In view of these things, the first subject of inquiry is not soil, climate, productiveness, and possibilities of wealth, but the exceptional and abnormal proceedings of our own Government.
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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Was it folly, not to sanction hostilities against the Black Republic without the authority of Congress?
Was it folly, when the Senate refused to sanction proceedings by which the Equal Rights of the Black Republic were assailed?
Clearly this is not a proper term to be employed by one branch of the Government with regard to another, least of all by the President with regard to the Senate.
The language of the President in charging the Senate with “folly” was not according to approved precedents.
But the Haytians love their country as we love ours; especially are they resolute for national independence.
Suppose such a proposition by Louis Napoleon or by the English Queen, made in formal speech to Chambers or Parliament, what would have been the feeling in our country?
Presidential visits to the Capitol, with appeals to Senators, have been followed by assemblies at the Executive Mansion, also with appeals to Senators; and who can measure the pressure of all kinds by himself or agents, especially through…
Never before has there been such Presidential intervention in the Senate as we have been constrained to witness.
What other kingly prerogative may not be seized?
What other belligerent menace may not be hurled?
What other foreign nation may not be struck at?
What other sacred rule of International Law may not be violated?
If such a transaction, many-headed in wrong, can escape judgment, it is difficult to see what securities remain.
And all this has been done by kingly prerogative alone, without the authority of an Act of Congress.
On this unanswerable and cumulative testimony, where each part confirms the rest, and the whole has the harmony of truth, I present this transgression.
I plead now, as I have often pleaded before, for Justice and Peace.
Controversy, especially at my time of life, has no attraction for me; but I have been reared in the school of duty, and now, as of old, I cannot see wrong without trying to arrest it.
They go expressly to learn everything connected with the enemy’s country, and their observations are intended for publication, and thus indirectly to be reported back to President Baez.
For they belong to a nation that, through the orders of its Executive to the naval vessels here, has chosen to take part in the internal conflicts of this country; they come directly from the head-quarters of Cabral’s enemies; they are…
It may not have occurred to these gentlemen that by so doing they will virtually place themselves in the position of spies, and if they are taken by Cabral’s people, they can be hung to the nearest tree by sentence of a drum-head…
I leave them to your judgment without one word of comment, reminding you only that no President is entitled to substitute his kingly will for the Constitution of our country.
The President has not even a puff of air to stand on.
The usurpation pivots on nonentity,--always excepting the kingly will of the President, which constitutionally is a nonentity.
Therefore, according to the precedents of our history, reinforced by reason and authority, does the “assumpsit” of the treaty fail.
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