Instead of Massachusetts Bay, in the royal speech, substitute Kansas, and the message of the President will be found fresh on the lips of the British King.
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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I shall not follow the President in his elaborate endeavor to prejudge the contested election now pending in the House of Representatives; for this whole matter belongs to the privileges of that body, and neither the President nor the…
It proposes enforced obedience to the existing laws of Kansas, “whether Federal or local,” when, in fact, Kansas has no “local” laws, except those imposed by the Usurpation from Missouri, and it calls for additional appropriations to…
First, we have the Remedy of Tyranny; next, the Remedy of Folly; next, the Remedy of Injustice and Civil War; and, fourthly, the Remedy of Justice and Peace.
By such happy restoration, made in good faith, the whole country would be replaced in the condition it enjoyed before the introduction of that dishonest measure.
The Remedy should be coextensive with the original Wrong; and since, by the passage of the Nebraska Bill, not only Kansas, but also Nebraska, Minnesota, Washington, and even Oregon, are opened to Slavery, the original Prohibition should be…
But it cannot be that she acts wrong for herself or her children, when in this cause she encounters reproach.
I exult, too, that in this battle, which in moral grandeur surpasses far the whole war of the Revolution, she is able to preserve her just eminence.
Such is Massachusetts; and I am proud to believe that you may as well attempt with puny arm to topple down the earth-rooted, heaven-kissing granite which crowns the historic sod of Bunker Hill as to change her fixed resolve for Freedom…
God be praised, Massachusetts, honored Commonwealth, that gives me the privilege to plead for Kansas on this floor, knows her rights, and will maintain them firmly to the end.
But since a great right is denied, the children of the Free States, over whose cradles has shone the North Star, owe it to themselves, to their ancestors, and to Freedom itself, that this right shall now be asserted to the fullest extent.
The whole assumption is too audacious for respectful argument.
They object to the influence of emigrants from abroad: he objects to the influence of American citizens at home, when exerted in States or Territories where they were not born.
The Senator inveighs against the Native American party; but his own principle is narrower than any attributed to them.
If this be not so, then by what title are so many foreigners annually naturalized, under Democratic auspices, in order to secure votes for misnamed Democratic principles?
To cloak the overthrow of all law in Kansas, an assumption is now set up which utterly denies one of the plainest rights of the people everywhere.
By the law and Constitution we stand or fall; and that law and Constitution we have in no respect offended.
It will not do, in specious phrase, to allege the right of every State to be free in domestic policy from foreign interference, and then to assume such wrongful interference by this Company.
Not on the example of Missouri or the example of South Carolina, but on inherent rights, which no man, whether Senator or President, can justly assail, do I plant this impregnable justification.
His instincts, as lawyer, as man of honor, and as Senator, would forbid; but the Slave Power, in enforcing its behests, allows no hesitation, and the Senator surrenders.
Listening to him, I was saddened by the spectacle of the extent to which Slavery will sway a candid mind to do injustice.
I would not claim too much for this Company; but I doubt if at this moment there is any society so completely philanthropic; and since its leading idea, like the light of a candle from which other candles are lighted without number, may be…
I take this occasion to say that all the plans and proceedings of the Society have met my approbation; and I assert that it has never done a single act with which any political party or the people of any section of the country can justly…
I am not aware that any one in this community ever suspected me of being an Abolitionist; but I have been accused of being Proslavery, and I believe many good people think I am quite too conservative on that subject.
It is not true that the Company has encouraged any fanatical aggression upon the people of Missouri; for it counsels order, peace, forbearance.
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