Each is a mine, out of whom riches can be drawn, provided you let him share the product.
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 through him that general industry will be established which is better than anything but virtue, and is, indeed, a form of virtue.
It is vain to say that this is the country of the “white man.” It is the country of Man.
Whoever disowns any member of the Human Family as Brother disowns God as Father, and thus becomes impious as well as inhuman.
It is the glory of republican institutions that they give practical form to this irresistible principle.
If anybody is to be sent away, let it be the guilty, and not the innocent.
As long as they continue here, they will resist the establishment of guaranties; but it is little short of madness to think of exiling loyal persons, whose strong arms are needed, not only for the cultivation of the soil, but also for…
The Milanese, in reply to the Emperor Barbarossa, said, “You had our oath, but we never swore to keep it.” Our Rebels are openly taught the same duplicity.
But if an oath be taken, it must not stop with support of the Proclamation of Emancipation.
It must embrace all those other objects of guaranty, including especially the national freedman and the national creditor.
But at a moment like the present, at the close of a ferocious rebellion, when hatred and passion are only pent up and not extinguished, an oath is little better than a cotton thread to hold a frigate scourged by a northwester.
The Hollanders might as well undertake to swear each individual wave that beats upon their coast.
And shall we be content when our Rebels merely “swear a peace”?
It is enough to state the proposition; for all must see at once that rights will be very uncertain, if with no protection except the gratitude of a pardoned Rebel.
Without accepting absolutely the dogma of Cardinal Mazarin, that human beings are governed more through hope than gratitude, it is clear, that, until security is won, we cannot afford to part with any influence or agency through which…
Mercy is a beautiful prerogative, exercised always with inexpressible delight; but on this account we must guard against its fascination, and not, in the generous luxury, imperil a whole community.
A pardon is in form an act of grace, but in reality a letter of license.
It leaves the criminal free to renew his crime, whether by force or guile.
As well defend a citadel by kisses or by flowers.
Time is the gentlest, but most powerful revolutionist.
Who can say that the same time will not be needed to mature the conditions of permanent peace?
Who can say that a generation must not elapse before these Rebel communities have been so far changed as to become safe associates in a common government?
It was more through time than battle that La Vendée was changed to loyalty.
Through time all other guaranties may be obtained; but time itself is a guaranty.
As well might the respectable banker reïnstate his son at once in the firm he has betrayed, and invest him again with all the powers of a partner.
Politicians like Charles Sumner
