Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 09 (of 20)Sumner, Charles
History
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 09 (of 20)
Sumner, Charles
Slavery -- United States; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
The Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. HALE] has voted to sustain
this cruelty. Other Senators have voted to sustain it. It is their
privilege. Each Senator votes, I know, according to his conscience;
but, Sir, I call attention to the vote, and remind you of what occurred
on another occasion. Formerly, when I moved this proposition, it was
opposed on the allegation that it was not pertinent to the bill under
consideration. When I moved it, the other day, on what was known as the
Confiscation Bill, the other Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. CLARK]
mildly suggested, that, at a proper occasion, on a proper bill, he
would be ready to support it. I know that the motion must have the
approbation of that excellent Senator. He is too just and too humane
not to be in favor of it. And now, Sir, the time has come. Here is a
bill regulating evidence in courts of the United States,--not in courts
of the States, but in courts of the United States. The whole subject
is directly before you. It is within your province now to decide.
Yours the jurisdiction and power. And yet, Sir, you choose to continue
the wrong. I shall vote for the bill on its final passage, because in
other respects I think it ought to be a law; but I enter my protest
against the conclusion of the Senate. It is melancholy, disastrous,
discreditable.
Mr. Hale vindicated the vote of the Senate, and insisted that
the proper object of attack was the Supreme Court.
Mr. Sumner replied:--
The Senator from New Hampshire severely criticizes the Supreme Court,
which he reminds us has decided that the rights of citizenship, being
rights that white men are bound to respect, and all the rights which
make human life worth anything, are dead to colored persons; and he
then proceeds forthwith to sustain a principle every way as bad. He
condemns Chief-Justice Taney for declaring that colored persons are not
citizens, and then, with marvellous logic, proceeds to say that he will
not interfere to overturn the rule by which the testimony of colored
persons is excluded from the national courts. Sir, I do not know which
is most open to condemnation, the Supreme Court or the Senator. I am
against the decision of the Supreme Court. The Senator knows it well.
I am not one whit behind him in condemnation of that judgment, which
must forever stand forth among the inhumanities of this generation. But
permit me to remind the Senator that the rule he sustains is not less
inhuman. There is not a word he can launch against the Court that must
not rebound upon himself. To me it is unintelligible as painful that
the Senator should interfere to save any such inhumanity. I use strong
language, but it is only in this way that I can fitly characterize the
doctrines of the Supreme Court and of the Senator. The Supreme Court
has erred infinitely and wretchedly, but the Senator now errs in the
same way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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