The individual may play the merchant and take the risk of capture; but the State cannot play the merchant in dealing with a belligerent.
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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In giving these orders he only followed the rule of duty on which the country can stand without question or reproach; but it remains to be seen whether persons under him did not content themselves with obeying the order in letter only…
But if this cannot be done directly, it is idle to say that it can be done indirectly without a violation of good faith.
If it cannot be done openly, it cannot be done privily.
If it cannot be done above-board, it cannot be done clandestinely.
It is idle to reject the bid of the open agent of a belligerent power and then at once accept the bid of another who may be a mere man-of-straw, unless after careful inquiry into his real character.
Plainly these powerful batteries, these muskets by the hundred thousand, and these cartridges by the million were for the disarmed belligerent and nobody else.
Such gigantic purchases, made at one time, or in the space of a few days, could have but one destination.
Obviously, plainly, unquestionably, they were for the disarmed belligerent.
Full well he knew that national character could suffer only where fraud is maintained.
Perhaps the international feature of this transaction is the most grave one for the consideration of Congress.
International Law is nothing but international morality for the guidance of nations.
And be assured, Sir, that interpretation is the truest which subjects the nation most completely to the Moral Law.
I can imagine no pecuniary profits, no millions poured into the Treasury, that can compensate for a departure from that international honesty which is at once the best policy and the highest duty.
The dishonesty of a nation is illimitable in its operation.
Whatever any nation does is an example for other nations; whatever the Great Republic does is a testimony.
I would have that testimony pure, lofty, just, so that we may welcome it when commended to ourselves; so that, indeed, it may be a glorious landmark in the history of civilization.
Therefore do I insist that international obligations, especially when war is raging, cannot be evaded, cannot be slighted, cannot be trifled with.
Our rule of duty is not found in the courageous gayety of any foreign statesman, but in the Law of Nations, which we are bound to obey, not only for the sake of others, but for the sake of ourselves.
All other nations may be silent; Count Bismarck may be taciturn; but we cannot afford to cry, “Hush!” The evil example must be corrected, and the more swiftly the better.
The question is too grave to be blinked out of sight; it must be met on the law and the facts.
The equity with which we have discharged our neutral obligations has been the occasion of constant applause.
Of the great trading nations, America is almost the only one that has shown consistency of principle.
Come what may in the future, we can never be deprived of this inheritance.
No victory in our history has conferred equal renown.
Politicians like Charles Sumner
