But no unanimity of politicians can uphold the baseless assumption, that a law, or any conglomerate of laws, under the name of Compromise, or howsoever called, is final.
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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Nay, at this moment it stalks into this Senate, crying, like the daughters of the horseleech, "Give! give!
Slavery, which you profess to banish from public attention, openly by your invitation enters every political meeting and every political convention.
To this combined effort I might fitly reply, that, with flagrant inconsistency, it challenges the very discussion it pretends to forbid.
According to them, Sir, we may speak of everything except that alone which is most present in all our minds.
I plant myself on the ancient ways of the Republic, with its grandest names, its surest landmarks, and all its original altar-fires about me.
Of them I do not speak; but without fear and without favor, as without impeachment of any person, I assail this wrong.
I may speak strongly, for I shall speak openly and from the strength of my convictions.
Rejoicing in my independence, and claiming nothing from party ties, I throw myself upon the candor and magnanimity of the Senate.
In this spirit I have come here, and in this spirit I shall speak to-day.
Amidst the vicissitudes of public affairs I shall hold fast always to this idea, and to any political party which truly embraces it.
In this idea I see no narrow advantage merely for individuals or classes, but the sovereignty of the people, and the greatest happiness of all secured by equal laws.
The slave of principles, I call no party master.
Whatever I am or may be I freely offer to this cause.
The favor and good-will of my fellow-citizens, of my brethren of the Senate, Sir, grateful to me as they justly are, I am ready, if required, to sacrifice.
For this I willingly forget myself and all personal consequences.
But while these things may properly prompt me to caution and reserve, they cannot change my duty, or my determination to perform it.
Full well I know that the institution of Slavery in our country, which I now proceed to consider, is as sensitive as it is powerful, possessing a power to shake the whole land, with a sensitiveness that shrinks and trembles at the touch.
Full well I know that I must utter things unwelcome to many in this body, which I cannot do without pain.
Full well I know that I am in a small minority, with few here to whom I can look for sympathy or support.
Full well I know, Sir, the difficulties of this discussion, arising from prejudices of opinion and from adverse conclusions strong and sincere as my own.
Before the Senate and the country let me be held accountable for this act and for every word which I utter.
In the existing distemper of the public mind, and at this present juncture, no man can enter upon the service which I now undertake, without personal responsibility, such as can be sustained only by that sense of duty which, under God, is…
A tyrannical spirit among us, in unconscious imitation of this antique and discarded barbarism, seeks to surround an offensive institution with similar safeguard.
Parliamentary courtesy may be forgotten, but parliamentary law must prevail.
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