Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 18 (of 20)Sumner, Charles
History
Charles Sumner: his complete works, volume 18 (of 20)
Sumner, Charles
Slavery -- United States; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
to future generations, and the voice of love (towards its authors) will
be heard wherever the splendor of the sun and the moon is seen. The
Pho will be tranquil in their kingdom, and the Han will be joyful in
their empire.”[254] Such is the benediction which from early times has
spoken from one of the monuments erected by the god Terminus. Call it
Oriental; would it were universal! While recognizing a frontier, there
is equal recognition of peace as the rule of international life.
THE REPUBLIC.
In the abolition of the War System the will of the people must
become all-powerful, exalting the Republic to its just place as the
natural expression of citizenship. Napoleon has been credited with the
utterance at St. Helena of the prophecy, that “in fifty years Europe
would be Republican or Cossack.”[255] Evidently Europe will not be
Cossack, unless the Cossack is already changed to Republican,--as well
may be, when it is known, that, since the great act of Enfranchisement,
in February, 1861, by which twenty-three millions of serfs were raised
to citizenship, with the right to vote, fifteen thousand three hundred
and fifty public schools have been opened in Russia. A better than
Napoleon, who saw mankind with truer insight, Lafayette, has recorded
a clearer prophecy. At the foundation of the monument on Bunker Hill,
on the semi-centennial anniversary of the battle, 17th June, 1825, our
much-honored national guest gave this toast: “Bunker Hill, and the holy
resistance to oppression, which has already enfranchised the American
hemisphere. The next half-century Jubilee’s toast shall be,--_To
Enfranchised Europe_.”[256] The close of that half-century, already
so prolific, is at hand. Shall it behold the great Jubilee with all
its vastness of promise accomplished? Enfranchised Europe, foretold
by Lafayette, means not only the Republic for all, but Peace for all;
it means the United States of Europe, with the War System abolished.
Against that little faith through which so much fails in life, I
declare my unalterable conviction, that “government of the people,
by the people, and for the people”--thus simply described by Abraham
Lincoln[257]--is a necessity of civilization, not only because of that
republican equality without distinction of birth which it establishes,
but for its assurance of permanent peace. All privilege is usurpation,
and, like Slavery, a state of war, relieved only by truce, to be broken
by the people in their might. To the people alone can mankind look for
the repose of nations; but the Republic is the embodied people. All
hail to the Republic, equal guardian of all, and angel of peace!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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