The prisoner in his cell, the slave in his chains, the sailor on ocean wanderings, the Pagan on far off continent or island, and the ignorant here at home, will all be commended by eloquent voices.
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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Gathered within the folds of each are its own members, devoted to its chosen objects: and yet all are harmonious together; for all are inspired by one sentiment,--the welfare of the united Human Family.
Clearly, beyond question, whatsoever be our theories about human nature and its capabilities and outcomes, the less war and cutting of throats we have among us, it will be better for us all.
A day will come when a cannon will be exhibited in public museums, just as an instrument of torture is now, and people will be astonished how such a thing could have been.
A day will come when bullets and bomb-shells will be replaced by votes, by the universal suffrage of nations, by the venerable arbitration of a great Sovereign Senate, which will be to Europe what the Parliament is to England, what the…
A day will come when the only battle-field will be the market open to commerce and the mind opening to new ideas.
War is on its last legs; and a universal peace is as sure as is the prevalence of civilization over barbarism, of liberal governments over feudal forms.
Who, indeed, can refrain from lamenting another pernicious kind of sacrilege, an anthropomorphism, yet more frequent,--that of making Christian temples resound with prayers for victory over our enemies, and thanksgiving for their defeat?
A warrior king depends for his reputation on the vulgar crowd, and must address himself to prejudice and ignorance to obtain the applause of a day, which the pen of the philosopher, the page of the historian, often annul, even before death…
The glory of a warrior prince can only be written in letters of blood, and he can only be immortalized by the remembrance of the devastation of provinces and the desolation of nations.
Unlistening, barbarous Force, to whom the sword Is reason, honor, law.
I look upon the way of Treaties as a retiring from fighting like beasts to arguing like men, whose strength should be more in their understandings than in their limbs.--Eikon Basilike, XVIII.
Cannons and fire-arms are cruel and damnable machines.
Famine and pestilence become as nothing in comparison with it....
War is one of the greatest plagues that can afflict humanity: it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families.
Thus shall we conquer that opposing power, which, through the agency of both the old political parties, now seeks to trample down the rising struggle for Freedom.
With such a cause, at the present moment, we cannot hesitate.
It appeals to those who call themselves Whigs by all the professions of their party here in times past.
It appeals to the young by the best instincts of their nature.
It appeals to good men in the name of virtue and religion.
Our party is composed of persons from all the other parties,--drawn together by no consideration of mere expediency or personal advantage, but united by a common bond of principle to promote that great cause of Freedom with whose triumph…
Her opposition to the old and vicious organizations can be made effectual only by opposing all who sustained these obnoxious candidates.
True to the principles which have led her by a majority of her votes to reject both Taylor and Cass, Massachusetts cannot uphold their supporters.
Here in Massachusetts our new party, while yet in its cradle, shows a giant's strength.
Charles Sumner is a man of large heart,--not of that class of politicians who calculate availability, and the numbers of the opposition, but a man who takes an enlarged view of a noble system of action, and places his shoulder to the wheel…
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