You will also insist upon that Christian rule, as applicable to nations as to individuals, of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.
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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As well deprive a citizen of equality before the law as deprive a nation.
In the presence of International Law all nations are equal.
In cultivating a sentiment of nationality, you will naturally insist upon that equality among nations which is your right.
I am only one of many who have labored for the enfranchisement of the African race, and who yet stand ready to serve at all times the sacred cause; nor have I done anything except in the simple discharge of duty.
In the name of the Haytian people, we pray you to accept, as a feeble testimony of its gratitude, this medal, which will perpetuate in ages to come the recollection of the services which you have rendered to us as citizens of the world…
It is the dignity of a black people seeking to place itself, by its own efforts, at the banquet of the civilized world.
In defending our independence on two solemn occasions, you have protected and defended something more august even than the liberty of the blacks in America.
To affirm the aptitude of the black race for civilization and self-government, by your eloquence and your high morality you have made free four millions of blacks in the United States.
Better, then, in advance, by a proper and generous resolution, to order their discharge, so that the Law will not be compelled to do what you fail to do.
The Law will step in and take them from your clutch.
When your imprisonment comes to an end, theirs comes to an end also.
If they are detained in prison, it is only because you yourselves are imprisoned here in the discharge of your responsible duties.
Even suppose your proceedings have been from the beginning in all respects just and proper, even suppose that you can vindicate them, in regard to which I beg leave to express a sincere doubt, you cannot vindicate the attempt to continue…
I make these remarks with a view of opening to the Senate the importance of the question before them, that they may once more hesitate and withdraw to the safe ground of the Constitution and the Law; for there is nothing in the…
You see how, if you persevere, you will shock the conscience and the sensibilities of the American people.
Now is such a state of things to be tolerated in a civilized country?
The letters of a man might be opened, and he might not have the slightest intimation that he was betrayed.
It was disgraceful to a free country that such a system should be tolerated.
That was a system which the people of this country would not bear, which they ought not to bear; and he hoped, after the exposure which had taken place, that some means would be adopted for counteracting this insidious conduct of her…
In the guise of privilege, it enters those penetralia and insists that the secrets shall be disclosed.
The Senate proposes to break into the telegraph-offices of the United States.
I have already stated that it has not,--that it has not the authority of a justice of the peace.
I ask the Senator if the Senate of the United States, in this investigation, as long as it exists, has not all the authority of a court?
You raise, for the first time in this Chamber, one of the great questions of the times.
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