This bill has its origin in what I have already called the special duty of the hour, which is protection of loyal and patriotic citizens against the President.
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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But the brutal language the President employs shows the spirit in which he acts.
Had Abraham Lincoln been spared to us, there would have been no occasion for any such measure.
Its special object is to vindicate the power of the Senate over the offices committed to it according to existing law and Constitution.
Because the victims are numerous, therefore we are to fold our hands and let the sacrifice proceed.
Every victim has a voice; and when these voices count by thousands, you have no right to turn away and say, “They are too numerous for the Senate.” This is my answer to the objection founded on numbers.
The power of the Senate is a warning against tyranny in the Executive.
I have already answered this objection precisely, in saying, that, whatever may have been the system of the Fathers, it is inadequate to the present hour.
But even if the Senator does not accept the view which I present on the probable course of our fathers, he cannot resist the argument, that, whatever may have been the old system, we must act now in the light of present duties.
I repeat, a system good for our fathers may not be good for this hour, which is so full of danger.
There is no case so small as not to be worthy of the Senate, especially if in this way you can save a citizen from oppression and weaken the power of an oppressor.
Thus it is obviously a curtailment of Executive power, which I insist has become our bounden duty.
Dunning, is applicable here: “The influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished.” In this spirit we must put a curb on the President, now maintaining illegitimate power by removals from office.
But it is my duty to remind you how much the public welfare depends upon courageous counsels.
Do not forget that we stand face to face with an enormous and malignant usurper, through whom the Republic is imperilled,--that Republic which, according to our oaths of office, we are bound to save from all harm.
It is the old pretension of prerogative, to be encountered, I trust, by that same inexorable determination which once lifted England to heroic heights.
The present pretension is more outrageous, and its consequences are more deadly; surely the resistance cannot be less complete.
An American President must not claim an immunity denied to an English king.
In the conflict he has so madly precipitated, I am with the people.
In the President I put no trust, but in the people I put infinite trust.
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.
The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.
As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.
We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
Every day of postponement is to my mind a sacrifice.
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