For a military occupation bristling with bayonets I would substitute the smile of peace.
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 the soldier disappears, his place must be supplied by the schoolmaster.
The time you give will be saved to the country hereafter a thousand-fold.
The time you begrudge will rise in judgment against you.
The mature liberty we seek cannot have the easy birth of feebler types.
As man, endowed with reason and looking to the heavens, is above the quadruped that walks, above the bird that flies, above the fish that swims, and above the worm that crawls, so should these new governments, republican in form and loyal…
The Old must give way to the New, and the New must be worthy of a Republic, which, ransomed from Slavery, has become an example to mankind.
That power is derived from several sources,--first, from the necessity of the case, because the State governments there are illegal, and the whole region has passed, as in the case of Territories, under the jurisdiction of Congress: no…
There is another source in the military power now established over that region; then, again, in that great clause of the National Constitution by which you are required to guaranty to every State a republican form of government.
You have exercised it by prescribing in their constitutions Suffrage for all.
I ask you to go one step further, and to prescribe Education for all.
If you may demand it, if you have the power, then do I insist it is your duty so to do.
These great powers are not merely for display or idleness, but for employment, to the end that the Republic may be advanced and fortified.
From the beginning I have protested against Reconstruction by military power.
Again and again I have asserted that it is contrary to the genius of republican institutions, and to a just economy of political forces.
It is to protect the country,--not to make constitutions, or to superintend the making of constitutions.
What is good enough for the sovereign at home is, I understand, good enough for other sovereigns.
And surely the dress in which one of our ministers would appear before the President of the United States ought to be sufficient anywhere.
Their simplicity would be a distinction, and it would be typical of the republican government they represent.
Amidst the brilliant dresses and fantastic uniforms of European courts a simple dress would be most suggestive.
The object of the pending measure is to encounter that precise requirement of foreign governments, and to put our ministers on an equality with those of other countries.
But I see no reason why there should be one rule for these ambassadors, and another for the representatives of the American Republic.
The equality of nations is a first principle of International Law.
But this is offended by any requirement of a foreign government which shall not leave our representative free to appear before the sovereign of the country to which he is accredited as he would before the Chief Magistrate of the American…
You must not forget that the President is a bad man, the author of incalculable woe to his country, and especially to that part which, being most tried by war, most needed kindly care.
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