Charles Sumner

“ Permit me to say that I am glad to see the London Times’ attack on you and your Trent speech. It will make you feel to the quick—what you did not seem to feel, or refused to admit—the insolent tone of the British press and public men towards us in our struggle for life, and the false manner in which they have tried to turn this case to our national ruin. Those few semi-republican, semi-abolition, liberally inclined men in England, whom you respect, and who command, perhaps, one paper and one monthly, are a drop in the bucket. ”

“ The important treaty now before the Senate is to enforce on a large scale final judgment against the slave-trade. It is to do with many what has just been done with an individual. Our flag is desecrated by this hateful commerce; ships equipped in New York are tempted by its cruel gains. To stop this has been impossible, while Slavery prevailed in the National Government. How could our courts judge the slave-trader, how could the National Government set itself against the hateful commerce, while Slavery occupied all the places of power? ”

“ To all who insist that Congress may sustain Slavery in the national capital I put the question, Where in the Constitution is the power found? If you cannot show where, do not assert the power. So hideous an effrontery must be authorized in unmistakable words. But where are the words? In what article, clause, or line? They cannot be found. I challenge their production. Insult not human nature by pretending that [Pg 276] its most cherished rights can be sacrificed without solemn authority. Remember that every presumption and every leaning must be in favor of Freedom and against Slavery. ”

“ Freedom of debate is among the triumphs of modern civilization; and it shall never be impaired by any vote or word of mine. To this freedom I have held fast, when almost alone in this body; and what I have steadily vindicated for myself against all odds I shall never deny to another. Therefore, if I am the judge, there is no Senator who will not always be perfectly free to speak and vote as he thinks best on every question that shall legitimately arise; but beyond this immunity he must not go. He shall not talk treason; he shall not parley with rebellion ”

“ It is traitor and belligerent together, and is always to be treated accordingly. Tenderness to Slavery now is practical disloyalty and practical alliance with the enemy.
Believe me, Sir, against the officers named to-day I have no personal unkindness. I should much prefer to speak in their praise; but I am in earnest. While I have the honor of a seat in the Senate, no success, no victory, shall be apology or shield for a general who insults human nature. From the midst of his triumphs I will drag him forward to receive the condemnation which such conduct deserves. ”

“ Slavery, wherever it exists, is the triumph of force, sometimes in the strong arm of an individual, and sometimes in the strong arm of law, but in principle always the same. Depending upon force, he is master who happens to be stronger,—so that, if the slave were stronger, he would be master, and the master would be slave. Beyond all doubt, according to reason and justice, every slave possesses the same right to enslave his master that his master possesses to enslave him. ”

“ A single brief effort of war put an instant close to the wicked pretension. If, in looking back upon its history, we find much to humble our pride, if we are disposed to mourn that the National Government stooped to ransom men justly free without price, yet we cannot fail to gather instruction from this great precedent. Slavery is the same in essential character, wherever it exists,—except, perhaps, that it has received new harshness here among us. There is no argument against its validity at Algiers not equally strong against its validity at Washington. ”

“ If not moved by justice to the slave, then be willing to act for your own good and in self-defence. If you hesitate to pass this bill for the blacks, then pass it for the whites. Nothing is clearer than that the degradation of Slavery affects the master as well as the slave; while also recent events testify, that, wherever Slavery exists, there Treason lurks, if it does not flaunt. From the beginning of this Rebellion, Slavery has been constantly manifest in the conduct of the masters, and even here in the national capital it is the traitorous power encouraging and strengthening the enemy. ”

“ The decision of a court would be as potent as an Act of Congress. And now, as I confidently assert this conclusion, which bears so directly on the present question, pardon me, if I express the satisfaction with which I recur to an earlier period, shortly after I entered the Senate, when, vindicating the principle now accepted, but then disowned, that Freedom and not Slavery is National, I insisted upon its application to Slavery everywhere within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Constitution, and declared that Congress might as well undertake to make a king as to make a slave. ”

“ I would propose that private property at sea should be exempt from capture by armed Government ships. On this condition I would give in my adhesion to the abolition of privateering. I would propose that neutral merchant vessels, in time of war, as in time of peace, should be exempt from search, visitation, or detention, by armed Government vessels, when on the ocean or high seas,—I mean when beyond that distance from the shore which removes them from the jurisdiction of any maritime state. ”

