Office of the Tribune,
New York, June 26, 1863.
My Dear Sir,—In God’s good time this is to be a land of real freedom, where equal rights and equal laws shall banish rebellion, treason, and riot, and all manner of kindred diabolisms. I hardly hope to live to see that day, but hope that those who may remember me, when I am gone, will believe that I earnestly tried to hasten its coming.
Yours,
Horace Greeley.
To suppose, that, under any circumstances of pressure or temptation, he can fail in loyalty to the cause he has served so constantly, is an offence to reason and to decency. In his two letters of acceptance this loyalty is nobly conspicuous. Replying to the nomination at Cincinnati, he drew the wise line between “local self-government” and “centralization,” asserting the former as our true policy, “subject to our solemn constitutional obligation to maintain the equal rights of all citizens,”[224]—thus placing these under national safeguard, and making them absolutely the same in all parts of the country. Replying to the nomination at Baltimore, made after the enunciation of this master principle, he announces his “hope and trust that the first century of American Independence will not close before the grand elemental truths on which its rightfulness was originally based by Jefferson and the Continental Congress of 1776 will have become the universally accepted and honored foundations of our political fabric.”[225] And thus is his great record crowned.
Living so entirely in the public eye, all know his life, which speaks for him now. Who so well as himself could stand the trial? The “Tribune,” in its career of more than thirty years, speaks for him also. Those opponents who in the work of disparagement assert that he wants executive ability, I point to this journal, begun by Horace Greeley in 1841, without partner or business associate, with a cash capital of only one thousand dollars, and with but six hundred subscribers. And yet, under his individual effort, by his amazing industry and through his rare intelligence, with his determined nature animating all, the enterprise prospered, until he found himself at the head of one of the first newspapers of the world, completely organized intellectually and mechanically, with writers for every subject, with correspondents everywhere at home and abroad, and with a constantly increasing influence never surpassed in newspaper history. A President with the ability that did all this would impart new energy to the public service, impressing it with his own faithful character, and assuring, on a larger scale, a corresponding success, so that the whole country would be gainer. Again, those opponents who assert that Horace Greeley wants fidelity, or that he can be easily swayed against life-long convictions, I point to this same journal, which from the beginning, and throughout the whole course of its existence, has been an unwavering representative of the liberal cause, foremost always in warfare with Slavery, prompt in support of reform, inflexible in honesty, and a beacon-flame to all struggling for human advancement.
Not to put faith in Horace Greeley is to act not only without evidence, but against evidence so manifest and constant in unbroken continuity as to seem like a law of Nature. As well distrust the sun in its appointed course.
Such is the easy answer to objectors who cry out, that Democrats uniting with Republicans on a Republican platform cannot be trusted, and that the candidate himself cannot be trusted. The wantonness of partisanship is too apparent in this pretension. I have considered it carefully, as a lover of truth, and you have my conclusion. Therefore do I say, Be not deterred from voting for Horace Greeley because Democrats will also vote for him, but rather rejoice. Their votes will be a new bond of peace, and a new assurance for the great principles declared by our fathers at our birth as a nation.
And has not the time arrived when in sincerity we should accept the olive-branch? Is it not time for the pen to take the place of the sword? Is it not time for the Executive Mansion to be changed from a barrack cesspool to a life-giving fountain? Is it not time for a President who will show by example the importance of reform, and teach the duty of subordinating personal objects to the public service? Is it not time for the Head of the National Government to represent the idea of peace and reconciliation, rather than of battle and strife? Is it not time for that new era, when ancient enemies, forgetting the past, shall “clasp hands” in true unity with the principles of the Declaration of Independence as the supreme law? Deploring the fate of Poland and of Ireland, I seize the earliest moment to escape from similar possibility here. Mindful that the memories of the Past can only yield to a happy Present, something would I do to promote this end. Anxious for the Equal Rights of All, and knowing well that no text of Law or Constitution is adequate without a supporting sentiment behind, I cannot miss the opportunity afforded by the present election of obtaining this strength for our great guaranties.
