Charles Sumner

We are mechanics, and the machine we are constructing has for its object the conservation of Equal Rights.

That every citizen unlawfully deprived of any of the rights of citizenship secured by this Act, under any pretence of race or color, may maintain a suit against any person so depriving him, and recover damages in the District Court of the…

That the right to vote, to be voted for, and to hold office shall not be denied or abridged anywhere in the United States, under any pretence of race or color; and all provisions in any State Constitutions, or in any laws, State…

The right of any citizen of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of the race, color, or previous condition of slavery of any citizen or class of citizens of the United States.

Another is added to the roll,--less exalted than Lincoln, less early in immolation than Lovejoy, but, like these two, to be remembered always among those who passed out of life through the gate of sacrifice.

History does not forget Lovejoy, who for devotion to the cause of the slave was murdered by a fanatical mob; and it has already enshrined Abraham Lincoln in holiest keeping.

Often it happens that death, which takes away life, confers what life alone cannot give.

His own soul is blasted; the cause he sought to kill is elevated; and thus it is now.

The cause for which a man dies lives anew in his death.

There is a testimony in death often greater than in any life.

Nor is it to be forgotten, that, dying in such a cause, his living voice is echoed from the tomb.

Here was death not only for country, but for mankind.

It was the saying of Antiquity, that it is sweet to die for country.

The void, when a young man dies, is measured less by what he has done than by the promises of the future.

Pleading for the Equal Rights of All, he became a victim and martyr.

Unhappily, that barbarism which we call Slavery is not yet dead, and it was his fate to fall under its vindictive assault.

Let them be heard; but the hearing must be according to some system, so that Congress shall know the character and extent of these claims.

And when we consider how much was saved to the loyal citizen in a Rebel State by the national arms, it will be found that this rule is only according to justice.

By the Constitution property cannot be taken for public use without “just compensation”; but this rule was silent in the Rebel States.

To my mind this assumption is founded on a misapprehension of the Constitution, the law, and the reason of the case,--three different misapprehensions.

It is a mistake to suppose, as has been most earnestly argued, that a claimant of approved loyalty in the Rebel States should have compensation precisely like a similar claimant in a Loyal State.

According to all analogies of jurisprudence, and the principles of justice itself, the claimant can look for nothing beyond such contribution as Congress in its bounty may appropriate.

It was our national forces that saved them from this sacrifice, securing to them country, and, if not all their property, much of it.

Is it not unreasonable to expect us to pay for this breaking?

And now we are asked to pay for this property damaged in our efforts for their redemption.