“ Here in the national capital, under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress, the force which now maintains this unnatural system is supplied by Congress. Without Congress the “uncontrolled authority” of the master would cease. Without Congress the master would not be master, nor would the slave be slave. Congress, then, in existing legislation, is the power behind, which enslaves our fellow-men. Therefore does it behoove Congress, by proper, instant action, to relieve itself of this painful responsibility. ”

“ Of course such a suggestion must be futile; for every man is presumed to know the natural consequences of his conduct. This is the rule of law, and the rule of patriotism. No man can be admitted to set up any carelessness or heedlessness as apology for treason. And I doubt not you will all agree with me, that a patriot Senator cannot be careless or heedless, when his country is in peril.
But I catch yet another suggestion, that this letter is trivial and insignificant to justify the condemnation of a Senator. Then, indeed, is disloyalty trivial; then is treason itself trivial. ”

“ In this surrender, if such it may be called, the National Government does not even “stoop to conquer.” It simply lifts itself to the height of its own original principles. The early efforts of its best negotiators, the patriot trials of its soldiers in an unequal war, at length prevail, and Great Britain, usually so haughty, invites us to practise upon principles which she has so strenuously opposed. There are victories of force: here is a victory of truth. If Great Britain has gained the custody of two Rebels, the United States have secured the triumph of their principles. ”

“ Why may they not be free blacks? General Halleck would reverse the true presumption. He assumes Slavery, when he ought to assume Freedom. In the eye of the Constitution all are freemen until proved to be slaves, no matter of what color. The only question to be asked concerns loyalty. Are you loyal or rebel? If loyal, then welcome to the hospitality and protection of our camps. If rebel, then surrender to our arms. ”

“ I will fly to our fellow-citizens in the Southern States; I will on my knees conjure them, in the name of humanity, to abolish a traffic which causes it to bleed in every pore. If they are deaf to the pleadings of Nature, I will conjure them, for the sake of consistency, to cease to deprive their fellow-creatures of freedom, which their writers, their orators, Representatives, Senators, and even their Constitutions of Government, have declared to be the unalienable birthright of man. ”

“ Ships and cargoes will pass unchallenged from shore to shore, and those terrible belligerent rights under which the commerce of the world has so long suffered will cease from troubling. In this work our country began early. Hardly had we proclaimed our own independence, before we sought to secure a similar independence for the sea. Hardly had we made a constitution for our own government, before we sought to establish a constitution similar in spirit for the government of the sea. If not prevailing promptly, it was because we could not overcome the unyielding resistance of Great Britain. ”

“ So far from agreeing with the Committee, or with the Senator from New York [Mr. Harris] , that it is not named among “qualifications,” it seems to me that it stands first among them. Of course, it is vain to say that it is not expressly called a “qualification.” Let us ascend from words to things. It is made a qualification in fact, call it by what name you will. Men are familiarly said to “qualify” for an office, when they take the necessary oath of office; so that the language of common life becomes an interpreter of the Constitution. ”

“ Sumner! Who shall say that God has not spared him from the bludgeon of the murderer, not only to defend the poor negro in his God-given rights, but to vindicate our country from the insolence of England, and pronounce judgment against her past wrongs, while according forgiveness to the tardy penitent?
“You said that the correspondence closed with Governor Seward’s letter to Lord Lyons. True; but his annotator is not less illustrious. Par nobile fratrum! I am curious to see how your speech will be received in England.” ”

“ The sentence of a court in a capital case is hardly more solemn; for, though your judgment cannot take away life, it may take away all that gives value to life. Justice herself might well hesitate to lift the scales in which such a destiny is weighed. But duties in this world cannot be avoided. When cast upon us, they must be performed, at any cost of individual pain or individual regret,—especially in the present case, where the Senate, whose good name is in question, and the country, whose welfare is at stake, forbid us to hesitate. ”

“ It is impossible to read such performances as the ‘Great Speech of the Hon. C. Sumner’ without drawing a gloomy augury for the future of a nation among whom such a man can occupy a chief place. In all the symptoms of decadence which the recent history of the American Republic exhibits, there is none more conspicuous and apparently more irreparable than the decline in capacity and character of her public men. The men bred under the shadow of the English colonial system were of a very different stamp from the race which progressive Democracy has spawned for itself.... ”