Reconstruction is now complete. Every State is represented in the Senate, and every District is represented in the House of Representatives. Every Senator and every Representative is in his place. There are no vacant seats in either Chamber; and among the members are fellow-citizens of the African race. And amnesty, nearly universal, has been adopted. In this condition of things I find new reason for change. The present incumbent knows little of our frame of government. By military education and military genius he represents the idea of Force; nor is he any exception to the rule of his profession, which appreciates only slightly a government that is not arbitrary. The time for the soldier has passed, especially when his renewed power would once more remind fellow-citizens of their defeat. Victory over fellow-citizens should be known only in the rights it assures; nor should it be flaunted in the face of the vanquished. It should not be inscribed on regimental colors, or portrayed in pictures at the National Capitol. But the present incumbent is a regimental color with the forbidden inscription; he is a picture at the National Capitol recalling victories over fellow-citizens. It is doubtful if such a presence can promote true reconciliation. Friendship does not grow where former differences are thrust into sight. There are wounds of the mind as of the body; these, too, must be healed. Instead of irritation and pressure, let there be gentleness and generosity. Men in this world get only what they give,—prejudice for prejudice, animosity for animosity, hate for hate. Likewise confidence is returned for confidence, good-will for good-will, friendship for friendship. On this rule, which is the same for the nation as for the individual, I would now act. So will the Republic be elevated to new heights of moral grandeur, and our people will manifest that virtue, “greatest of all,” which is found in charity. Above the conquest of others will be the conquest of ourselves. Nor will any fellow-citizen suffer in rights, but all will find new safeguard in the comprehensive fellowship.
Bill in the Senate, December 2, 1872.
December 2, 1872, Mr. Sumner asked, and by unanimous consent obtained, leave to bring in the following bill, which was read twice and ordered to be printed:—
A Bill to regulate the Army-Register and the Regimental Colors of the United States.
Whereas the national unity and good-will among fellow-citizens can be assured only through oblivion of past differences, and it is contrary to the usage of civilized nations to perpetuate the memory of civil war: Therefore,
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the names of battles with fellow-citizens shall not be continued in the Army-Register, or placed on the regimental colors of the United States.
Remarks intended to be made in the Senate, in seconding a Motion for Adjournment on the Occasion of Mr. Greeley’s Funeral, December 3, 1872.
The death of Mr. Greeley at the close of the canvass in which nearly three millions of his fellow-citizens had given him their suffrages for the Presidency, seemed, in the view of leading Senators on both sides, to require from their body a respectful recognition of the day appointed for his funeral; and it was accordingly arranged that a motion for adjournment on this occasion should be offered by Mr. Fenton, of New York, and seconded by Mr. Sumner, with appropriate remarks by each. But a dominant party-spirit, by recourse to parliamentary tactics, prevented its introduction, and the day passed without notice. The remarks designed by Mr. Sumner were as follows:—
MR. PRESIDENT,—I have been requested to second this motion. One word, if you please. A funeral will take place to-morrow, on which the eyes of the nation will rest, while innumerable hearts throb with grief, and the people everywhere learn the instability of life and the commandment of charity. It is proper, therefore, for the representatives of the nation to suspend labor, that they too may be penetrated by the lesson of the day. More for them than the illustrious dead is this needed. He is gone beyond any earthly call; we remain. Duties are always for the living; and now, standing at the open grave of Horace Greeley, we are admonished to forget the strifes of party, and to remember only truth, country, and mankind, to which his honest life was devoted. In other days the horse and armor of the departed chieftain have been buried in the grave where he reposed. So, too, may we bury the animosities, if not the badges, of the past. Then, indeed, will there be victory for the dead which all will share.
Remarks in the Senate, December 12, 1872.
The subject under consideration was a bill from the House providing for a drawback of the duties on all materials imported into Boston for the rebuilding of that portion of the city laid waste by the recent conflagration,—with amendments, including one excepting lumber, proposed by the Committee on Finance, to whom the bill had been referred.
Mr. Sumner said:—
MR. PRESIDENT,—Hoping that the Senate will not be less generous than the House of Representatives, I trust that we shall take the bill as it comes from the House, voting down the amendments reported by our Committee.
I hear it said by the Senator from Michigan [Mr. Ferry] that the bill will be a bad precedent; and the same argument is repeated, with variety of illustration, by my excellent friend the Senator from Vermont [Mr. Morrill]. Sir, is it not too late to correct the precedent? You already have the case of Portland and the case of Chicago; I am sorry that you must now add the case of Boston. Call it a bad precedent. It can only be applicable in a parallel case, and I do not believe such cases can occur often. The fire-fiend latterly has been very busy in our land; but he cannot always be so; at least I have a well-founded trust that by proper precaution, if not also by better fortune, we shall escape from his visitations. I put aside, therefore, the argument that this is a bad precedent. It can be called into activity only in a similar case; and when a similar case occurs, I am ready for its application. Let any other metropolis sit like Boston in ashes, and I hope there will be no hesitation in extending to it a friendly hand.
