Part 1

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Statesman Edition VOL. X

CHARLES SUMNER

HIS COMPLETE WORKS

With Introduction by Hon. George Frisbie Hoar

Boston Lee and Shepard MCM

Copyright, 1872 and 1873, By Charles Sumner.

Copyright, 1900, By Lee and Shepard.

Statesman Edition. Limited to One Thousand Copies. of Which This Is No. 565

Norwood Press: Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME X.

PAGE

OUR FOREIGN RELATIONS: SHOWING PRESENT PERILS FROM ENGLAND AND FRANCE, NATURE AND CONDITION OF INTERVENTION BY MEDIATION AND ALSO BY RECOGNITION, IMPOSSIBILITY OF ANY RECOGNITION OF A NEW POWER WITH SLAVERY AS A CORNER-STONE, AND WRONGFUL CONCESSION OF OCEAN BELLIGERENCE. Speech before the Citizens of New York, at the Cooper Institute, September 10, 1863. With Appendix 1

OUR DOMESTIC RELATIONS: POWER OF CONGRESS OVER THE REBEL STATES. Article in the Atlantic Monthly, October, 1863 167

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND JOHN SLIDELL AT PARIS. Article in the Atlantic Monthly, November, 1863 221

VICTORY AND PEACE THROUGH EMANCIPATION. Letter to Colored Citizens in New York, celebrating the Anniversary of the Proclamation, December 18, 1863 259

THE MAYFLOWER AND THE SLAVE SHIP. Letter to the New England Society at New York, December 21, 1863 260

COMMUTATION FOR THE DRAFT: DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RICH AND POOR. Remarks in the Senate, on an Amendment moved to the Enrolment Bill, January 8, 12, and June 20, 1864, and February 7, 1865 262

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON SLAVERY AND FREEDMEN. Resolution in the Senate, January 13, 1864 271

FOUNDATION OF THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY IN BOSTON. Letter to a Committee in Boston, January 20, 1864 272

LOYALTY IN THE SENATE: THE IRON-CLAD OATH FOR SENATORS. Speech in the Senate, on a New Rule requiring the Oath of Loyalty for Senators, January 25, 1864 273

THE LATE HON. JOHN W. NOELL, REPRESENTATIVE OF MISSOURI. Remarks in the Senate, on his Death, February 1, 1864 293

RECONSTRUCTION AGAIN: GUARANTIES AND SAFEGUARDS AGAINST SLAVERY AND FOR PROTECTION OF FREEDMEN. Resolutions in the Senate, February 8, 1864 295

PRAYER OF ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND. Speech in the Senate, on presenting a Petition of the Women’s National League, praying Universal Emancipation by Act of Congress, February 9, 1864 300

EQUAL PAY OF COLORED SOLDIERS. Remarks in the Senate, on Different Propositions, February 10, 29, and June 11, 1864 304

OPENING OF THE STREET-CARS TO COLORED PERSONS. Speeches in the Senate, on Various Propositions, February 10, March 17, June 21, 1864 323

WRONG AND UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF FUGITIVE SLAVE ACTS. Report in the Senate, of the Committee on Slavery and Freedmen, February 29, 1864 338

OUR FOREIGN RELATIONS:

SHOWING

PRESENT PERILS FROM ENGLAND AND FRANCE, NATURE AND CONDITION OF INTERVENTION BY MEDIATION AND ALSO BY RECOGNITION, IMPOSSIBILITY OF ANY RECOGNITION OF A NEW POWER WITH SLAVERY AS A CORNER-STONE, AND WRONGFUL CONCESSION OF OCEAN BELLIGERENCE.

SPEECH BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF NEW YORK, AT THE COOPER INSTITUTE, SEPTEMBER 10, 1863. WITH APPENDIX.

MARCUS. Quæro igitur a te, Quinte, sicut illi solent: Quo si civitas careat, ob eam ipsam causam, quod eo careat, pro nihilo habenda sit, id estne numerandum in bonis?

QUINTUS. Ac maximis quidem.

MARCUS. Lege autem carens civitas estne ob id ipsum habenda nullo loco?

QUINTUS. Dici aliter non potest.

MARCUS. _Necesse est igitur legem haberi in rebus optimis._

QUINTUS. Prorsus assentior.

CICERO, _De Legibus_, Lib. II. cap. 5.

* * * * *

I have told, O Britons! O my brethren! I have told Most bitter truth, but without bitterness. Nor deem my zeal or factious or mistimed; For never can true courage dwell with them Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look At their own vices.

COLERIDGE, _Sibylline Leaves: Fears in Solitude_.

* * * * *

’Tis therefore sober and good men are sad For England’s glory, seeing it wax pale And sickly.

