Charles Sumner

“ According to the old idea, still too prevalent, man is made for the State, not the State for man. Far otherwise is the truth. The State is an artificial body, for the security of the people. How constantly do we find in human history that the people are sacrificed for the State,—to build the Roman name, to secure for England the trident of the sea, to carry abroad the conquering eagles of France! This is to barter the greater for the less,—to sacrifice humanity, embracing more even than country all the charities of all, for the sake of a mistaken grandeur. ”

“ The Crime against Kansas stands forth in painful light. Search history, and you cannot find its parallel. The slave-trade is bad; but even this enormity is petty, compared with that elaborate contrivance by which, in a Christian age and within the limits of a Republic, all forms of constitutional liberty were perverted, all the rights of human nature violated, and the whole country held trembling on the edge of civil war,—while all this large exuberance of wickedness, detestable in itself, becomes tenfold more detestable, when its origin is traced to the madness for Slavery. ”

“ He never had a personal enemy in his life; his character is as pure as the snow that falls on his native hills; his heart overflows with kindness for every being having the upright form of man; he is a ripe scholar, a chivalric gentleman, and a warm-hearted, true friend. He sat at the feet of Channing, and drank in the sentiments of that noble soul. He bathed in the learning and undying love of the great jurist, Story; and the hand of Jackson, with its honors and its offices, sought him early in life, but he shrank from them with instinctive modesty. Sir, he is the pride of Massachusetts. ”

“ For myself, fellow-citizens, pardon me, if I say that my course is fixed. Many may hesitate; many may turn away from those great truths which make the far-reaching brightness of the Republic; many may seek a temporary favor by untimely surrender: I shall not. The victory of blood, which has been so painfully won, must be confirmed by a greater victory of ideas, so that the renowned words of Abraham Lincoln may be fulfilled, and “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of Freedom; and government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” ”