Charles Sumner

“ One is the party of the country, with Abraham Lincoln as its chief, and with Freedom as its glorious watchword; and the other is the party of the Rebellion, with Jefferson Davis as its chief, and with no other watchword than Slavery. As in the choice of Hercules, there are here before you two roads,—one leading to virtue and renown, the other leading to crime and shame. Choose ye between them. Vote against Abraham Lincoln, if you can, or stay at home and sulk, if you will; you have only, as a next step, to go over to the enemy. ”

“ And if they are citizens, how can you deny them the electoral franchise?
I am content to leave the question here, adding, that, as I understand it, I shall deem it my duty to vote against all propositions creating any discrimination of color. At this moment of revolution, when our country needs the blessing of Almighty God and the strong arms of all her children, this is not the time for us solemnly to enact injustice. In duty to our country, and in duty to God, I plead against any such thing. We must be against Slavery in its original shape, and in all its brood of prejudice and error. ”

“ Let it speak, and the last act of the great American tragedy will be ended, while the stage is piled with corpses. From its early beginning in the hold of the Dutch ship on its way to Jamestown, as the Pilgrims in the Mayflower were on their way to Plymouth, down to this bloody Rebellion, Slavery has been a prolonged tragedy. History and Art will hereafter portray the scenes. Nor can its death be otherwise than an epoch, not only for our own country, but for mankind. Slavery in its distant origin was the substitute for death. The slave was allowed to live, but without the rights of man. ”

“ Nothing against Slavery can be unconstitutional. It is hesitation that is unconstitutional.
And yet Slavery still exists, in defiance of all these requirements; nay, more, in defiance of reason and justice, which can never be disobeyed with impunity, it exists, the perpetual spoiler of human rights and disturber of the public peace, degrading master as well as slave, corrupting society, weakening government, impoverishing the very soil itself, and impairing the natural resources of the country. ”

“ Such must be our rule. Any other would impoverish the Treasury for nothing. The time has come for the old tocsin to sound, “Millions for defence, not a cent for tribute!” Ay, Sir; millions of dollars—with millions of strong arms also—for defence against Slave-Masters; but not a cent for tribute to Slave-Masters.
If money is paid as compensation, clearly it cannot be awarded to the master, who for generations robbed the slave of his toil and all its fruits, so that, in justice, he may be treated as trustee of accumulated earnings with interest never paid over. ”

“ Not to save the country, but to save belligerent Slavery, is the object of the misnamed Democracy. Asserting the war, in which so much has been done, to be a failure,—forgetting the vast spaces it has already reclaimed, the rivers it has opened, the ports it has secured, and the people it has redeemed,—handing over to contempt officers and men, living and dead, who have waged its innumerable battles,—this political party openly offers surrender to the Rebellion. ”

“ If we may judge from our national history, there is no reason to doubt that these claims, if not released by our Government, would have been fully satisfied by France afterwards. It is in the nature of claims on foreign powers to seem desperate. Such was the case, as is well remembered, with the claims on Denmark, on Spain, and on Naples; but all these have been paid. No just claim by the American Government can be desperate. What claims could seem more desperate than those under the arbitrary, wide-spreading edicts of Napoleon Bonaparte in his pride of place? ”

“ At a moment of peril, when the Government is bending all its energies to save the national currency, a mutiny among State banks will be hardly less disastrous than a mutiny among State troops. Every murmur or mutter of such mutiny ought to be repressed at once. All should be summoned to perfect and harmonious coöperation in that cause which embraces the whole country, in every walk of life, whether military or civil. ”

“ Of course, if a witness is too degraded to feel the sanction of an oath, his testimony should not be received. Such is the unquestionable suggestion of reason; nor can it make any difference that the witness is white or black. But the slave is not necessarily and universally so degraded as to merit exclusion, nor is his interest to conceal or deny the truth different materially from that of other persons,—although it is undoubtedly true, that, under the instinct of self-defence, and against the exactions of Slavery, he learns to deceive. ”

“ To uphold Slavery, there must be uncompromising denial of Liberty; to uphold Liberty, there must be uncompromising denial of Slavery. Each, in self-defence, must stifle the other. Therefore between the two is constant hostility and undying hate. This eternal warfare is not peculiar to our country. It belongs to the nature of universal man. If it fails to show itself anywhere, it is because Slavery has won its most detestable triumph, and blotted out the Heaven-born sentiment of Freedom. ”

“ But, in face of these declarations, the candidate of the Democrats mumbles forth, “The Union is the one condition of peace: we ask no more.”
It is a strange infatuation which imagines that the Rebellion can be closed without the entire abolition of Slavery. The Rebellion began with Slavery, and it will end with Slavery. As it began in no other way, so it can end in no other way. Born from Slavery, it must die with Slavery. Therefore do I insist that Slavery shall not be spared; for, in sparing Slavery, you spare the Rebellion itself. ”

“ I do not dwell on the shame that would cover our Republic, but I ask, on the threshold, how you would feel in abandoning to the tender mercies of the Rebellion all those who, from sentiment or conviction or condition, now look to the National Government as deliverer. This topic, it seems to me, has not been sufficiently impressed upon the country. Would that I could make it sink deep into your souls! There are the Unionists, shut up within the confines of the Rebellion, and unable to help themselves. They can do nothing, not even cry out, until the military power of the Rebellion is crushed. ”

