Charles Sumner

To my mind it is contrary to reason that the establishment and control of these two great agencies should be committed to a disloyal Legislature,--in other words, to a Legislature that cannot take the test oath.

But the loyalty of a State should be like the sun in the heavens, so that all can see it.

There is Virginia with a Constitution dabbled in blood, with a Legislature smoking with Rebellion, and with a Governor commending himself to Rebels throughout a long canvass by promising to strike at common schools; and here is Congress…

It is contrary to reason and to common sense to suppose that Congress intended to blind its eyes and tie its hands, so that it could see nothing and do nothing, although the State continued disloyal to the core.

But if we look at the spirit of the Acts, the conclusion becomes still more irresistible.

Disloyalty is like fraud; it vitiates the whole proceeding.

There is no plighted faith of Congress which can supersede this duty.

Let Senators who insist upon her present swift admission show this loyalty.

Behind all these is the great requirement of Loyalty.

They forget that our constant duty is to protect our fellow-citizens in Virginia at all hazards.

Certain Senators forget the people, forget the lowly, only to remember Rebels.

It is strange to see the forgetfulness of great principles into which Senators have been led by partisanship.

It is apparent that loyalists will not be secure, that freedmen will suffer unknown peril, unless you now throw over them your protecting arm.

Now it may be, that, when that inquiry is made, it will appear that I am mistaken,--that this election is not the terrible fraud that I believe it,--that the loyal people, black and white, will hereafter be secure in the State of Virginia…

Why, without inquiry, hand over the loyalists of Virginia, bound hand and foot, as victims?” That is what I have said; and it is no answer for my friend to say that I do not declare whether I would have a new election or not.

Without security in the future Reconstruction is a failure; and that now should be our first, prime object.

I unite with him in his aspirations for that security in the future which I say is the first great object now of our legislation in matters of Reconstruction.

I wish to purge the Legislature of its Rebels.

This greatest victory was the establishment of a new rule of interpretation by which the institutions of our country are dedicated forevermore to Human Rights, and the Declaration of Independence is made a living letter instead of a…

Full well, Sir, I know that in other days, when Slavery prevailed in this Chamber, there was a different rule of interpretation; but I had thought that our war had changed all that.

To all the promises and the pledges of that great Declaration are we all pledged, whether as Nation or as State.

And I believe that the time is at hand when another document of our history will stand side by side with the Constitution, and enjoy with it coëqual authority, as it has more than the renown of the Constitution: I mean the Declaration of…

With us we have a written Constitution; and when its terms and provisions are once clear, do we not weaken, do we not show our lack of faith, that is, our lack of confidence in the value of the provisions, by reënacting it in the form of a…

Is not the great distinction in this fact, that England has no written Constitution,--that the Great Charter is a mere Act of Parliament, which may be repealed to-morrow?

True, it was all there; but the repetition was needed in order to press it home upon the knowledge and the conscience of the people.