COWPER, _The Task_, Book V. 509-511.

* * * * *

The Government condemns in the highest degree the conduct of any of our citizens who may personally engage in committing hostilities at sea against any of the nations parties to the present war, and will exert all the means with which the laws and Constitution have armed them to discover such as offend herein and bring them to condign punishment.… The practice of commissioning, equipping, and manning vessels in our ports to cruise on any of the belligerent parties is equally and entirely disapproved; and the Government will take effectual measures to prevent a repetition of it.--JEFFERSON, _Letter to Mr. Hammond, May 15, 1793_: Writings, Vol. III. p. 559.

* * * * *

One spot remains which oceans cannot wash out. The slavery of the African race, which the North Americans had inherited from the ancient monarchy, was adopted and fondly cherished by the new Republic.… The logic of the Constitution declared that all men were free: the pride and avarice of the slave-owners, disowning the image of the Creator and the brotherhood of nature, degraded men of a dark color, and even all the descendants of their sons and daughters, to a level with oxen and horses. But as oxen and horses never combine, and have no sense of wronged independence, oxen and horses are better treated than the men and women of African blood.… But neither the philosophical dogma of the authors of the Constitution, nor the strict pedantry of law, can stifle the cry of outraged humanity, nor still the current of human sympathy, nor arrest forever the decrees of Eternal Justice.--LORD JOHN RUSSELL, _Life and Times of Charles James Fox_, Vol. I. pp. 364, 365.

* * * * *

To this condition the Constitution of this Confederacy reduces the whole African race; and while declaring these to be its principles, the founders claim the privilege of being admitted into the society of the nations of the earth,--principles worthy only of being conceived and promulgated by the inmates of the infernal regions, and a fit constitution for a confederacy in Pandemonium. _Now, as soon as the nature of this Constitution is truly explained and understood, is it possible that the nations of the earth can admit such a Confederacy into their society? Can any nation calling itself civilized associate, with any sense of self-respect, with a nation avowing and practising such principles?_ Will not every civilized nation, when the nature of this Confederacy is understood, come to the side of the United States, and refuse all association with them, as, in truth, they are, _hostes humani generis_? For the African is as much entitled to be protected in the rights of humanity as any other portion of the human race. _As to Great Britain, her course is, in the nature of things, already fixed and immutable. She must sooner or later join the United States in this war, or be disgraced throughout all future time_; for the principle of that civilization which this Confederacy repudiates was by her--to her great glory, and with unparalleled sacrifices--introduced into the code of Civilization, and she will prove herself recreant, if she fails to maintain it.--JOSIAH QUINCY, _Address before the Union Club of Boston, February 27, 1863_.

* * * * *

If British merchants look with eagerness to the event of the struggle in South America, no doubt they do so with the hope of deriving advantage from that event. But on what is such hope founded? On the diffusion of beggary, on the maintenance of ignorance, on the confirmation of slavery, on the establishment of tyranny in America? No; these are the expectations of Ferdinand. The British merchant builds his hopes of trade and profit on the progress of civilization and good government, on the successful assertion of Freedom,--of Freedom, that parent of talent, that parent of heroism, that parent of every virtue. The fate of South America can only be accessory to commerce as it becomes accessory to the dignity and the happiness of the race of man.--SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH, _Speech in Parliament, on the Foreign Enlistment Bill, June 10, 1819_.

* * * * *

When a power comparable only to Thugs, buccaneers, and cannibals tries to thrust its hideous head among nations, and claims the protection and privileges of International Law,--a power which rose against the freest rule on earth for the avowed motive of propagating the worst form of Slavery ever known, having no legitimate complaint, or, if it had, certainly trying no constitutional means of redress, but plunging at once into arms, and that when the arsenals had been emptied and the fortresses seized by the treason of office-holders,--I hold it to be an offence against law, order, and public morality for a statesman whose words carry weight to speak at all of such a power without declaring abhorrence of it.--PROFESSOR FRANCIS W. NEWMAN, _Letter to Mr. Gladstone, December 1, 1862_.

* * * * *

I blame men who are eager to admit into the Family of Nations a state which offers itself to us, based upon a principle, I will undertake to say, more odious and more blasphemous than was ever heretofore dreamed of in Christian or Pagan, in civilized or in savage times. The leaders of this revolt propose this monstrous thing: that over a territory forty times as large as England the blight and curse of Slavery shall be forever perpetuated.--JOHN BRIGHT, _Speech at Birmingham, December 18, 1862_.

