A regenerated State cannot afford to bear the burden of Repudiation; nor can the nation and the sisterhood of States forget misconduct so injurious to all.
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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If I refer to this example, it is because I would illustrate the mischief of the Democratic policy and summon Mississippi to tardy justice.
Unhappily, the nation suffered also; and even now, as I understand, it is argued in Europe, to our discredit, that, because Mississippi repudiated, the nation may repudiate also.
Constantly, from that time, Mississippi had this “bad eminence”; nor is the State more known as the home of Jefferson Davis than as the home of Repudiation.
How easy for a party accepting this degradation to repudiate pecuniary obligations!
What is Slavery itself but an enormous wholesale repudiation of all rights, all truths, and all decencies?
It is that standing menace of Repudiation, by which the national credit at home and abroad suffers so much, and our taxes are so largely increased.
If I could forget the course of the Democracy on these things,--as I cannot,--there is still another chapter for exposure; and the more it is seen, the worse it appears.
There is but one thing these disturbers feel; it is power; and this they must be made to feel: I mean the power of an awakened people, directed by a Republican Administration, vigorously, constantly, surely, so that there shall be no rest…
Take that whole Southern tier from Georgia to Texas, and add to it Tennessee, and, I fear, North Carolina and Virginia also,--for the crime is contagious,--and there is small justice for those to whom you owe so much.
The national freedman is the victim; and so is the Unionist.
It is the rule of misrule, where the “Ku-Klux-Klan” takes the place of missionary and schoolmaster.
Old Rebels are crawling from hiding-places to resume their former rule; and what a rule!
Because I am for peace so that this whole people may be at work, because I desire tranquillity so that all may be happy, because I seek reconciliation so that there shall be completest harmony, therefore I oppose the Democracy and now…
Who does not feel his feet burn as he moves over the treacherous ashes?
Who does not feel that he treads still on smothered fires?
You may call it peace, but I tell you it is not peace.
No longer able to hold him as slave, the ancient master means to hold him as dependant, and to keep him in his service, personal and political,--thus substituting a new bondage for the old.
That traditional experience, that infinite audacity, that insensibility to Human Rights, which so long upheld Slavery, are aroused anew.
And now it is my duty to warn you that the national freedman still needs your care.
It is not practically obeyed; sometimes it is evaded, sometimes openly set at nought.
Without these the strongest text and most cunning in its requirements is only a phantom, it may be of terror, as was the case with the Fugitive Slave Bill,--but not a living letter.
The Administration must reinforce Public Opinion, and Public Opinion must reinforce the Administration.
Behind these must be a prevailing Public Opinion and a sympathetic Administration.
No mere text of Constitution or Law is sufficient.
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