In recognizing the right of “every freeman” to the full enjoyment of the elective franchise, our fathers followed the early example.
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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Curiously enough, we find confirmation of the true principle, where you would little expect it, in that very Dred Scott decision which undertook to blast a race.
The words, ‘people of the United States’ and ‘citizens’ are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing.
They both describe the political body, who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the government through their representatives.
Thus does that terrible judgment, once a ban to the colored race, now testify to their indisputable rights as “citizens.
The aspiration of Abraham Lincoln, in his marvellous utterance at Gettysburg, was, that “government of the people, by the people, and for the people should not perish from the earth.” But who will venture to exclude from the “people”…
To say that you have not the power is to abdicate at a great exigency and renounce the very means of salvation.
It is to fling away your arms in the very face of the enemy.
It is to spike the Constitution at a moment when its full cannonade is needed for the overthrow of wrong.
Clearly the power is yours, and upon your heads will be the fearful responsibility, if you fail to exercise it.
The case is clear, and I challenge contradiction.
It is fresh as the abolition of Slavery itself, and at this moment is just as vital.
There shall be no discrimination in civil rights or immunities among the inhabitants of any State or Territory of the United States on account of race, color, or previous condition of slavery.
My own proposition, as I now present it, aims for the present at securing political rights throughout the Rebel States; but the irresistible argument is the same in each case.
I do not stop to exhibit the elective franchise as essential to the security of the freedman, without which he will be the prey of Slavery in some new form, and cannot rise to the stature of manhood.
Suffice it to say, that Emancipation will fail in beneficence, if you do not assure to the former slave all the rights of the citizen.
Until you do this, your work will be only half done, and the freedman only half a man.
It cannot be left to become the sport of sectional prejudice or wayward passion.
It began with you, and it is for you to give it that final assurance to be found only in Enfranchisement.
It is for you to “maintain” the former slave in the liberty he received at your hands.
Such a duty cannot be renounced or delegated.
It must be sacredly performed by the National Government, according to its original pledge in the Proclamation of Emancipation, and according to all the suggestions of reason.
You cannot consent that the child Emancipation, born of your breath, shall be surrendered to the custody of enemies.
Take it in your arms, I entreat you, and nurse it into strength.
Be instructed by the examples of history, teaching that the masters of slaves cannot be trusted to legislate for them,--a conclusion announced by the best English statesmen, speaking from their experience, in words which I have often…
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