It is not fair to call up the smaller losses that may occur in smaller places, for the simple reason that such losses are not within the reach of Congress by any ordinary exercise of its powers. It is only where the loss is great, as in the familiar cases before us, that there is opportunity for Congress. An ancient poet says: “Nor should the Divinity intervene, unless the occasion be worthy.”[226] I would say, Nor should Congress interfere, unless the case be such as to justify the exercise of extraordinary powers. Obviously such an occasion does not occur except where the scale of loss is great.
Then, again, the Senator from Michigan reminded us of the exception of lumber in the bill for the relief of Chicago; but he vindicated that exception by facts which do not occur in the present case. He said, as we all know, that Michigan was also a sufferer at that calamitous moment; and he did not think it right, therefore, that the peculiar interests of his State should be called to contribute even to the great losses of Chicago. I do not say that the Senator was not entirely right in that position. Certainly the case as presented by him is entirely reasonable. Had I had the honor to represent Michigan at the time, I know not that I should have acted otherwise than he did. But I call attention to the point, as presented by him, that no such case exists now. Michigan is not a sufferer; Maine is not a sufferer; nor is any part of our country which contributes timber to our business a sufferer. Therefore is there no reason for introducing this exception. The reason failing, the exception should fail also. I hope, therefore, that the Senate will keep the bill in that respect precisely as it came from the House.
Then my friend from Vermont suggests that this bill is practically an invitation to the people of Boston to go to Europe and elsewhere in order to find workmen. He seemed frightened at the possibility. I think my friend sees too often the question of protection to American industry, and makes himself too unhappy on this account. I hope that this bill will be considered without any question of protection. Let the people of Boston go where they can buy cheapest in order to meet their great calamity; and if it be to their neighbor British provinces, I hope my friend from Vermont will not interfere to prevent it.
Remarks in the Senate on his Death, December 18, 1872.
MR. PRESIDENT,—I was a member of the Senate, when, in 1861, our departed Senator entered it; and I was to the end the daily witness of his laborious service. Standing now at his funeral, it is easy to forget the differences between us and remember those things in which he was an example to all.
Death has its companionship. In its recent autumn harvest were Garrett Davis, William H. Seward, and Horace Greeley. Seward was the precise contemporary of Davis, each beginning life with the century and dying within a few days of each other. Always alike in constancy of labor, they were for the larger part of this period associated in political sentiment as active members of the old Whig party. But the terrible question of Slavery rose to divide them. How completely they were on opposite sides I need not say. Horace Greeley was ten years the junior, but he was the colleague and peer of Garrett Davis in devotion to Henry Clay. In the whole country, among all whose enthusiastic support he aroused, there was no one who upheld the Kentucky statesman with more chivalrous devotion than these two. Here they were alike, and in the record of life this signal fidelity cannot be forgotten. It was to the honor of Henry Clay that he inspired this sentiment in such men, and it was to their honor that they maintained it so truly. Kindred to truth is fidelity.
At his death, Garrett Davis was our Congressional senior, having entered the other House as early as 1839, after previous service of six years in the Legislature of Kentucky. For eight years he sat as Representative, and then, after an interval of thirteen years, he was for nearly twelve years Senator. During this long period he was conspicuous before the country, dwelling constantly in the public eye. How well he stood the gaze, whether of friend or foe, belongs to his good name.
All who knew him in the Senate will bear witness to his wonderful industry, his perfect probity, and the personal purity of his life. No differences of opinion can obscure the fame of these qualities, or keep them from being a delight to his friends and an example to his country. Nor can any of us forget how, amid peculiar trials, he was courageous in devotion to the National Union. No pressure, no appeal, no temptation, could sway him in this patriotic allegiance. That fidelity which belonged to his nature shone here as elsewhere. He was no holiday Senator, cultivating pleasure rather than duty, and he was above all suspicion in personal conduct. Calumny could not reach him. Nothing is so fierce and unreasoning as the enmities engendered by political antagonists; but even these never questioned that he was at all times incorruptible and pure. Let this be spoken in his honor; let it be written on his monument. Nor can the State that gave him to the national service and trusted him so long fail to remember with pride that he was always an honest man.
