And still one thing more is needed, without which Liberty-loving men, and their arguments, will fail in power,--even as without charity all graces of knowledge, speech, and faith are said to profit nothing.
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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Providence is felt through individuals; the dropping of water wears away the rock; and no man can be too humble or poor for this work, while to all the happy in genius, fortune, or fame it makes a special appeal.
Even as on the broad shield of Achilles, sculptured by divine art, was wrought every form of human activity, so in this cause, which is the very shield of Freedom, whatever man can do by deed or speech will find its place.
It seeks the conservation of Freedom itself, and of kindred historic principles; it seeks also the reform of Slavery, and of the kindred tyranny by which it is upheld.
Ours, too, is the argument alike of the Conservative and the Reformer; for our cause stands on the truest conservatism and the truest reform.
There is no weapon in the celestial armory of Truth, no sweet influence from the skies, no generous word from human lips, which may not be employed.
Better strive in this cause, even unsuccessfully, than never strive at all.
I know not, Sir, if you or I shall live to see in our Republic the vows of the Fathers at length fulfilled, as the last fetter falls from the last slave.
And this Public Opinion, with Freedom as its countersign, must proclaim not only the overthrow of the Slave Bill, but also the overthrow of the Slave Oligarchy behind,--the two pressing duties of the North, essential to our own…
Wherever it is already strong, I would keep it so; wherever it is weak, I would strengthen it, until of itself it is an all-sufficient protection, with watch and ward surrounding the fugitive, surrounding all.
While the Slave Oligarchy, through its unrepealed Slave Bill, undertakes to enslave our free soil, we can only turn for protection to a Public Opinion worthy of a humane, just, and religious people, which shall keep perpetual guard over…
To do this thing would plant in my soul a remorse which no time could remove or mitigate.
Little think those now doing the work of Slavery that the time is near when all this will be dishonor and sadness.
One man’s virtue becomes a standard of excellence for all; and there is now in Boston a simple citizen whose example may be a lesson to Commissioners, Marshals, Magistrates, while it fills all with the beauty of a generous act.
Nor can any acuteness of reason distinguish between the original bill of sale from the kidnapper, by which the unhappy African was transferred in Congo or Guinea, and the certificate of the Commissioner, by which, when once again in…
The Slave-Hunter who drags his victim from Africa is loathed as a monster; but I defy any acuteness of reason to indicate the moral difference between his act and that of the Slave-Hunter who drags his victim from our Northern free soil.
A lie,” it has been declared, “should be trampled out and extinguished forever”; and surely you will do nothing less with a tyrannical and wicked enactment.
Oh, Sir! prostrate the Slave Oligarchy, and the gates of Emancipation will be open at the South.
With the disappearance of the Slave Oligarchy, you will possess the master-key to unlock the whole house of bondage.
Surely, fellow-citizens, without hesitation or postponement, you will insist that this Oligarchy shall be overthrown; and here is the foremost among the special duties of the North, now required for the honor of the Republic, for our own…
One of our ancient masters--Aristotle, I think--tells us that every man has a beast in his bosom; but the Northern citizen who has the Fugitive Slave Bill there has worse than a beast,--a devil!
I have said, that, if any man finds in the Gospel any support of Slavery, it is because Slavery is already in himself; so do I now say, if any man finds in the Constitution of our country any support of the Fugitive Slave Bill, it is…
History still repeats the language in which our fathers persevered, when they denounced the last emanation of British tyranny which heralded the Revolution, as the Boston Port Bill; and I am content with this precedent.
Nor will you expect that an enactment so entirely devoid of all just sanction should be called by the sacred name of law.
By cruel enactment, which has no source in the Constitution, which defies justice, tramples on humanity, and rebels against God, the Free States are made the hunting-ground for slaves, and you and I and all good citizens are pressed to…
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