Charles Sumner

And this giant strength is used with giant heartlessness.

The Constitution, the flag itself, and everything we call our own, is degraded to this wicked rule.

And thus the strength of the whole people is transfused into this oligarchy.

Yes, let it be proclaimed, that now at last, not honesty, not capacity, not fidelity to the Constitution is the test for office, but unhesitating support of Slavery.

Nobody, throughout this Republic, who cannot repeat the hateful word, is taken,--nobody, unless faithful to Slavery, is accepted for any post under the National Government.

For all this tyranny there must be tools, and these are found through a new test for office, where Slavery is the shibboleth.

Notwithstanding all its excess of numbers, wealth, and intelligence, the North is now the vassal of an OLIGARCHY, whose single inspiration comes from Slavery.

But the answer may be made yet more irresistible, while, with mingled sorrow and shame, I portray the tyrannical power which holds us in thraldom.

Ay, Sir, emancipation at the South can be reached only through emancipation of the North.

Emancipation, even within the national jurisdiction, can be achieved only through emancipation of the Free States, accompanied by complete emancipation of the National Government.

The National Government itself must be emancipated, so that it shall no longer wear the yoke of servitude; and Slavery in all its pretensions must be dislodged from a usurped foothold in the Free States themselves, thus relieving ourselves…

To dislodge Slavery from these usurped footholds, and thus at once relieve ourselves from grievous responsibility, and begin the great work of Emancipation, were an object worthy an exalted ambition.

But the question recurs, so often pressed in argument, or in taunt, What have we at the North to do with Slavery?

The well-tempered soul does not yield to difficulties, but presses onward forever with increased resolution.

Nay, because Slavery is powerful, because the Enterprise is difficult, therefore is the duty of all more exigent.

Surely the wrong is not less wrong because gigantic; the evil is not less evil because immeasurable; nor can the duty of perpetual warfare with wrong and evil be in this instance suspended.

But these things can furnish no motive or apology for indifference, or any folding of the hands.

Not, then, by occasional contribution to ransom a slave can your duty be done in this great cause, but only by earnest, constant, valiant effort against the institution, against the law, which makes slaves.

Besides, a wrong organized and upheld by law can be removed only through change of the law.

Charity is limited and local; the evils of Slavery are infinite and everywhere.

And just so will these occasions of charity, though encountered by the largest private means, be constantly renewed; for they communicate with the whole Black Sea of Slavery behind, out of which they are perpetually supplied, and which…

Not in this way can impression be made on an evil so vast as Slavery,--so widely scattered, and so exhaustless in its unnatural supply.

I would not discountenance any activity by which Human Freedom, even in a single case, may be secured; but I desire to say that such an act--too often accompanied by pharisaical pretension, in contrast with the petty performance--cannot be…

While confessing that it ought to disappear from the earth, they forego, renounce, and abandon all effort to this end.

Others there are who freely bestow means and time upon distant, inaccessible heathen of another hemisphere, in islands of the sea; and yet they can do nothing to mitigate our graver heathenism here at home.