There are two proposed improvements which I hail with satisfaction: one relates to the small towns, and the other to the cities.
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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There are proper occasions for compromise, as most certainly there are rights beyond compromise.
We must act in the Present, but be mindful also of the Future.
I have been encouraged to believe in the practicability of the District System by its conformity with reason, and by seeing how naturally it went into operation under the Constitution of the United States.
He will faithfully study the Past, and will recognize its treasures and traditions; but, with equal fidelity, he will set his face towards the Future, where all institutions will at last be in harmony with truth.
No lawgiver or statesman can disregard either history or abstract reason.
They spring from custom and popular faith, silently operating with internal power, not from the imposed will of a lawgiver.
Institutions are formed from within, not from without.
A change so important in character cannot be advantageously made, unless supported by the permanent feelings and convictions of the people.
A division of the State into districts would be a change, in conformity with abstract principles, which would interfere with existing opinions, habitudes, and prejudices of the towns, all of which must be respected.
Conciliation and compromise lie at the origin of every free government; and the question never was and never can be, what is absolutely best, but what is relatively wise, just, and expedient.
I have lived long enough to know, that, in any question of government, something is to be yielded up on all sides.
You will observe that we have resolved that representation ought to be founded on the principle of Equality; but it cannot be understood thereby that each town in the Commonwealth shall have weight and importance in a just proportion to…
I cannot doubt that the District System, as it is generally called, whereby the representative power will be distributed in just proportion, according to the Rule of Three, among the voters of the Commonwealth, is the true system, destined…
And, Sir, I venture to predict that the proposition, newly broached in this Commonwealth, to restrain the cities by curtailment of their just representative power, will hereafter be as little regarded.
The idea of property as a check upon numbers, which on a former occasion found such favor in this hall, is now rejected in the adjustment of our representative System.
It is the vote only which is not an accident; and it should be the boast of Massachusetts, that all men, whatever their accidents, are equal in their votes.
Cities are but congregations of men; and men exert influence in various ways,--by the accident of position, the accident of intelligence, the accident of property, the accident of birth, and, lastly, by the vote.
This cannot be purposely done, without departing from fundamental principles, and overthrowing the presiding doctrine of personal equality.
But, Sir, while maintaining these opinions, I cannot admit the argument, that the centralized power of the cities may be counteracted by degrading them in the scale of representation.
I make no impeachment of individuals, but simply indicate those combined influences proceeding from the potent Spirit of Trade, which, though unlike that Spirit of the Lord where is Liberty, is not inconsistent with the most enlarged…
The armed feudalism is overthrown; but it is impossible not to see that it has yielded to a commercial feudalism, whose seat is in the cities, and which, in its way, is hardly less selfish and exacting than the feudalism of the iron hand.
No student of history can fail to perceive that they have performed different parts at different stages of the world.
Now, Sir, while confessing and regretting the present predominance of the cities, I must be permitted to question the propriety of the proposed remedy.
No such abuse prevailed in our municipalities; and this political health at home, Sir, and not the incident of exclusive representation in a distant Legislature, has been the secret of their strength.
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