With this completeness of integrity there was a certain wild independence and intensity of nature which made him unaccommodating and irrepressible. Faithful, constant, devoted, indefatigable, implacable, he knew not how to capitulate. Dr. Johnson, who liked “a good hater,”[227] would have welcomed him into this questionable fellowship. Here I cannot doubt. Better far the opposite character, and even the errors that may come from it. Kindred to hate is prejudice, which was too often active in him, seeming at times, especially where we differed from him, to take the place of reason. On nothing was this so marked as Slavery. Here his convictions were undisguised; nor did they yield to argument or the logic of events. How much of valuable time, learned research, and intellectual effort he bestowed in support of this dying cause, the chronicles of the Senate attest. How often have we listened with pain to this advocacy, regretting deeply that the gifts he possessed, and especially his sterling character, were enlisted where our sympathies could not go! And yet I cannot doubt that others would testify, as I now do, that never on these occasions, when the soul was tried in its depths, did any fail to recognize the simplicity and integrity of his nature. Had he been less honest, I should have felt his speeches less. Happily, that great controversy is ended; nor do I say anything but the strict truth, when I add that now we bury him who spoke last for Slavery.
Time is teacher and reconciler; nor is it easy for any candid nature to preserve a constant austerity of judgment toward persons. As evening approaches, the meridian heats lose their intensity. While abiding firmly in the truth as we saw it, there may be charity and consideration for those who did not see it as we saw it. A French statesman, yet living, whose name is indissolubly connected with the highest literature, as well as with some of the most important events of his age, teaches how with the passage of life the judgment is softened toward others. “The more,” says M. Guizot, “I have penetrated into an understanding and experience of things, of men, and of myself, the more I have perceived at the same time my general convictions strengthen and my personal impressions become calm and mild. Equity, I will not say toleration for the faith of others, in religion or politics, has come to take place and grow by the side of tranquillity in my own faith. It is youth, with its natural ignorance and passionate prejudices, which renders us exclusive and biting in our judgments of others. In proportion as I quit myself, and as time sweeps me far from our combats, I enter without difficulty into a serene and pleasant appreciation of ideas and sentiments which do not belong to me.” Even if not adopting these words completely, all will confess their beauty.
Here let me be frank. Nothing could make any speech for Slavery tolerable to me; but when I think how much opinions are determined by the influences about us, so that a change of birth and education might have made the Abolitionist a partisan of Slavery and the partisan of Slavery an Abolitionist, I feel, that, while always unrelenting toward the wrong, we cannot be insensible to individual merits. In this spirit I offer a sincere tribute to a departed Senator, who, amid the perturbations of the times, trod his way with independent step, and won even from opponents the palm of character.
Letter to the Committee of Arrangements for the Celebration of the Anniversary of Emancipation in the District of Columbia, April 16, 1873.
The long procession stopped before Mr. Sumner’s house, where one of the bands played “Auld Lang Syne.” Arriving in front of the City Hall of Washington, they were addressed by R. T. Greene, Esq., and also by Hon. Frederick Douglass. Letters were read from President Grant, Senators Anthony, Pratt, and Sumner, Hon.’s Horace Maynard, B. F. Butler, A. G. Riddle, S. J. Bowen, N. G. Ordway, and A. M. Clapp. Mr. Sumner’s letter was as follows:—
Washington, April 16, 1873.
DEAR SIR,—I regret that it is not in my power to be with you according to the invitation with which you have honored me. This is a day whose associations are as precious to me as to you.
Emancipation in the national capital was the experiment which prepared the way for Emancipation everywhere throughout the country. It was the beginning of the great end.
Here, as in other things, you are an example to our colored fellow-citizens in the States. Your success here will vindicate the capacity of colored people for citizenship, and your whole race will be benefited thereby.
Let me speak frankly. Much has been done, but more remains to be done. The great work is not yet accomplished. Until your equality in civil rights is assured, the pillar of your citizenship is like the column in honor of Washington,—unfinished and imperfect. There is constant talk of finishing that column at great cost of money, but the first thing to be done is to finish the pillar of your citizenship. Here I shall gladly work; but I trust that you will all work likewise, nor be content with anything less than the whole.
Accept my thanks and best wishes, and believe me, dear Sir,
Faithfully yours,
Charles Sumner.
