But I tell the Senator that there are characters, badly eminent, of whose fanaticism there can be no question.
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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Now I will not deny that there are persons among us loving Liberty too well for personal good in a selfish generation.
The men who strive to bring back the Government to its original policy, when Freedom and not Slavery was national, while Slavery and not Freedom was sectional, he arraigns as sectional.
He calls them “sectional and fanatical”; and resistance to the Usurpation of Kansas he denounces as “an uncalculating fanaticism.” To be sure, these charges lack all grace of originality and all sentiment of truth; but the adventurous…
Not content with this poor menace, which we have been twice told was “measured,” the Senator, in the unrestrained chivalry of his nature, has undertaken to apply opprobrious words to those who differ from him on this floor.
The asserted rights of Slavery, which shock equality of all kinds, are cloaked by a fantastic claim of equality.
Let her be impeached in character, or any proposition be made to shut her out from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or hardihood of assertion is then too great for this Senator.
Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him,--though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight: I mean the harlot Slavery.
The Senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage.
Its true character is such, that, like Hercules, it will conquer just so soon as it is recognized.
The Apologies which, with strange hardihood, are offered for the Crime must be torn away, so that it shall stand forth without a single rag or fig-leaf to cover its vileness.
Such is the Crime and such the criminal which it is my duty to expose; and, by the blessing of God, this duty shall be done completely to the end.
Thus do I exhibit the extent of the present contest, where we encounter not merely local resistance, but also the unconquered sustaining arm behind.
Even so the creature whose paws are now fastened upon Kansas, whatever it may seem to be, constitutes in reality part of the Slave Power, which, with loathsome folds, is now coiled about the whole land.
In opening this great matter, I am not insensible to the austere demands of the occasion; but the dependence of the Crime against Kansas upon the Slave Power is so peculiar and important that I trust to be pardoned while I impress it by an…
Justice to Kansas can be secured only by the prostration of this influence: for this is the Power behind--greater than any President--which succors and sustains the Crime.
There, Sir, stands the criminal, all unmasked before you, heartless, grasping, and tyrannical, with an audacity beyond that of Verres, a subtlety beyond that of Machiavel, a meanness beyond that of Bacon, and an ability beyond that of…
The criminal also must be dragged into day, that you may see and measure the power by which all this wrong is sustained.
Even now, while I speak, portents lower in the horizon, threatening to darken the land, which already palpitates with the mutterings of civil war.
This enormity, vast beyond comparison, swells to dimensions of crime which the imagination toils in vain to grasp, when it is understood that for this purpose are hazarded the horrors of intestine feud, not only in this distant Territory…
There is the simple fact, which you will vainly attempt to deny, but which in itself presents an essential wickedness that makes other public crimes seem like public virtues.
Yes, Sir, when the whole world, alike Christian and Turk, is rising up to condemn this wrong, making it a hissing to the nations, here in our Republic, force--ay, Sir, FORCE--is openly employed in compelling Kansas to this pollution, and…
Not in any common lust for power did this uncommon tragedy have its origin.
The wickedness which I now begin to expose is immeasurably aggravated by the motive which prompted it.
I show you how their dearest rights are cloven down, while a Tyrannical Usurpation seeks to install itself on their very necks!
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