present bill on grounds of justice to the Land States, I but follow the recorded instructions of the Legislature of Massachusetts, addressed to its Senators and Representatives here on a former occasion.
It proposes to give portions of the public domain to the original Thirteen, together with Vermont, Maine, Tennessee, and Kentucky, for purposes of education and internal improvement, at the rate of one acre to each inhabitant according to…
The taxes will amount to more than the entire receipts from sales; and thus the grant, while unjust to the Land States, will be worthless to the old States, the pretended beneficiaries.
By express words, the Governor is authorized to remit the whole or any part of any fine.
Thus early was this emblem of Union consecrated to Freedom.
In conversation he was disposed to listen rather than to speak, though all were well pleased when he broke silence and in apt language declared his glowing thought.
But in the public assembly, before the people, or in the legislative hall, he was bold and triumphant.
The resources and needs of the West were all known to him, and Western interests were like his own.
Leaving behind the cares of life, the concerns of state, and the wretched strifes of party, he has ascended to those mansions where there is no strife or concern or care.
At last he stands face to face in His presence whose service is perfect freedom.
God grant that we may go with equal consciousness of duty done!
Inconsistent and absurd, this effort is tyrannical also.
In vain do we condemn the despotisms of Europe, while we borrow the rigors with which they repress Liberty, and guard their own uncertain power.
One of its first acts was to accept the Ordinance of Freedom for the Northwestern Territory, thus ratifying the prohibition of Slavery in all existing territory.
This alone, if practically applied, would carry Freedom to all within its influence.
It may linger in the States as a local institution; but it will no longer engender national animosities, when it no longer demands national support.
In the face of these unequivocal judgments, it is absurd to suppose that these eminent citizens consented unanimously to any provision by which the National Government, the creature of their hands, dedicated to Freedom, could become the…
It was the purpose of our fathers to create a National Government, and to endow it with adequate powers.
The integrity of our Political System depends upon harmony in the operations of the Nation and of the States.
Any person claimed as a fugitive slave might invoke this Trial as a sacred right.
Earth, water, Nature they may subdue; but Truth they cannot subdue.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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