To the Chairman.
Letter read at a Public Meeting in Washington, June 22, 1873.
A proposition in the Legislature of the District of Columbia, opening the Normal School without distinction of color, failed through the vote of a colored member, which was the occasion of the following letter, written in reply to an inquiry. The letter was read by the chairman of a public meeting of colored citizens on the evening of June 30, 1873, who said he had conferred with distinguished gentlemen, legal and otherwise, regarding the right of the District Legislature to pass such a bill, and all had stated that their power was unquestionable. He had addressed a letter to the Hon. Charles Sumner upon that question, and had received the following reply:—
Washington, June 22, 1873.
DEAR SIR,—In reply to your inquiry, I have no hesitation in saying that in my judgment the right of the District Legislature to provide a normal school where there shall be no distinction of color is beyond doubt. To call it in question is simply ridiculous.
Having the right, the duty of the Legislature is clear as sunshine. It must open the school to all, without distinction of color. Should any persons be shut out from this right on the wretched apology of color, I trust they will make their indignation felt by the guilty authors of the outrage.
I write plainly, because the time has come for those who love justice to speak out. Too long have colored fellow-citizens been deprived of their rights; they must insist upon them.
Faithfully yours,
Charles Sumner.
Letter in Reply to one from the Former, July 4, 1873.
The following is a translation of the Haytian President’s letter:—
Republic of Hayti,
Port-au-Prince, September 24, 1872.
Sixty-Ninth Year of Independence.
Honorable Senator,—I eagerly seize the good opportunity offered me by the departure of our Minister, Citizen S. Preston, to pray you to receive the testimony of my high consideration, which does not cease to grow, by reason of the eminent services which you render daily to the noble cause of an oppressed people.
I should consider myself as failing in one of my most imperious duties, if I did not express to you the sentiments of gratitude which your name awakens in the breast of every one belonging to the African race.
In assuming the defence of the rights of this people, guided by the most generous sentiments of your rich nature, by a sincere love of justice, you have acquired an immortal title to the gratitude of all the descendants of the African race.
Please to receive this feeble expression of my high esteem for the noble character of an illustrious citizen, and believe in the depth of sentiment with which I declare myself, Honorable Senator,
Your devoted friend,
Nisage Saget.
Washington, July 4, 1873.
MR. PRESIDENT,—I cannot, at this late day, acknowledge the letter with which you have honored me, without explaining the reason of my delay.
Owing to absence in Europe, where I had gone for my health, I did not receive your valuable communication until some time in the winter, when it was put into my hands by your excellent Minister. Continuing feeble in health, I reluctantly postponed this acknowledgment. I now take advantage of convalescence to do, thus tardily, what my feelings prompted at an earlier day.
Please, Sir, accept my thanks for your generous appreciation of what I have done, and your kindness in letting me know it under your own hand. But I beg you to understand that I do not deserve the praise with which you honor me. In advocating the cause of an oppressed people I have only acted according to my conscience. I could not have done otherwise; and now my only regret is that I have done so little. I wish I had done more.
In the history of mankind the crime against the African race will stand forth in terrible eminence,—always observed, and never forgotten. Just in proportion as civilization prevails will this enormous wrong be apparent in its true character; and men will read with astonishment how human beings, guilty only of being black, were sold into slavery, and then (such was the continuing injustice towards this unhappy people) how, when slavery ceased, they were still treated with indignity by persons whose lordly pretensions were founded on the skin only. As these things are seen in increasing light, they will be condemned in no uncertain words; nor will the denial of equal rights, on account of color, escape the judgment awarded to slavery itself. Human conduct on this question is a measure of character. Where the African race is enslaved or degraded, where it is exposed to any indignity or shut out from that equality which is a primal right to humanity, there civilization is still feeble.
To the certain triumph of civilization I look with constant hope. It is sure to come; and one sign of its arrival will be that prevailing sentiment which recognizes the perpetual obligations of equal justice to all, and the duty to repair past wrongs by compensations in the future.
In the great debt of the whites to the blacks there is a bank from which, for generations to come, the latter can draw.
Accept, Mr. President, the expression of my ardent hope for the peace, prosperity, and happiness of the Republic of Hayti, and allow me to subscribe myself with true regard,
Your faithful friend,
Charles Sumner.
To the President of the Republic of Hayti.
