The graceful usages of this body may be abandoned, but the established privileges of debate cannot be abridged.
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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Hundreds of thousands will read it, and everywhere it will carry conviction to all willing to be convinced, and will infuse a feeling of incertitude and a fearful looking for judgment in the minds of those who resist the light and toil in…
President, that in my judgment the speech of my friend from Massachusetts will mark AN ERA in American history.
He has arrayed history and reason in support of this proposition; and I avow my conviction, now and here, that, logically and historically, his argument is impregnable, entirely impregnable....
It was a noble vindication of that great charter of government from the perversions of the advocates of the Fugitive Slave Act....
That, Sir, is what I believe; and if I had one other feeling, or could indulge in it, in reference to that effort, it would be a feeling of envy, that it was not in me to tread even at an humble distance in the path which he has so nobly…
Yes, Sir, he has to-day made a draft upon the gratitude of the friends of humanity and of liberty that will not be paid through many generations, and the memory of which shall endure as long as the English language is spoken, or the…
He who counsels murder is himself a murderer." Here Mr.
This forcible resistance is not only calculated to strike at the very foundation of our republican institutions by dissolving the Union, but to bring upon the head of the learned Senator from Massachusetts the blood of murdered men.
It shall never be touched, or altered, or shaken, or repealed, by any vote of mine.
Does he hope to accomplish anything, except to stir up sedition at home against this law, and make the streets of Boston again the scene of disgraceful riots and lawless violence by the lawless opposers of the Constitution and laws of the…
Both the old parties, Whig and Democrat, plumed themselves upon being national, and one of their hardest hits at a political opponent was to charge him with sectionalism.
Among the assemblies of the great A greater Ruler takes his seat; The God of heaven as judge surveys Those gods on earth and all their ways.
Si la peste avoit des charges, des dignités, des honneurs, des bénéfices et des pensions à distribuer, elle auroit bientôt des théologiens et des juris-consultes qui soutiendroient qu'elle est de droit divin, et que c'est un péché de…
Therefore, if the king or the emperor bid one thing, and God another, we must obey God, and contemn and not regard neither king nor emperor.
It laid the interdict against personal servitude in original compact, not only deeper than all local law, but deeper, also, than all local constitutions.
It impressed on the soil itself, while it was yet a wilderness, an incapacity to sustain any other than freemen.
It fixed forever the character of the population in the vast regions northwest of the Ohio, by excluding from them involuntary servitude.
It was adopted, as I think I have understood, without the slightest alteration; and certainly it has happened to few men to be the authors of a political measure of more large and enduring consequence.
We are accustomed, Sir, to praise the lawgivers of Antiquity; we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus; but I doubt whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and…
Allow me to express my sincere respect for your character, with which from childhood I have been familiar, and my gratitude for the steadfast support you have ever given to the principles of Freedom advocated by Jefferson.
To Jefferson belongs the honor of the first effort to prohibit Slavery in the Territories: to Dane belongs the honor of finally embodying this Prohibition in the Ordinance drawn by his hand in 1787.
If one should reason in that way, what would become of the distinguished honor of the author of the Declaration of Independence?
Among these, I cannot forget the early, though unsuccessful effort, to which you refer, for the prohibition of Slavery in the Territories of the United States.
He held many places of official trust and honor, but the Good Works filling his days were above these.
Politicians like Charles Sumner
