When a State is once admitted into the Union, we all know, that, under the National Constitution, it is on a footing of perfect equality; therefore, in advance, before we receive a State into that high equality, we should well consider…
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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The question is, whether in the Senate it will not have a weight to which such a number of voters cannot be justly entitled.
Even conceding that on legislative questions, through the preponderance of the large States in the other House, there may be a certain remedy to this disorder, there is no such remedy in the exercise of these two other important functions…
It is not republican in form, or in harmony with the Declaration of Independence.
Note well the text, “every white male citizen”: in other words, nobody who is not “white,” under this constitution, is recognized as entitled to the elective franchise.
Now, Sir, I insist--and I here challenge reply from any Senator on this floor--that such a constitution does not comply with the requirement of the Enabling Act, that it is not republican, and that it is repugnant to the principles of the…
I say that it is not republican; for the first principle of republican government is equality.
It was for our fathers, it was left to them, when they undertook to constitute a new government, to declare equality the essential and cardinal principle of a republic.
But the true idea of a republican government began with our fathers, and its definition is found in their Declaration of Independence.
Call it “a glittering generality,”--but there it is, in immortal text, whose truth will be recognized more and more as time advances.
You may not recognize it now, but others after you will do it reverence.
I say, therefore, that this constitution is repugnant to the principles of the Declaration of Independence.
We must examine the constitutions, and see whether or not they are in conformity with those sublime principles which enter into the true idea of a republican government.
We owe it to ourselves to set an example, and to require that in a State organized under our influence a good example shall prevail.
How many of us heard with regret the result last autumn in Connecticut, and again in Wisconsin, by which suffrage to the colored race was denied!
We felt that by those two votes Liberty had suffered, that an enfranchised race was placed in jeopardy, that its rights were dishonored by those who ought to have upheld them; and now, Sir, you have cast upon you in this Chamber that same…
Some of us have regretted poignantly the policy of those two States: I hope there will be no occasion to regret any similar policy in this Chamber.
Provided, That this Act shall not take effect except upon the fundamental condition that within the State there shall be no denial of the electoral franchise, or of any other rights, on account of race or color, but all persons shall be…
Now, Sir, I call upon the Senate to do for this far Western Territory the same in kind as was done by our fathers for the whole vast Northwest Territory,--to lay an interdict against all inequality of rights in original compact, not only…
Their population has diminished; but they, unhappily, have deteriorated in political character, and have not now the same noble elements of political life by which they were once commended.
I did it sincerely, honestly believing it my duty at the time, because I saw well the peril of dependent condition, and that it could be saved only by the interference of Congress, the swiftest intervention, which would not brook delay.
Therefore, Sir, for the sake of peace, and as I would succor a fellow-man in agony, I exerted myself in every way to invest Kansas with all the privileges and self-protecting powers of a State.
As well cite what you do to save a drowning man just sinking for the last time, as a proper precedent for conduct in daily life.
I hope, therefore, that the Senate will not proceed to reconsider the vote which, to their honor, they have already recorded.
They did well, when, after two days’ debate, by a large vote, they deliberately refused to receive this Territory into the Union.
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