Letter To Henry Richard, M. P., on the Vote in the House of Commons agreeing to his Motion for an Address to the Queen, praying Communication with Foreign Powers with a View to a General and Permanent System of International Arbitration, July 10, 1873.
United States Senate Chamber,
Washington, July 10, 1873.
MY DEAR SIR,—Few events have given me more pleasure than the vote on your motion. I thank you for making the motion; and I thank you also for not yielding to Mr. Gladstone’s request to withdraw it. You were in the very position of Buxton on his motion against Slavery. He, too, insisted upon a division; and that vote led to Emancipation. May you have equal success!
I anticipate much from this vote. It will draw attention on the Continent, which the facts and figures of your speech will confirm.
I find in your speech grand compensation for the long postponement to which you have been constrained. It marks an epoch in a great cause. I know you will not rest. But this speech alone, with the signal result, will make your Parliamentary life historic. Surely Mr. Gladstone acted under some imagined exigency of politics. He cannot, in his soul, differ from you. Honoring him much, I regret that he has allowed himself to appear on the wrong side. What fame so great as his, if he would devote the just influence of his lofty position to securing for nations the inappreciable benefits of a tribunal for the settlement of their differences!
How absurd to call your motion Utopian, if by this word is meant that it is not practical. There is no question so supremely practical; for it concerns not merely one nation, but every nation; and even its discussion promises to diminish the terrible chances of war. Its triumph would be the greatest reform of history. And I doubt not that this day is near.
Accept my thanks and congratulations, and believe me, my dear Sir,
Sincerely yours,
Charles Sumner.
Henry Richard, Esq., M.P.,
London.
Letter to the Colored Citizens of Washington, July 29, 1873.
Washington, July 29, 1873.
GENTLEMEN,—I am honored by your communication of July 26th, in which, after congratulating me upon returning health, and expressing your sincere hopes that I may resume my labors in the Senate, there to take up again the cause of Equal Rights, you mention that the colored citizens of Washington are now engaged in agitating what you properly call “a common-school system for all children.”
I desire to thank you for the good-will to myself which your communication exhibits, and for your hopes that I may again in the Senate take up the cause of Equal Rights. Health itself is valuable only as it enables us to perform the duties of life, and I know no present duty more commanding than that to which you refer.
I confess a true pleasure in learning that the colored people are at last rising to take the good cause into their own hands, because through them its triumph is certain. But they must be in earnest. They must insist and labor, then labor and insist again. Only in this way can indifference, which is worse even than the stubbornness of opposition, be overcome. The open foe can be met. It is hard to deal with that dulness which feels no throb at the thought of opening to all complete equality in the pursuit of happiness.
Permit me to remind you, Gentlemen, that, living at the national capital, you have a peculiar responsibility. In the warfare for Equal Rights you are the advance guard, sometimes the forlorn hope. You are animated to move forward, not only for your own immediate good, but because through you the whole colored population of the country will be benefited. What is secured for you will be secured for all,—while, if you fail, there is small hope elsewhere. Do not forget—and let this thought arouse to increased exertion—that your triumph will redound to the good of all.
The District of Columbia is the place where all the great reforms born of the war have begun. It is the experimental garden and nursery where all the generous plants have been tried. Emancipation, colored suffrage, the right of colored persons to testify, and the right to ride in the street-cars,—all these began here, and I remember well how they were all encountered.
On the abolition of Slavery we were solemnly warned that riot, confusion, and chaos would ensue. Emancipation took place, and not a voice or sound was heard except of peace and gladness. I was soberly assured by eminent politicians, that if colored persons were allowed to vote there would be massacre at the polls. Then, again, colored testimony was deprecated,—while it was insisted that the street-cars would be ruined, if opened to colored persons. But all these changes, demanded by simple justice, have been in every way beneficent. Nobody would reverse them now. Who would establish Slavery again? Who would drive the colored citizen from the polls? Who would exclude him from the court-room? Who would shut him from the street-cars? And now the old objections are revived, and made to do service again, in order to defeat the effort for common schools,—being schools founded on the very principle of Equal Rights recognized in the elective franchise, in the court-room, and in the street-car. If this principle is just for all the latter,—and nobody says the contrary now,—why hesitate to apply it in education? How often we are enjoined to train the child in the way he should go! Why, then, compel him in those tender years to bear the ban of exclusion? Why, at that early period, when impressions are received for life, impose upon him the badge of inferiority? He is to be a man; therefore he must be trained to that self-respect without which there can be no true manhood. But this can be only by removing all ban of exclusion, and every badge of inferiority from color.
