Provided always that their rights are fixed, I am sure it cannot be best for the colored people to band together in a hostile camp, provoking antagonism and keeping alive the separation of races.
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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Above all, there must be no intimidation; but every voter must act freely, without constraint from league or lodge.
Much better will it be when the two political parties compete for your votes, each anxious for your support.
Only then will that citizenship by which you are entitled to the equal rights of all have its natural fruits.
Only then will there be that harmony which is essential to a true civilization.
With deep-felt satisfaction I remember that no citizen who drew his sword against us has suffered by the hand of the executioner.
In just association with this humanity will be the triumph of Equal Rights, when the promises of the great Declaration are all fulfilled, and our people are united, as never before, in the enduring fellowship of a common citizenship.
I am against the policy of hate; I am against fanning ancient flames into continued life; I am against raking the ashes of the Past for coals of fire yet burning.
My watchword is, “The Unity of the Republic, and the Equal Rights of All, with Reconciliation.” Such is my heart-felt cry; and wherever my voice can reach, there do I insist upon all these, humbly invoking the blessings of Divine…
Never, while a sufferer, did anybody hear me speak of him in unkindness; and now, after the lapse of more than half a generation, I will not unite with you in dragging him from the grave, where he sleeps, to aggravate the passions of a…
I seize the opportunity to make the equal rights of all secure through peace and reconciliation; but this infinite boon you would postpone.
Seven years have passed since the close of our Civil War; but, unhappily, during all this period a hostile spirit has continued to exist between the contending sections, while the rights of colored fellow-citizens have been in perpetual…
Can we not after seven years begin a new life, especially when those once our foes repeat the saying, “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God”?
Their support is the assurance that the cause he has so constantly guarded, whether of Equal Rights or Reconciliation, is accepted by Democrats; and this is the pledge of a true union beyond anything in our history.
I am entirely satisfied that a canvass like the present, where the principles declared at Cincinnati are openly accepted on one side and not contested on the other, must result in a larger number of Congressional Representatives sincerely…
The Democrats will be pledged, as never before, to the ruling principle that All Men are Equal before the Law, and also to the three Constitutional Amendments, with the clause in each empowering Congress to enforce the same by appropriate…
For the first time since the war the Equal Rights of All will have a declared representative at the head of the Government, whose presence there will be of higher significance than that of any victor in war, being not only a testimony, but…
Opposition, whether open hostility or more subtle treachery, will yield to the steady influence of such a representative.
For myself, I say plainly and without hesitation, that I prefer Horace Greeley, with any Congress possible on the Cincinnati Platform, to President Grant, with his personal government and his rings,--a vote for whom involves the support of…
Therefore, in proportion as you are earnest for the rights of the colored citizen, and place them above all partisan triumph, you will be glad to support the candidate whose heart has always throbbed for Humanity.
The personal imputation you make upon me I repel with the indignation of an honest man.
Meanwhile I appeal confidently to the candid judgment of those who, amidst all present differences of opinion, unite in the great objects, far above Party or President, to which my life is devoted.
When I entered upon my public duties here Slavery was in the ascendant, giving the law to all the usages of life.
He was not allowed to testify in court; he was shut out from the public schools; he was excluded from the public conveyances, and thrust away from the ballot-box.
But here in the National Capital all these terrible wrongs have ceased.
Politicians like Charles Sumner
