Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 06 (of 20)Sumner, Charles
History
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 06 (of 20)
Sumner, Charles
Slavery -- United States; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
The two assumptions of Slave-Masters are answered. But this is not
enough. Let the answer become a legislative act, by the admission of
Kansas as a Free State. Then will the Barbarism of Slavery be repelled,
and the pretension of property in man be rebuked. Such an act, closing
this long struggle by assurance of peace to the Territory, if not of
tranquillity to the whole country, will be more grateful still as
herald of that better day, near at hand, when Freedom will find a home
everywhere under the National Government, when the National Flag,
wherever it floats, on sea or land, within the national jurisdiction,
will cover none but freemen, and the Declaration of Independence, now
reviled in the name of Slavery, will be reverenced as the American
Magna Charta of Human Rights. Nor is this all. Such an act will be
the first stage in those triumphs by which the Republic, lifted in
character so as to become an example to mankind, will enter at last
upon its noble “prerogative of teaching the nations how to live.”
Thus, Sir, speaking for Freedom in Kansas, I have spoken for Freedom
everywhere, and for Civilization; and as the less is contained in the
greater, so are all arts, all sciences, all economies, all refinements,
all charities, all delights of life, embodied in this cause. You may
reject it, but it will be only for to-day. The sacred animosity of
Freedom and Slavery can end only with the triumph of Freedom. The same
question will be carried soon before that high tribunal, supreme over
Senate and Court, where the judges are counted by millions, and the
judgment rendered will be the solemn charge of an awakened people,
instructing a new President, in the name of Freedom, to see that
Civilization receives no detriment.
When Mr. Sumner resumed his seat, Mr. Chesnut, of South
Carolina, spoke as follows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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