There should have been a system of public schools, greater protection to the freedmen, and more security against the Rebels, all of which I sought in vain to obtain in committee, and I found all effort in the Senate foreclosed by our…
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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I left this Chamber at midnight, fatigued, not well, knowing that the great cause was assured, notwithstanding the opposition of the Senator from Illinois,--knowing that at last the right of the colored people to suffrage was recognized.
My colleague, in his joy on the occasion, exclaimed, “This is the greatest vote that has been taken on this continent!” He felt, I felt, we all felt, that the question of the suffrage was then and there secured.
In that committee this Reconstruction Bill was debated and matured sentence by sentence, word for word; and then and there, in that committee, I moved that we should require the suffrage of all persons, without distinction of color, in the…
Unfortunately the colored citizens of the South have nothing to thank the Senator from Massachusetts for, in having the right of suffrage conferred upon them.
Just in proportion as ideas are involved is conflict elevated, especially if those ideas concern the Equal Rights of All.
The larger masses, with the larger scale of military operations, in the latter may eclipse the earlier; and it is impossible not to see that a war for Liberty and Equality, making the promises of the Declaration a reality, and giving to…
Our country’s cause recently triumphant in bloodiest war was Liberty and Equality, the declared heritage of all mankind.
How can his marble speak except for country in all its parts and at all points of the compass?
His life exhibits the beauty and the reward of patriotism.
He lived for his country, and his whole country,--nothing less.
The marble will speak; nor is it difficult to divine the lesson it must teach.
Standing always in that beautiful Hall, the statue will be a perpetual, though silent orator.
Unlike his two great associates, Washington and Hamilton, his life was confined to war; but the capacities he manifested in command gave assurance that he would have excelled in civil life.
Had he lived to take part in the National Government, his character and judgment must have secured for him an eminent post of service.
His campaign at the South showed military genius of no common order.
But art lends its longevity only to lives extended by deeds.
PRESIDENT,--How brief is life! how long is art!
That, Sir, is the Alpha of this whole subject; and until Congress is ready to begin with that, I fear that all the rest will be of little avail.
If these national banks are the recipients of such large profits, should we not exercise all the power that belongs to us to compel them to their full contribution to this great measure of Financial Reconstruction?
I am told that the profits of the national banks are two or three times greater than those of the old State banks, which we did not hesitate to tax out of existence.
We do not propose to tax them out of existence, but we propose to require that they shall lodge with the Government securities at a lower rate of interest.
But if we could tax the State banks out of existence, can we not, under the very specific terms of the Act of Congress to which these national banks owe their existence, apply a rule not unlike to them?
It was a measure of policy wisely adopted at the time, and which we all now see has answered well.
It was the cry, “Tax them out of existence! do not let them live! drive them from competition with these new children of ours, the national banks!” It was done.
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