There is an argument against it which has especial importance at this moment, when the Fugitive Act is made the occasion of new assault on State Rights.
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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It may have the form of legislation, but it lacks every essential element of law.
Conceived in defiance of the Constitution, and in utter disregard of every sentiment of justice and humanity, it should be treated as an outlaw.
Objectionable as the bill may be on this ground, it becomes much more so when regarded as an effort to bolster up the Fugitive Slave Act.
This consideration alone would be ample to secure its rejection, if the attachment to State Rights, so often avowed by Senators, were not utterly lost in stronger attachment to Slavery.
Suffice it to say, that it is an intrusive and offensive encroachment on State Rights, calculated to subvert the power of States in the protection of the citizen.
It may not be found there in name; but Slavery is the very soul of the bill.
And yet, Sir, by the admission of this whole debate, stretching from noon to midnight, it is a bill to bolster up the Fugitive Slave Act.
I am glad the Senator from Texas asks the question, for it brings attention at once to the true character of this bill.
A Senator from the North, a Senator from New England, lends himself to the work, and with unnatural zeal helps to bind still stronger the fetter of the slave.
Not from slave soil, but from free soil, comes this effort.
But the bill before you is to aid in the chase of slaves.
Bad as Slavery is, it is not so bad as hunting slaves.
Like Juggernaut, the bill is driven over prostrate victims.
But Slavery grasps this whole day, and changes it to a day of injustice.
It is hardly an accidental conjunction which constantly brings Slavery and midnight together.
Slavery is pressing again for its accustomed victory, which I undertake again for the moment to arrest.
Then, and not till then, will our beloved Commonwealth imitate the Divine Justice, which "desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live.
I trust that the time is at hand, when Massachusetts, turning from the vindictive gallows, will provide a comprehensive system of punishment, which by just penalties and privations shall deter from guilt, and by just benevolence and care…
But rack, thumbscrew, wheel, iron crown, bed of steel, and every instrument of barbarous torture, now rejected with horror, were once upheld by the same spirit of vengeance, the same timidity, and the same tradition of another age.
If not necessary, it cannot come within the province of self-defence, and is unjustifiable.
Now it seems to me clear, that, in our age and country, the taking of human life is not necessary to the protection of society, while it reduces the period of reformation to a narrow, fleeting span.
Punishment is justly inflicted by human power, with a twofold purpose: first, for the protection of society, and, secondly, for the reformation of the offender.
Nothing of argument or experience since has in any respect shaken the original and perpetual repugnance with which I have regarded it.
My instincts were ever against it, and, from the time when, while yet a student of law, I read the classical report to the Legislature of Louisiana, by that illustrious jurist, Edward Livingston, I have been constantly glad to find my…
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