Charles Sumner

As an author of clear and manly prose, as a portrayer to the life of scenes on land and sea, as a master of the keys to human feelings, and as a beneficent contributor to the general fund of happiness, he is remembered with delight.

For such good and sufficient reasons, I am opposed to this amendment.

The taxes will amount to more than the entire receipts from sales; and thus the grant, while unjust to the Land States, will be worthless to the old States, the pretended beneficiaries.

For this reason I said that the amendment held out the attraction of seeming, though unsubstantial, self-interest.

Lands held under this amendment, though in the hands of States, will be liable to taxation, as lands of other non-resident proprietors, and on this account will be comparatively valueless.

Having this measure at heart, believing it founded in essential justice, I am unwilling to place it in this jeopardy.

The amendment confines its donations to the old States, and, so doing, makes an inequitable discrimination in their favor.

But I put in the fore-front, as my chief objection, its clear, indubitable, and radical injustice, written on its very face.

It holds out the attraction of seeming, though unsubstantial, self-interest.

Still further, in its discrimination of the old States, it assumes a guise well calculated to tempt them into its support.

It proposes to give portions of the public domain to the original Thirteen, together with Vermont, Maine, Tennessee, and Kentucky, for purposes of education and internal improvement, at the rate of one acre to each inhabitant according to…

Still further, in sustaining the present bill on grounds of justice to the Land States, I but follow the recorded instructions of the Legislature of Massachusetts, addressed to its Senators and Representatives here on a former occasion.

In this spirit, while sustaining the bill before the Senate, I spoke for justice to the Land States.

Coming from different States and opposite sections, we are all Senators of the Union; and our constant duty is, without fear or favor, to introduce into the national legislation the principle of justice.

Now, Sir, it is sufficient for me to say, in reply to this imputation, that, while I know there are influences and biases incident to particular States or sections of the Union, I recognize no difference in the duties of Senators on this…

The position I took is regarded as natural, or excusable, in a Senator from one of the Land States, acting under the vulgar spur of local interest; but it is pronounced unnatural and inexcusable in a Senator from Massachusetts.

It has been met by harmless pleasantry, and by equally harmless vituperation,--by figures of arithmetic and figures of rhetoric,--by minute criticism and extended discussion,--also, by that sure resource of a weak cause, hard words, and an…

And since it can owe little to my individual position, I accept the opposition it encounters as a tribute to its intrinsic importance.

But the true Golden Age is before, not behind; and one of its tokens will be the opening of those long ways, by which villages, towns, counties, states, provinces, nations, are all to be associated and knit together in a fellowship that…

In all this I see not only further opportunities for commerce, but a new extension to civilization and increased strength to our National Union.

The education begun by the schoolmaster is expanded, liberalized, and completed by intercourse with the world; and this intercourse finds new opportunities and inducements in every road that is built.

Under God, the road and the schoolmaster are two chief agents of human improvement.

The Flaminian and Appian Ways, once trod by such great destinies, still remain as beneficent representatives of ancient grandeur.

The roads, together with the laws, of ancient Rome are now better remembered than her victories.

This, at least, may be said: Where roads are not, civilization cannot be; and civilization advances as roads are extended.