Charles Sumner

In America feudalism never prevailed, and our Revolution severed the only cord by which we were connected with this ancient system.

But in the grand mutations of society the merchant throve.

If a Jew, he was often compelled, under direful torture, to surrender his gains; if a foreigner, he earned toleration by inordinate contribution to the public revenue; if a native, he was treated as caitiff too mean for society, and only…

But for a long time the merchant was of a despised caste, only next above the slave who was sold as a chattel.

It was the barons of Runnymede--there was no merchant there--who extorted from King John that Magna Charta which laid the corner-stone of English and American liberty.

Rather should it be said that every man owes a debt to mankind.

It restricts within the narrow circle of a profession obligations which are broad and universal as humanity.

I would show the principle by which we are to be guided in making the account current between the mercantile profession and Humanity, and, might I so aspire, hold up the Looking-Glass of the Good Merchant.

Extolling that conscience which sustained Granville Sharp in his career, he vindicated all among us who would not bow before injustice.

The good citizen, at all personal hazard, will refuse to obey it.

That atrocious enactment has no sanction in the Constitution of the United States or in the law of God.

The Good Farmer and the Good Citizen: Acting in conformity with the laws of God, rather than the statutes of man, they know that in this way only can true prosperity be obtained.

The good citizen will imitate the good farmer; nor will he impotently attempt to set up any statute of man against the ordinances of God, which determine good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice.

No fetters in the Bay State! no slave upon our land!

No slave-hunt in our borders! no pirate on our strand!

By the passage of the Nebraska Bill, and the Boston kidnapping case, the tyranny of the Slave Power is unmistakably manifest, while at the same time all compromises with Slavery are happily dissolved, so that Freedom stands face to face…

There is nothing good--not a breathing of the common air--which is not on our side.

In early colonial days, the law against witchcraft, now so abhorrent to reason and conscience, was regarded as constitutional and binding,--precisely as the Fugitive Slave Act, not less abhorrent to reason and conscience, is regarded as…

The citizen whose private life has kept him from assuming the obligations of official oath may bravely set at nought the unrighteous ruling of a magistrate, and, so doing, he will serve justice, though he expose himself to stern penalties.

The citizen who has sworn to support the Constitution is constrained to support it simply as he understands it.

The whole dogma of passive obedience must be rejected, whatever guise it assumes, under whatever alias it skulks,--whether in tyrannical usurpations of king, parliament, or judicial tribunal,--whether in exploded theories of Sir Robert…

But there is a God, to be obeyed in all things, although kings, people, and even courts, assert the contrary.

I repeat, judges are but men, and I know no difference between the claim of power now made for them and that other insulting pretension put forth sometimes in the name of a king and sometimes of a people.

Not lightly, not rashly, will he take the grave responsibility of open dissent; but if the occasion requires, he will not fail.

But no man, who is not lost to self-respect, and ready to abandon that manhood which is shown in the Heaven-directed countenance, will voluntarily aid in enforcing a judgment which in conscience he believes wrong.