Inspired by Freedom, he gave his professional services to a slave hunted down by public clamor, and bore his testimony, in Court and Congress, against the cruel enactment which sanctioned the outrage.
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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In the name of Justice and Humanity, he labored to abolish the punishment of Death.
A lover of Virtue, he opposed Intemperance by word and example.
The faithful friend of Education, he upheld our Public Schools.
Throughout an active life he strove for the improvement of his fellow-men.
An upright lawyer, a liberal statesman, a good citizen, studious of the Past, yet mindful of the Future.
God grant that we may go with equal consciousness of duty done!
At last he stands face to face in His presence whose service is perfect freedom.
Leaving behind the cares of life, the concerns of state, and the wretched strifes of party, he has ascended to those mansions where there is no strife or concern or care.
The death of such a man, so sudden, in mid-career, is well calculated to arrest attention and to furnish admonition.
The resources and needs of the West were all known to him, and Western interests were like his own.
He always understood his subject, and then, clear, logical, and determined, seeing his point before him, pressed forward with unrelenting power.
Fluent, earnest, rapid, sharp, incisive, his words came forth like a flashing scymitar.
But in the public assembly, before the people, or in the legislative hall, he was bold and triumphant.
In conversation he was disposed to listen rather than to speak, though all were well pleased when he broke silence and in apt language declared his glowing thought.
With its final triumph, in the progress of civilization, his name will be indissolubly connected.
Some of his most devoted labors, commencing in the Legislature of Massachusetts, were for the Abolition of Capital Punishment.
By mingled caution, moderation, and earnestness, he seemed often to blend two characters in one, and to be at the same time a Reforming Conservative and a Conservative Reformer.
But he saw also that a blind conservatism was not less destructive than a blind reform.
Recognizing in the social and political system those essential elements of stability and progress, he discerned at once the offices of Conservative and Reformer.
Determined and tranquil in his own convictions, he had the grace to respect the convictions of others.
He saw that reform does not prevail at once, in an hour, or in a day, but that it is the slow and certain result of constant labor, testimony, and faith.
He knew well the difference between the ideal and the actual, and sought, by practical means, in harmony with existing public sentiment, to promote the interests he fondly cherished.
And yet, while earnest in his cause, his zeal was tempered beyond that of the common reformer.
His conscience, pure as goodness, sustained him in every trial,--even that sharpest of all, the desertion of friends.
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