To vindicate Freedom, and oppose Slavery, so far as I may constitutionally,--with earnestness, and yet, I trust, without personal unkindness on my part,--is the object near my heart.
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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Would that I could impress upon all who now hear me something of the strength of my own convictions!
No man in earnest will hesitate on account of a name.
If from this place I could make myself heard by the friends of Freedom throughout the Commonwealth, I would give them for a rallying-cry three words,--FREEDOM, UNION, VICTORY!
And you may depend that the actual triumph of just such a man as you are will give a heavier blow to the conspirators against Freedom, and do more to fortify the general trust in the ultimate ascendency of uncompromising right, than that…
We have sworn to stand by you, to sink or swim with you, AT ALL HAZARDS.
If you shall fail us in any respect, may God forgive you!--we never shall.
My hope was (might I so aspire!) to show, that, without its titles or emoluments, something might be done for the good of my fellow-men.
I trust, therefore, that the friends of Freedom in the Legislature will not, on any ground of delicacy towards me, hesitate to transfer their support to some other candidate, faithful to our cause.
We ask any member of the Legislature, whatever may be his politics or party, as a man, as a son of New England, and as an admirer of Washington, Jefferson, Patrick Henry, John Hancock, and Samuel Adams, to read this speech, and tell us how…
Not here only, but elsewhere, both North and South, it is regarded as symbolical of the march of new opinions on an important subject.
Tenfold importance has been attached to this decision from the fact of the apostasy to Freedom lately committed by the person who for many years was considered as the leading exponent of Massachusetts doctrines in the Senate.
The election of such a man as Charles Sumner in the room of such a man as Daniel Webster may be construed to be quite as much a complete disavowal of the late conduct of the one as a sanction of the system advocated by the other.
But one course is left,--to stand by Charles Sumner, as our first, our last, our only choice.
When asked as to the course he should pursue as Senator, his answer has been a reference to his past acts and published writings; in them were the only promises he had to offer.
Sumner enters the Senate free of all trammels whatever.
Sumner to the Senate is everywhere regarded as an emphatic declaration, on the part of his own State, that the law is at least not to remain in its present form unassailed.
I never knew such a general feeling of real heart pleasure and satisfaction as is manifested by all except inveterate Hunkers in view of thy election.
I am sure that upon the floor of the Senate you will not forget to assert the rights of your State, and maintain with firmness and dignity the great principles upon which a free government should be based." Mr.
It concerns the grandest interests of our own Commonwealth, and also of the Union in which we are an indissoluble link.
But when I think what it requires, I am obliged to say that its honors are all eclipsed by its duties.
Acknowledging the right of my country to the service of her sons wherever she chooses to place them, and with a heart full of gratitude that a sacred cause is permitted to triumph through me, I now accept the post of Senator.
I accept it as the servant of Massachusetts, mindful of the sentiments solemnly uttered by her successive Legislatures, of the genius which inspires her history, and of the men, her perpetual pride and ornament, who breathed into her that…
With me the Union is twice blessed: first, as powerful guardian of the repose and happiness of thirty-one States, clasped by the endearing name of country; and next, as model and beginning of that all-embracing Federation of States, by…
Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.
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