Thus we stand now between two infinities,--the infinity of the Past, and the infinity of the Future; and the infinity of the Future is equal to the infinity of the Past.
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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In comparison with these untold spaces before and after, what, indeed, are the six thousand years of human history?
In the contemplation of Man, what littleness! what grandeur! how diminutive in the creation! how brief his recorded history! and yet how vast in hopes! how majestic and transcendent in the Future!
In the sight of our distant descendants, successive eras of the brief span which we call History will melt into one; and as to present vision stars far asunder seem near together, so Nimrod and Sesostris, Alexander and Cæsar, Tamerlane and…
Nor is it any exaggeration to suppose that in the unborn ages, illumined by a truth now, alas! too dimly perceived, the class of warriors and conquerors, of which these are signal types, will become extinct,--like the gigantic land…
Admitting the Unity of Mankind, and an Indefinite Future on earth, it becomes easy to anticipate triumphs which else were impossible.
Few will question that Man, as an individual, is capable of indefinite improvement, so long as he lives.
Even the idiot, so abject in condition, is found at last to be within the sphere of education.
Circumstances alone are required to call this capacity into action; and in proportion as knowledge, virtue, and religion prevail in a community will that sacred atmosphere be diffused under whose genial influence the most forlorn may grow…
This capacity for indefinite improvement, which belongs to the individual, must belong also to society; for society does not die, and through the improvement of its individuals has the assurance of its own advance.
It is immortal on earth, and will gather constantly new and richer fruits from the teeming generations, as they stretch through unknown time.
From statistics of life, as recorded by Science, we learn the capacity for progress in the Human Family; the testimony is authentic, as it is interesting.
Glancing at the cradle of nations and races risen to grandeur, and observing the wretchedness by which they were originally surrounded, we learn that no lot is removed from the influence of this law.
The Feejee Islander, the Bushman, the Hottentot, the Congo negro, is not too low for its care.
The polished Briton, whose civilization we now admire, traces his long-descended lineage from one of those painted barbarians whose degradation still lives in the pages of Julius Cæsar.
And who can doubt, that, in the lapse of time, as the Christian Law is gradually fulfilled, the elevation of the Briton will be shared by all his fellow-men?
The tokens of improvement may appear at a special period, in a limited circle only, among the people, favored of God, enjoying peculiar benefits of commerce and Christianity; but the happy influence cannot be narrowed to any time, place…
Every victory over evil redounds to the benefit of all.
Every discovery, every humane thought, every truth, when declared, is a conquest of which the whole Human Family are partakers, extending by so much their dominion, while it lessens by so much the sphere of future struggle and trial.
Thus, while Nature is always the same, the power of Man is ever increasing.
The mountains have not diminished in size; but Man has overcome the barriers they interpose.
Much remains to be done; but the Creator did not speak in vain, when he blessed his earliest children, and bade them "multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it.
Nothing is accomplished except by time and exertion.
It is slowly that we pass from infancy and imbecility to manhood and strength.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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