Charles Sumner

“ The proposition that Congress should go home compels me to judge him.
Unquestionably it is for the other House to initiate the proceedings which shall bring the President to your bar. But until then it is the right and duty of every Senator to express himself freely with regard to his conduct; nor can there be any limit to this latitude. It is as broad as human thought. No future duty can be a strait-jacket now. Because the President may be impeached, the Senate is not obliged to be silent with regard to him. The National Constitution is guilty of no such absurdity. ”

“ A Continent, whose inhabitants double every five-and-twenty years! who, therefore, within a century and an half will be upwards of an hundred and twenty millions of souls! Forbid it, Patriotism, forbid it, Politics, that such a great and mighty Empire as this should be held in subjection by the paltry Kingdom of Great Britain! Rather let the seat of empire be transferred; and let it be fixed where it ought to be, namely, in Great America! ”

“ What matter is it how America be called? For Flavio of Malphi in Naples hath in great measure applied the virtues of the loadstone to the mariner’s compass in vain, the Portugals have found the length of Africa’s foot in vain, the Spaniards sent out the Italian dove in vain, Sir Francis Drake hath sailed round the world and made thorow lights to it in vain, and Hakluyt and Purchas have with endless labor acquainted Englishmen with these things in vain, if, after all, we go about to turn the American Euphrates into a Stygian Lake. ”

“ It is easy to see that empire obtained by force is unrepublican, and offensive to the first principle of our Union, according to which all just government stands only on the consent of the governed. Our country needs no such ally as war. Its destiny is mightier than war. Through peace it will have everything. This is our talisman. Give us peace, and population will increase beyond all experience; resources of all kinds will multiply infinitely; arts will embellish the land with immortal beauty ”

“ While confessing that the name of Liberty is sweet,—that it is the cause of the entire human race,—that revolutions in its name are a lesson to despots,—that the spirit of justice, which compensates past evils by future happiness, is pleased to believe that this part of the New World cannot fail to become one of the most flourishing countries of the globe,—and that some go so far as to fear that Europe may some day find its masters in its children, he proceeds to facts which may mitigate anxiety. ”

“ With respect to the idea of putting a final period to slavery in North America, it should seem best that when this country had led the way by the act for jury, that each Colony, knowing their own peculiar circumstances, should undertake the work in the most practicable way, and that they should endeavor to establish some system by which slavery should be in a certain term of years abolished. Let the only contention henceforward between Great Britain and America be, which shall exceed the other in zeal for establishing the fundamental rights of liberty to all mankind. ”

“ A new Olympus, an Arcadia, an Athens, a new Greece, on the Continent, or in the archipelago which surrounds it, will give birth, perhaps, to Homers, Theocrituses, and, above all, Anacreons. Perhaps another Newton will rise in the new Britain. It is from English America, no doubt, that the first ray of the sciences will shoot forth, if they are to appear at last under a sky so long clouded. ”

“ I recognize the Senator as a man of honor, though he does refuse to carry out the decrees of the caucus. I believe that every Senator here has responsibilities as a Senator which are above any he can have to a caucus, which is only a meeting of friends for consultation and for harmony, where each gives up something with a view to a common result, but no man gives up a principle, no man gives up anything vital. No Senator can expect another Senator to give up anything vital; no Senator can expect another Senator to sacrifice a principle. ”

“ It is just as much the destiny of our Anglo-Norman race to possess the whole of Russian America, however desolate and inhospitable it may be, as it has been that of the Russian Northmen to possess themselves of Northern Europe and Asia. As the Wandering Jew and his phantom, so will the Anglo-Norman and the Russian yet gaze at each other from the opposite sides of Behring Strait. Between the two races the northern halves of the Old and New World must be divided. America must be ours. ”

“ Such is that pride of race which civilization does not always efface.
For generations they have been warriors, prompt to take offence, and vindictive, as is the nature of the Indian race,—always ready to exact an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. This character has not changed. As was the case once in Italy, the dagger is an inseparable companion. Private quarrels are common. The duel is an institution. So is slavery still,—having a triple origin in war, purchase, or birth. The slave is only a dog, and must obey his master in all things, even to taking the life of another. ”

“ Europe has to decide whether she will confound herself with Asia, placing upon her lands old altars, and upon the altars old idols, and upon the idols immovable theocracies, and upon the theocracies despotic empires,—or whether she will go by labor, by liberty, and by the republic, to coöperate with America in the grand work of universal civilization.—Emilio Castelar, Speech in the Spanish Cortes, June 22, 1871. ”

“ America, and especially Saxon America, with its immense virgin territories, with its republic, with its equilibrium between stability and progress, with its harmony between liberty and democracy, is the continent of the Future,—the immense continent stretched by God between the Atlantic and Pacific, where mankind may plant, essay, and resolve all social problems. ”

“ Senators wish to leave. So do I. Nobody can wish to leave more than myself. I suffer much from these heats. I long to be at home. But I feel that it is my duty to be here. All that I have felt before is now intensified by the menace of this message. Hereafter no Senator can say that he did not know what to expect. He will not be taken by surprise. Here is distinct and open notice that the President will do all in his power to thwart your legislation and to arrest a just Reconstruction. There he stands, a constant impediment to peace, and an ally to the Rebellion. ”

“ Should this be the case, since we have, I may say, all the naval stores of the nations in our hands, it will be easy to obtain the mastery of the seas; and then the united force of all Europe will not be able to subdue us. The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves is to disunite us. Divide et impera. Keep us in distinct colonies, and then some great men in each colony desiring the monarchy of the whole, they will destroy each other’s influence, and keep the country in equilibrio. ”

