Under the Constitution of the United States, and according to its true spirit, the pardoning power of the President is coextensive with the power to punish, except in the solitary case of impeachment.
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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But if it be the duty of a good judge to extend his jurisdiction, how much more is it the duty of a good President to extend the field of his clemency!
It is a generous prerogative, and should be exercised generously.
The power of pardon, which is attached by the Constitution to offences generally, should not be curtailed.
Mercy and justice would be rendered not merely by halves, but, owing to the inability of prisoners, from poverty, to pay the other half of the fine, they would be entirely arrested.
But such a state of things would be monstrous; and any interpretation of the Constitution is monstrous which thus ties his hands.
The President, notwithstanding his beneficent power to pardon, under the Constitution, will be powerless to remedy this evil.
If, by virtue of the judgment, the slave-owners have an interest in the imprisonment of these men which cannot be touched, then the prisoners, unable to meet these heavy liabilities, must continue in perpetual imprisonment, or owe their…
Public policy and the ends of justice require that the punishment for a criminal offence should, in every case, be exclusively subject to the supreme pardoning power, without dependence upon the will of any private person.
It is no doubt politic and proper for the Legislature to incite prosecuting attorneys and informers, by giving them a portion of fines, when collected; but in so doing the citizen cannot be debarred of his right of appeal to executive…
With the exception of the case of treason, his power to remit fines and forfeitures, grant reprieves and pardons, is unlimited, illimitable, and uncontrollable.
This part of his prerogative cannot be curtailed.
We could never presume an intention to control the Governor's constitutional power to remit fines and forfeitures.
By express words, the Governor is authorized to remit the whole or any part of any fine.
Much as I rejoice in the American steamers, which vindicate a peaceful supremacy of the seas, and help to weave a golden tissue between the two hemispheres, I cannot consider these, with all their unquestionable advantages, an equivalent…
And, lastly, cheap ocean postage will be a bond of peace among the nations of the earth, and will extend good-will among men.
It particularly becomes our country, by the removal of all unnecessary burdens upon foreign correspondence, to advance the comfort of European emigrants seeking a home among us, and to destroy, as far as practicable, every barrier to free…
By promoting the intercourse of families and friends separated by ocean, cheap postage will add to the sum of human happiness.
Cheap postal communication with foreign countries will be of incalculable importance to the commerce of the United States.
All new facilities for correspondence naturally give new expansion to human intercourse; and there is reason to believe, that, through an increased number of letters, cheap ocean postage will be self-supporting.
Besides, cheap ocean postage will tend to supersede the clandestine or illicit conveyance of letters, and to bring into the mails all mailable matter, which, under the present system, is carried in the pockets of passengers or in the bales…
The argument in its favor is at once brief and unanswerable.
Our country will learn anew from your demonstration that there are glories other than those of state or war.
In honoring him we exalt literature and the thrice blessed arts of peace.
As a patriot who loved his country, who illustrated its history, who advanced its character abroad, and by his genius won for it the unwilling regard of foreign nations, he deserves a place in the hearts of the American people.
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