In this law, which is both commandment and promise, I find duties and hopes,--perpetual duties never to be postponed, and perpetual hopes never to be abandoned, so long as Man is Man.
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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Believing in this law, and profoundly convinced that by the blessing of God it will all be fulfilled on earth, it is easy to see how unreasonable is a claim of power founded on any unchangeable physical incident derived from birth.
Because man is black, because man is yellow, he is none the less Man; because man is white, he is none the more Man.
By this great title he is universal heir to all that Man can claim.
The cry, “A white man’s government,” which is such an insult to human nature, has influence in the work of degradation.
Accustomed to this effrontery, people do not see its ineffable absurdity, which is made conspicuous, if they simply consider the figure our fathers would have cut, had they declared the equal rights of white men, and not the equal rights…
The great Declaration was axiomatic and self-evident because universal; confined to a class, it would have been neither.
I begin by declaring an unalterable faith in the Future, which nothing can diminish or impair.
Throughout a life of controversy and opposition, frequently in a small minority, sometimes almost alone, I have never for a moment doubted the final fulfilment of the great promises for Humanity without which this world would be a…
Wherever men are gathered into nations, wherever Civilization extends her beneficent sway, there will it be manifest.
Against this lofty truth the assaults of the adversary are no better than the arrows of barbarians vainly shot at the sun.
Still it moves, and it will move until all rejoice in its beams.
The “all-hail Hereafter,” in which the poet pictures personal success, is a feeble expression for that transcendent Future where man shall be conqueror, not only over nations, but over himself, subduing pride of birth, prejudice of class…
The assurances of the Future are strengthened, when I look at Government and see how its character constantly improves as it comes within the sphere of knowledge.
Men must know before they can act wisely; and this simple rule is applicable alike to individuals and communities.
Thus far government has been at best an Art, like alchemy or astrology, where ministers exercised a subtle power, or speculators tried imaginative experiments, seeking some philosopher’s-stone at the expense of the people.
Though in many respects still an Art only, it is fast becoming a Science founded on principles and laws from which there can be no just departure.
As a science, it is determined by knowledge, like any other science, aided by that universal handmaid, the philosophy of induction.
From a succession of particulars the general rule is deduced; and this is as true of government as of chemistry or astronomy.
Nor do I see reason to doubt, that, in the evolution of events, the time is at hand when government will be subordinated to unquestionable truth, making diversity of opinion as impossible in this lofty science as it is now impossible in…
Above the State rises the image of Justice, lofty, blindfold, with balance in hand.
There it stands in colossal form with constant lesson of Equal Rights for All, while under its inspiration government proceeds according to laws which cannot be disobeyed with impunity, and Providence is behind to sustain the righteous…
Looking into his soul, he will there find the great irreversible Law of Right, universal for the nation as for himself, commanding to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and under the safeguard of this universal law I now…
It is little that I can do; but, taking counsel of my desires, I am not without hope of contributing something to that just judgment which shall blast the effrontery of Caste as doubly offensive, not only to the idea of a Republic, but to…
The French Revolution did much to shake this irrational system; yet in many parts of Europe, down to this day, the son emancipates himself with difficulty from the class in which he is born.
Politicians like Charles Sumner