“ A practical race of intrepid navigators will swarm the coast, ready for any enterprise of business or patriotism. Commerce will find new arms, the country new defenders, the national flag new hands to bear it aloft. ”

“ Who knows if America will not then avenge the outrages she has received, and if our old Europe, placed in the rank of a subaltern power, will not become a colony of the New World?” [620]
Thus resting on the two oceans with a canal between, so that the early “secret of the strait” shall no longer exist, the American Republic will change the face of the world, and perhaps make Europe subaltern. Such was the vision of the French Abolitionist, lifted by devotion to Humanity. ”

“ In short, tender souls see with transport that reparation at last is to be made for the crime of those who discovered and devastated this immense continent, and recognize the United States of North America as replacing the numerous nations which European cruelty has caused to disappear from South America. ”

“ If I had powers of persuasion, I would use them all to induce you to remain as a guard to the National Constitution and a constabulary force for the Rebel States. Possibly you may not like the office. But I doubt if any of us can be better employed anywhere than in contributing to the success of Reconstruction, and in preserving peace throughout that distressed region of country. Sitting in our seats here, we are a mighty police, ready at the call of general or citizen, and also a terror to the evil-doer. ”

“ All this is indignantly described by Sir Edward Belcher and Sir George Simpson. But a slave once a freedman has all the rights of a Koloschian. Here, too, are the distinctions of wealth. The rich paint their faces daily; the poor renew the paint only when the colors begin to disappear.
These are the same people who for more than a century have been a terror on this coast. It was Koloschians who received the two boats’ crews of the Russian discoverer in 1741, as they landed in one of its wooded coves, and no survivor returned to tell their fate. ”

“ Fox, the liberal statesman, foresees the increasing might and various relations of the United States, so that a blow aimed at them must have a rebound as destructive as itself. The Abbé Grégoire, devoted to the slave, whose freedom he predicts, describes the power and glory of the American Republic, resting on the two great oceans, and swaying the world. Tardily, Jefferson appears with anxiety for the National Union, and yet announcing our government as the primitive and precious model to change the condition of mankind. ”

“ Besides, I cannot doubt that her enlightened Emperor, who has given pledges to civilization by an unsurpassed act of Emancipation, would join the first Napoleon in a desire to enhance the maritime power of the United States.
These general considerations are reinforced, when we call to mind the little influence which Russia has been able thus far to exercise in this region. Though possessing dominion for more than a century, the gigantic power has not been more genial or productive there than the soil itself. Her government is little more than a name or a shadow. It is not even a skeleton. ”

“ The comparative poverty of vegetation in the more northern parts of the continent contrasts with the abundance of animal life, especially if we embrace those tenants of the sea who seek the land for rest. These northern parallels are hardly less productive than the tropics. The lion, the elephant, and the hippopotamus find their counterpart in the bear, the walrus, and the seal, without including the sables and the foxes. Here again Nature, by unerring law, adapts the animal to the climate, and in providing him with needful protection creates also a needful supply for the protection of man ”

“ Our triumph should be by growth and organic expansion in obedience to “preëstablished harmony,” recognizing always the will of those who are to become our fellow-citizens. All this must be easy, if we are only true to ourselves. Our motto may be that of Goethe: “Without haste, without rest.” Let the Republic be assured in tranquil liberty, with all equal before the law, and it will conquer by its sublime example. More happy than Austria, who acquired possessions by marriage, we shall acquire them by the attraction of republican institutions. ”

“ The present war will probably end in the absolute independence of the Colonies, and that event will certainly be the epoch of the greatest revolution in the commerce and politics, not of England only, but of all Europe.... When the English themselves shall recognize the independence of their colonies, every mother country will be forced in like manner to exchange its dominion over its colonies for bonds of friendship and fraternity.... When the total separation of America shall have cured the European nations of commercial jealousy, there will exist among men one great cause of war the less ”

“ The act to be proposed to America, as an auspicious beginning to lay the first stone of universal liberty to mankind, should be what no American could hesitate an instant to comply with, namely, that every slave in North America should be entitled to his trial by jury in all criminal cases. ”

“ America remains neutral, prosperous, and at peace. America, with a wisdom, prudence, and magnanimity which we have disdained, thrives at this moment in a state of envied tranquillity, and is hourly clearing the paths to unbounded opulence. America has monopolized the commerce and the advantages which we have abandoned. ”

“ On Vancouver’s Island it is the constant ration given out by the Hudson’s Bay Company to the men in service. At Sitka ships are gratuitously supplied with it by the natives. By the side of the incalculable multitudes swarming out of the Arctic waters, haunting this extended coast, and peopling its rivers, so that at a single haul Portlock took not less than two thousand, how small an allowance are the two hundred thousand which the salmon fisheries of England annually supply! ”

“ They are to give the example of political liberty, of religious liberty, of commercial and industrial liberty. The asylum which they open to all the oppressed of all nations is to console the earth. The facility thereby afforded for escape from a bad government will force the European governments to be just and enlightened. The rest of the world, little by little, will open their eyes to the nothingness of the illusions in which politicians have indulged. ”

“ Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind. The experiment is made, and has completely succeeded.” [377]
Here is foretold nothing less than that our system of government is to embrace the whole continent of North America. ”

“ In the exercise of unquestioned jurisdiction, Congress should at once have provided civil governments, through whose influence and agency the Rebel States might have been shaped into republican forms. Such a proceeding would have been more constitutional and more according to the genius of our institutions than that which was adopted. It is hard to reconcile a military government, or any government born of military power, with the true idea of a republic. ”