Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 16 (of 20)Sumner, Charles
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Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 16 (of 20)
Sumner, Charles
Slavery -- United States; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
Alas for the Unionists, white and black alike, who have trusted to our
flag! You offer them a sacrifice to persecutors whose representative
is before you for judgment. They are the last in my thoughts, as I
pronounce that vote which is too feeble to save them from intolerable
wrong and outrage. They are fellow-citizens of a common country,
brethren of a common humanity, two commanding titles, both strong
against the deed. I send them at this terrible moment the sympathy and
fellowship of a heart that suffers with them. So just a cause cannot
be lost. Meanwhile, may they find in themselves, and in the goodness of
an overruling Providence, that refuge and protection which the Senate
refuses to give!
CONSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITY OF SENATORS FOR THEIR VOTES IN CASES OF
IMPEACHMENT.
RESOLUTIONS IN THE SENATE, JUNE 3, 1868.
June 3d, Mr. Sumner submitted the following Resolutions, which
were read and ordered to be printed.
Whereas a pretension has been put forth to the effect that the vote of
a Senator on an impeachment is so far different in character from his
vote on any other question that the people have no right to criticize
or consider it; and whereas such pretension, if not discountenanced,
is calculated to impair that freedom of judgment which belongs to
the people on all that is done by their representatives: Therefore,
in order to remove all doubts on this question, and to declare the
constitutional right of the people in cases of impeachment,--
1. _Resolved_, That, even assuming that the Senate is a Court in the
exercise of judicial power, Senators cannot claim that their votes are
exempt from the judgment of the people; that the Supreme Court, when it
has undertaken to act on questions essentially political in character,
has not escaped this judgment; that the decisions of this high tribunal
in support of Slavery have been openly condemned; that the memorable
utterance known as the Dred Scott decision was indignantly denounced
and repudiated, while the Chief Justice who pronounced it became a mark
for censure and rebuke; and that plainly the votes of Senators on an
impeachment cannot enjoy an immunity from popular judgment which has
been denied to the Supreme Court, with Taney as Chief Justice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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