The fathers of the Republic, leaders in the War of Independence, were struck with the impious inconsistency of an appeal for their own liberties, while holding fellow-men in bondage.
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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The soul of Virginia, at this period, found eloquent utterance through Jefferson, who, by precocious and immortal words, enrolled himself among the earliest Abolitionists of the country.
Thus early and distinctly do we discern the Antislavery character of the founders, and their determination to place the National Government openly, actively, and perpetually on the side of Freedom.
It was specifically declared, that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
Nor do any words employed in our day denounce it with an indignation more burning than that which glowed on the lips of the fathers.
Such a prayer, signed by Franklin as President of an Abolition Society, not only shows the spirit of the times, but fixes forever the true policy of the Republic.
Fellow-citizens, there are men in our day, who, while professing a certain disinclination to Slavery, are careful to add that they are not Abolitionists.
It is a part of their lives which the honest historian commemorates with pride, that they were unhesitating, open, avowed Abolitionists.
By such men, and under the benign influence of such sentiments, was the National Government inaugurated, and dedicated to Freedom.
Change from Antislavery to Proslavery.--But the generous sentiments which filled the souls of the early patriots, and impressed upon the government they founded, as upon the very coin they circulated, the image and superscription of…
Here was a fundamental change in the character of the Government, to which may be referred much of the evil which has perplexed the country.
The Slave States are far inferior to the Free States in population, wealth, education, libraries, resources of all kinds, and yet they have taken to themselves the lion's share of honor and profit under the Constitution.
But without pursuing this game of political sweepstakes, which the Slave Power has perpetually played, we present what is more important, as indicative of its spirit,--the aggressions and usurpations by which it has turned the National…
Early in this century, when the District of Columbia was finally occupied as the National Capital, the Slave Power succeeded, in defiance of the spirit of the Constitution, and even of the express letter of one of its Amendments, in…
Waxing powerful, it was able, after a severe struggle, to impose terms upon the National Government, compelling it to receive Missouri into the Union with a Slaveholding Constitution.
It instigated and carried on a most expensive war in Florida, mainly to recover fugitive slaves,--thus degrading the army of the United States to slave-hunters.
It wrested from Mexico the Province of Texas, in order to extend Slavery, and, triumphing over all opposition, finally secured its admission into the Union with a Constitution making Slavery perpetual.
With the meanness as well as insolence of tyranny, it compelled the National Government to abstain from acknowledging the neighbor Republic of Hayti, where slaves have become freemen, and established an independent nation.
It compelled the National Government to stoop ignobly, and in vain, before the British queen, to secure compensation for slaves, who, in the exercise of the natural rights of man, had asserted and achieved their freedom on the Atlantic…
It has rejected for years petitions to Congress against Slavery,--thus, in order to shield Slavery, practically denying the right of petition.
It has imprisoned and sold into slavery colored citizens of Massachusetts, entitled, under the Constitution of the United States, to all the privileges of citizens.
It insulted and exiled from Charleston and New Orleans the honored representatives of Massachusetts, who were sent to those places with the commission of the Commonwealth, in order to throw the shield of the Constitution over her colored…
It puts forth the hideous effrontery, that Slavery can go to all newly acquired territories, and have the protection of the national flag.
By such steps the National Government is perverted from its original purposes, its character changed, and its powers subjected to Slavery.
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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