As the old objections are revived, so again do I present the great truth announced by our fathers in the Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal.” Admitting this principle as a rule of conduct, the separation of children in the public schools on account of color is absolutely indefensible. In abolishing it we simply bring our schools into conformity with the requirements of the Declaration.
To the objection that this change will injure the schools, I reply that this is contrary to experience in other places, where the commingling of children according to the genius of republican institutions has been found excellent in influence. And I further reply by insisting now, as I always do, upon that justice to an oppressed race which has been too long delayed, and which never fails to be a well-spring of strength and happiness, blessing all who help it and all who receive it.
Feeling as I do on this question, you will understand that I cannot see without regret any opportunity neglected of advancing the cause, especially among colored fellow-citizens. On this they should be a unit. Wherever the question presents itself, whether in Congress, or the Legislative Chambers of the District, or the popular assembly, there should be a solid vote against every discrimination on account of color. It is easy for lawyers and politicians to find excuses according to their desires; but no fine-spun theory or technicality should be allowed to prevail against the commanding principle.
Accept my best wishes, and believe me, Gentlemen,
Your faithful friend,
Charles Sumner.
Henry Piper, Chairman.
Letter to Hon. G. W. Warren, of Charlestown, on the Annexion to Boston of the Suburban Towns, October 4, 1873.
Coolidge House, October 4, 1873.
DEAR MR. WARREN,—I should be glad to meet your friends in a conference on the question, How Boston shall be rounded so as to be in reality itself. I cannot meet with you, but I unite in your purpose, as I understand it, and especially with regard to Charlestown.
I doubt if the future Boston will be content until it holds and possesses all the territory which hugs the harbor bearing its name, so that in Boston harbor nobody shall land except in Boston.
Evidently Boston should contain all Bostonians, which it does not now. I know no better way of accomplishing this result than by widening the circle of its jurisdiction.
But there is a stronger reason. Every capital is a natural focus of life, politically, socially, and commercially; and every person living in this natural focus properly belongs to the capital. So it is with London, Paris, and Vienna,—each of which is composed of suburbs and faubourgs grouped about the original city; and so in reality it is with Boston,—for the places about the city, though called by different names, are parts of the same unity, which needs nothing now but a common name.
A capital may be artificial or natural. The artificial body is that formed by original unchangeable boundaries. The natural body is that combination, cluster, or expansion which changes with the developments of time and to meet the growing exigencies.
With these views, I find the various processes of annexion only a natural manifestation, to be encouraged always, and to be welcomed under proper conditions of population and public opinion. I say “annexion” rather than “annexation.” Where a word is so much used, better save a syllable,—especially as the shorter is the better.
Ever sincerely yours,
Charles Sumner.
This letter appeared just previously to the vote on the annexion to Boston of Charlestown, West Roxbury, Brighton, and Brookline,—which was taken on the first Tuesday of October, 1873, with a favorable result as to the first three municipalities.
Remarks before the Board of Trade at Boston, October 24, 1873.
At a meeting in aid of the sufferers by yellow fever in Memphis (Tennessee) and Shreveport (Louisiana), held at the rooms of the Board of Trade in Boston, at which the Mayor, Hon. Henry L. Pierce, presided, after remarks by Mr. Pierce and Hon. Alexander H. Rice, Mr. Sumner said:—
MR. MAYOR,—I have come less for speech than to show by my presence here the sincere interest I feel in the present meeting. For what can I say to prompt the generosity of Boston merchants? They understand this call, and their hearts have already answered it.
It is hard to hear of suffering anywhere without longing to relieve it. But happily now all impediment of distance is removed; and such are the facilities of communication that before the set of sun your contributions will brighten the faces of those distant sufferers. Do not think of distance. It is nothing. If Boston should be startled by hearing to-day that pestilence had appeared in one of our new-found possessions, as in Charlestown,—or even in Brookline, which will not be annexed,—we should feel the ties of neighborhood. But Memphis and Shreveport are neighbors by telegraph and steam, and the grander ties of a common country, which the ancient Roman orator called the “great charity comprehending all.”[228] Besides, there is that other more touching neighborhood which springs from suffering,—for I do not forget the divine hymn which teaches that