The rights of representation should be so equally and impartially distributed, that the representatives should have the same views and interests with the people at large.
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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We cannot realize that your Honors, our wise political fathers, have adverted to the present inequality of representation in this Colony, to the growth of the evil, or to the fatal consequences which will probably ensue from the…
If this representation is equal, it is perfect; as far as it deviates from this equality, so far it is imperfect, and approaches to that state of slavery; and the want of a just weight in representation is an evil nearly akin to being…
Here, Sir, is the fountain and origin of an idea full of strength, beauty, and truth.
In this remarkable document occurs the first development, if not the first proclamation, of the principle of equality in representation.
Still a feeling has long prevailed that the system had not yet received its final form, while, with more or less precision, has been discerned that principle of equality which is essential to its completeness.
But America has added to the Representative System another principle, without which it is incomplete, and which, in the course of events, is destined, I cannot doubt, to find acceptance wherever the Representative System is employed: I…
I say American system,--for to our country belongs the honor of first giving to the world the idea of a system which, discarding corporate representation, founded itself absolutely on equality.
In every representative body, properly constituted, the people are practically present.
In Athens, the people met in public assembly, and directly acted for themselves on all questions, foreign or domestic.
If the call of the Convention were not already amply vindicated, if there were doubt anywhere of its expediency, the remarkable concurrence of all sides in condemning the existing representative system shows that we have not come together…
And here, Sir, let me congratulate the Convention, that, on this most important question, transcending every other, all of us, without distinction of party, are in favor of reform.
The existing system does not work well, and we are summoned to reform it.
I like to believe that it can be completely done only by constant, incessant advance in all things,--in knowledge, in science, in art, and lastly in government itself, destined to be the bright consummation, on earth, of all knowledge, all…
But Athens,--even at Salamis, repelling the Persian host, or afterwards, in the golden days of Pericles,--and Scotland, throughout her long struggle with England, down to the very Act of Union at the beginning of the last century,--were…
In the course of human history, two States, small in territory, have won enviable renown by genius and devotion to Freedom, so that their very names awaken echoes: I refer to Athens and Scotland.
The alarmist, who starts at every suggestion of change, and the croaker, who augurs constant evil from the irresistible tendency of events, must confess that there are men here to whose intelligence and patriotism, under God, the interests…
But the magnitude of this question justifies debate; and allow me to add, that the State, our common mother, may feel proud of the ability, the eloquence, and the good temper with which it has thus far been conducted.
The Railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific.--Traversing a whole continent, and binding together two oceans, this mighty thoroughfare, when completed, will mark an epoch of human progress second only to that of our Declaration of…
It may appear to be part of this system, it may affect to be, but I pronounce it a mistake to suppose that it is so in any just constitutional sense.
If this rule be applicable to the pretended power over fugitive slaves, it is still more applicable to the power over the militia which nobody questions.
The distinct specification of certain powers, as reserved to the States, excludes the States from the exercise of all other powers not specified or clearly implied.
It is natural that the States should desire to exercise this power, since it was so important to them before the Union; but I do not see how any discrimination can be maintained at the present time.
Now, Sir, upon what ground do gentlemen make any discrimination in the case of the power over the National Militia?
That Constitution provides for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and gives Congress full power over the subject,--in which particular, be it observed, it is clearly distinguishable from that of fugitive slaves, over whom no…
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