Charles Sumner

Search history, study constitutions, examine laws, and you will find no perversion more thoroughly revolting.

Such they have been declared by our fathers, and this axiom of Liberty nobody can dispute.

They are for “all men,”--not for all white men, but for all men.

But what can be more universal than the Rights of Man?

Whatever is justly local belongs to its cognizance; whatever is universal belongs to the Nation.

But a State transcends its proper function, when it interferes with those Equal Rights, whether civil or political, which by the Declaration of Independence and repeated texts of the National Constitution are under the safeguard of the…

There can be no State Rights against Human Rights; and this is the supreme law of the land, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

No learning in books, no skill acquired in courts, no sharpness of forensic dialectics, no cunning in splitting hairs can impair the vigor of the constitutional principle which I announce.

Yes, Sir; against the old rule, Anything for Slavery, I put the new rule, Anything for Human Rights.

Beyond all question, the true rule under the National Constitution, especially since its additional Amendments, is, that anything for Human Rights is constitutional.

Vain are all our victories, if this terrible rule is not reversed, so that State Rights shall yield to Human Rights, and the Nation be exalted as the bulwark of all.

Under its influence the Right of Petition was denied, the atrocious Fugitive Slave Bill was enacted, and the claim was advanced that Slavery travelled with the flag of the Republic.

State Rights were exalted and the Nation was humbled, because in this way Slavery might be protected.

This perversity, which to careless observation seems so incomprehensible, is easily understood, when it is considered that the present generation grew up under an interpretation of the National Constitution supplied by the upholders of…

In the name of State Rights, Slavery, with all its brood of wrong, was upheld; and now, in the name of State Rights, Caste, fruitful also in wrong, is upheld.

Once it was Slavery; now it is Caste; and the same excuse is assigned now as then.

Others may be cool and indifferent; but I have warred with Slavery too long, in all its different forms, not to be aroused when this old enemy shows its head under an alias.

I seek to save the Senate from participation in an irrational and degrading pretension.

Death may happily come to remove the champion from the judgment of the world; but History will make its faithful record, to be read with sorrow hereafter.

I make no question with individual Senators; I make no personal allusion; but I meet the odious imposture, as I met the earlier imposture, with indignation and contempt, naturally excited by anything unworthy of this Chamber and unworthy…

To denominate such pretension as intolerable expresses very inadequately the extent of its absurdity, and the utterness of its repugnance to all good principles, whether of reason, morals, or government.

The familiar vindication of Slavery in those early debates was less sickening than the vindication now of the intolerable pretension, that a State, constituting part of the Nation, and calling itself “Republican,” is entitled to shut out…

But this was not so sad as now, after a bloody war with Slavery, and its defeat on the battle-field, to meet the champions of a kindred pretension, for which they claim the safeguard of the Constitution, insisting also, as in the case of…

It was sad enough to meet the champions of Slavery, as in other days they openly vindicated the monstrous pretension and claimed for it the safeguard of the Constitution, insisting that Slavery was national and Freedom sectional.

Rarely have I entered upon any debate in this Chamber with a sense of sadness so heavy as oppresses me at this moment.