“ If you are ready to strike Rebellion, you must be ready to strike Slavery. If you are ready to strike Slavery, you must be ready to strike Rebellion. The President was clearly right, when, in a recent letter, he declared that he should accept no terms of peace which did not begin with the abandonment of Slavery. [“Good!” and cheers.] The Union cannot live with Slavery. Nothing can be clearer. If Slavery dies, the Union lives; if Slavery lives, the Union dies. God save the Union!
And now, fellow-citizens, it only remains that you should comprehend the grandeur of the cause and of your position. ”

“ For centuries there has been a conflict between Aristocracy and Democracy, or, in other words, the few on one side have been perpetually striving to rule and oppress the many. But now, for the first time in the world’s annals, a people professing civilization has commenced war to uphold the intolerable pretension of compulsory labor without wages, and that most disgusting coïncident, the whipping of women and the selling of children. ”

“ We are fighting for national life, assailed by belligerent Slavery; yet such is the solidarity of nations, and so are mankind knit together, that our battle now is for the liberty of the world. The voice of victory here will resound through the ages.
Never was grander cause or sublimer conflict. Never holier sacrifice. Who is not saddened at the thought of precious lives given to Liberty’s defence? The soil of the Rebellion is soaked with patriot blood, its turf is bursting with patriot dead. Surely they have not died in vain. ”

“ It will never do to have Treasury agents who lease the lands to white men, and War Department agents who assign the same lands to colored people. Nothing but confusion and conflict of authority can result. It will not work at all. But even if it would, why employ two sets of agents to do what one set can do much better? And who is to inspect the leased plantations, and see to it that neither employers nor employed are wronged? The men who gave the leases? But they are Treasury agents, and have nothing to do with freedmen. Or the Freedmen’s Commissioners? ”

“ But I forbear, contenting myself with reminding you, that, if you oppose legislation to help the freedmen in their rough passage from Slavery to Freedom, you hand over this unhappy people—unhappy for long generations, and not yet conducted into the full enjoyment of their rights—to a condition which I dread to contemplate. They look about and find no home. They seek occupation, but it is not within their reach. They ask for protection, sometimes against former taskmasters, and sometimes against other selfish men. ”

“ Most clearly and indubitably, whoever finds support of Slavery in the National Constitution has first found such support in himself: not that he will hesitate, perhaps, to condemn Slavery in words of approved gentleness, but because, from unhappy education, or more unhappy insensibility to the wrong, he has already conceded to it a certain traditional foothold of immunity, which he straightway transfers from himself to the Constitution. In dealing with this subject, it is not the Constitution, so much as human nature itself, which is at fault. ”

“ And yet in our country it is proposed to tax books. This is the land of public schools, where you boast that education, like justice, is free to all at the common cost. But a tax on books is in direct conflict with this beautiful principle. Every argument for free schools pleads also for free books,—at least for freedom from taxation. It will be a curious inconsistency to rear the school-house, often costly, where every child is welcomed without charge, and then compel him to pay a tax of eight per cent on every book he carries in his satchel. ”

“ I regard it as an honor to belong to this party, so great in what it has already accomplished, and greater still in what it proposes. Other parties have performed their work and perished. The Republican party will live forever in the gratitude of all who love Liberty and rejoice in the triumphs of Civilization. Foreign countries will take up the strain, while the down-trodden and the oppressed everywhere confess that their burdens have been lifted by an irresistible influence which we are assembled to advance. ”

“ Slavery, from the beginning, has been a disturber, as it is now a red-handed traitor. I do not travel back before the Revolution, but, starting from that great event, I show you Slavery always offensive, and forever thrusting itself in the path of national peace and honor. The Declaration of Independence, as originally prepared by Jefferson, contained a vigorous passage denouncing King George for patronage of the slave-trade. ”

“ MR. PRESIDENT,—If an angel from the skies or a stranger from another planet were permitted to visit this earth and to examine its surface, who can doubt that his eyes would rest with astonishment upon the outstretched extent and exhaustless resources of this republic, young in years, but already rooted beyond any dynasty in history? In proportion as he considered and understood all that enters into and constitutes the national life, his astonishment would increase, for he would find a numerous people, powerful beyond precedent, without king or noble, but with the schoolmaster instead. ”

“ If the chiefs of the Rebellion are compelled to abdicate in favor of emigrants from the North and from Europe, swelling population, creating new values, and opening new commerce,—if “poor whites” are reïnstated in rights,—if a whole race is lifted to manhood and womanhood,—if roads are extended,—if schools are planted,—there will be nothing inconsistent with that just clemency which I rejoice to consider a public duty. Liberty is the best cultivator, the truest teacher, and the most enterprising merchant. ”

“ Fellow-citizens, I address you as patriots who love their country and would not willingly see it suffer, who rejoice in its triumphs and long to behold its flag furled in peace. But it is the nature of true patriotism to love country most when it is most in peril. As dangers thicken and skies darken, the patriot soul is roused by internal fire so that no sacrifice seems too great. ”

“ No just interests and no rights can suffer. It is the rare felicity of such an act, as well outside as inside the Rebel States, that, while striking a blow at the Rebellion, and assuring future tranquillity, so that the Republic shall be no longer a house divided against itself, it will add at once to the value of the whole fee simple wherever Slavery exists, will secure individual rights, and will advance civilization itself. ”

“ But when we take into consideration the selfish tendencies of business, the disposition of the strong to appropriate [Pg 317] the labor of the weak, and the reluctance of slave-masters to renounce habitual power, I have felt that Congress would fail in its duty, if it did not by special provision guard against any such outrage. There must be no Slavery under an alias. This infinite wrong must not be allowed to skulk in serfdom or compulsory labor. “Once free, always free,”—such is the maxim of justice and jurisprudence. ”