Sumner to the Senate is everywhere regarded as an emphatic declaration, on the part of his own State, that the law is at least not to remain in its present form unassailed.
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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Sumner enters the Senate free of all trammels whatever.
When asked as to the course he should pursue as Senator, his answer has been a reference to his past acts and published writings; in them were the only promises he had to offer.
But one course is left,--to stand by Charles Sumner, as our first, our last, our only choice.
The election of such a man as Charles Sumner in the room of such a man as Daniel Webster may be construed to be quite as much a complete disavowal of the late conduct of the one as a sanction of the system advocated by the other.
Tenfold importance has been attached to this decision from the fact of the apostasy to Freedom lately committed by the person who for many years was considered as the leading exponent of Massachusetts doctrines in the Senate.
Not here only, but elsewhere, both North and South, it is regarded as symbolical of the march of new opinions on an important subject.
We ask any member of the Legislature, whatever may be his politics or party, as a man, as a son of New England, and as an admirer of Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John Hancock, and Samuel Adams, to read this speech, and tell us how…
Not a glorious word of it can or shall be rubbed out.
Sumner avows that what is called his Faneuil-Hall Speech contains his calm, deliberately formed, and well-matured opinions,--opinions by which his action would be governed in the event of his election to the office of United States…
I trust, therefore, that the friends of Freedom in the Legislature will not, on any ground of delicacy towards me, hesitate to transfer their support to some other candidate, faithful to our cause.
My hope was (might I so aspire!) to show, that, without its titles or emoluments, something might be done for the good of my fellow-men.
We reverence the Union of the States, believing that the peace, happiness, and welfare of all depend upon this blessed bond.
That I may place this matter beyond question, I beg leave to repeat and reaffirm what I said on a former occasion: "We reverence the Constitution of the United States, and seek to guard it against infractions, believing that under the…
We propose to wait and work patiently under and through the Constitution, that our purposes may be peaceably accomplished in the spirit of that instrument and of our fathers.
These, while declaring the duty of opposing Slavery and its influence, wherever they exist under the National Government, always recognize that other duty of loyalty to the Union and the Constitution.
If you shall fail us in any respect, may God forgive you!--we never shall.
We have sworn to stand by you, to sink or swim with you, AT ALL HAZARDS.
And you may depend that the actual triumph of just such a man as you are will give a heavier blow to the conspirators against Freedom, and do more to fortify the general trust in the ultimate ascendency of uncompromising right, than that…
If from this place I could make myself heard by the friends of Freedom throughout the Commonwealth, I would give them for a rallying-cry three words,--FREEDOM, UNION, VICTORY!
No man in earnest will hesitate on account of a name.
Would that I could impress upon all who now hear me something of the strength of my own convictions!
To vindicate Freedom, and oppose Slavery, so far as I may constitutionally,--with earnestness, and yet, I trust, without personal unkindness on my part,--is the object near my heart.
When I see a person talking loudly against Slavery in private, but hesitating in public, and failing in the time of trial, I say, He wants backbone.
When I see a person of upright character and pure soul yielding to a temporizing policy, I cannot but say, He wants backbone.
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