Now I call upon Senators to remark, that this sacred right, reputed so essential to the very existence of Government, is abridged in the bill before us.
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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That the taxing power is of vital importance; that it is essential to the existence of Government; that the relinquishment of such a power is never to be assumed.
The conclusion, then, follows, that by this prohibition you propose to deprive the present Territory, as you have deprived other Territories,--ay, and States,--of an essential portion of its sovereignty.
Surely, if Congress may establish these provisions, without interference with the rights of territorial sovereignty, it is absurd to say that it may not also prohibit Slavery.
Indeed, the very bill now before us assumes a control of the Territory clearly inconsistent with those principles of sovereignty which are said to be violated by Congressional prohibition of Slavery.
The Prohibition of Slavery in the Territories is assailed, as beyond the power of Congress, and an infringement of local sovereignty.
Slavery, which at the beginning was a sectional institution, with no foothold anywhere on the National Territory, is now exalted as national, and all our broad domain is threatened by its blighting shadow.
Here are the three stages: at the first, all consecrated to Freedom; at the second, only half; at the third, all grasped by Slavery.
This arrangement, which, in its very terms, was exclusively applicable to a particular territory purchased from France, has been accepted as final down to the present session of Congress; but now, Sir, here in 1854, Freedom is suddenly…
The interdict of Slavery then covered every inch of soil belonging to the National Government.
In 1787 all existing national domain was promptly and unanimously dedicated to Freedom, without opposition or criticism.
It is not now what it was in the beginning, a Republic merely permitting, while it regretted Slavery,--tolerating it only where it could not be removed, and interdicting it where it did not exist,--but a mighty Propagandist, openly…
Our Republic has swollen in population and power, but it has shrunk in character.
This, Sir, is the common ground on which our political fabric was reared; and I do not hesitate to say that it is the only ground on which it can stand in permanent peace.
Compendiously expressed, it was non-intervention by Congress with Slavery in the States, and its prohibition in all the national domain.
The Proslavery interest was strictly personal and pecuniary, and had its source simply in the self-interest of individual slaveholders.
The Antislavery sentiment was thoroughly national, broad and general, pervading alike all parts of the Union, and uprising from the common heart of the entire people.
And it is on these double acts, at the first organization of the Government, and the recorded sentiments of the founders, that I take my stand, and challenge all question.
This resolution, declaring the principle of non-intervention by Congress with Slavery in the States, was adopted by the same Congress which had solemnly affirmed the Prohibition of Slavery in all the existing territory of the Union; so…
President,--It is not only as an infraction of solemn compact, embodied in ancient law, that I oppose this bill; I arraign it as a flagrant and extravagant departure from the original policy of our fathers, consecrated by their lives…
You are asked to destroy a safeguard of Freedom, consecrated by solemn compact, under which the country is reposing in the security of peace, and thus confirm the supremacy of Slavery.
If there be any such in this Chamber,--and surely there is,--it will hesitate to take upon itself the stain of this transaction.
The Missouri Compact, in its unperformed obligations to Freedom, stands at this day as impregnable as the Louisiana purchase.
And, though disbelieving the original constitutionality of the arrangement, he was clearly right.
With the consideration in its pocket, it repudiates the bargain which it forced upon the country.
Politicians like Charles Sumner