* * * * *

We are already culpable for a part of this bloody war; for, better informed or less indifferent, less selfish or more adroit, above all, more wise, more sincerely the friends of what is right, we could, from London and Paris, have thrown into the midst of the combatants this declaration, which would have rendered the conflict ephemeral: “Never will either England or France, Christian nations, liberal nations, recognize the existence of a people seeking to found Liberty and Independence on Slavery!” The misfortune of the times, in obscuring our judgment, in dulling our passion for the beautiful ideas of Freedom, has, then, already made us participants, in some respect, in the rebellion of the people of the South, and, in order to mask what was gross and low in our voluntary error, we set up vague reasons of commercial policy and general policy at which our fathers would have blushed.… The truth is, that the revolt of the South is the most impudent and most odious insult that has ever been offered to the ideas of modern Civilization.--JOURNAL DES ÉCONOMISTES, Avril, 1864, Tom. XLII. p. 88.

The following speech[1] was delivered at the invitation of the New York Young Men’s Republican Union, at Cooper Institute, on the 10th of September, 1863. The announcement that Mr. Sumner had consented to address the citizens of New York on a subject so momentous attracted an audience numbering not less than three thousand persons, among whom were most of the acknowledged representatives of the intelligence, wealth, and influence of the metropolis. Long before the hour appointed for the delivery of the speech, the entrance-doors were besieged by an impatient and anxious crowd, who, as soon as the gates were opened, filled the seats, aisles, lobbies, and platform of the vast hall, leaving at least an equal number to return home, unable to gain an entrance to the building.

Of the following named gentlemen, who were invited to occupy seats upon the platform, a majority were present, while in the auditorium were hundreds of equally prominent citizens, who preferred to retain seats near the ladies whom they had escorted to the meeting.

Francis Lieber, LL.D., George Bancroft, Major-General Dix, Horace Greeley, George Griswold, John E. Williams, W. W. DeForest, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Abram Wakeman, Rev. Dr. Tyng, Cyrus W. Field, Alexander T. Stewart, Horace Webster, LL.D., Joseph Lawrence, John A. Stevens, Pelatiah Perit, James A. Hamilton, H. B. Claflin, T. L. Thornell, Colonel William Borden, William Goodell, Rev. Dr. Thompson, Rev. Dr. Gillette, William Cullen Bryant, Major-General Fremont, A. A. Low, John Jay, Henry Grinnell, James Gallatin, Cephas Brainerd, William B. Astor, William H. Aspinwall, Oliver Johnson, W. M. Evarts, William Curtis Noyes, Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, Shepherd Knapp, William H. Webb, James W. Gerard, Anson Livingston, Frank W. Ballard, Isaac H. Bailey, George B. Lincoln, General Harvey Brown, Rev. Dr. Shedd, Rev. Dr. Durbin, Peter Cooper, Major-General Doubleday, Charles H. Marshall, Marshall O. Roberts, Judge Bradford, Charles H. Russell, E. Delafield Smith, Hamilton Fish, Robert B. Minturn, Rev. Dr. Cheever, F. B. Cutting, Charles King, LL.D., Rev. Dr. Ferris, Ex-Governor King, George Folsom, Samuel B. Ruggles, S. B. Chittenden, Charles T. Rodgers, Mark Hoyt, Lewis Tappan, Rev. Dr. Storrs, Rev. Dr. Adams, Rev. Dr. Vinton, Daniel Drew, Francis Hall, George William Curtis, Judge Edmonds, Rev. Dr. Asa D. Smith, Truman Smith, William A. Hall, Prosper M. Wetmore, B. F. Manierre, George P. Putnam, E. C. Johnson, Rev. Dr. Osgood, Elliott C. Cowdin, Rev. T. Ralston Smith, J. S. Schultz, M. Armstrong, Jr., D. A. Hawkins, Edgar Ketchum, Joseph Hoxie, Rev. Dr. Bellows, General S. C. Pomeroy, James McKaye, George F. Butman, David Dudley Field.

David Dudley Field, Esq., who had been selected by the Committee as Chairman of the meeting, introduced Mr. Sumner to the audience in the following words.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--At no former period in the history of the country has the condition of its foreign relations been so important and so critical as it is at this moment. In what agony of mortal struggle this nation has passed the last two years we all know. A rebellion of unparalleled extent, of indescribable enormity, without any justifiable cause, without even a decent pretext, stimulated by the bad passions which a barbarous institution had originated, and encouraged by expected and promised aid from false men among ourselves, has filled the land with desolation and mourning. During this struggle it has been our misfortune to encounter the evil disposition of the two nations of Western Europe with which we are most closely associated by ties of blood, common history, and mutual commerce. Perhaps I ought to have said the evil disposition of the governments, rather than of the nations; for in France the people have no voice, and we know only the imperial will and policy, while in England the masses have no powers, the House of Commons being elected by a fraction of the people, and the aristocratic classes being against us from dislike to the freedom of our institutions, and the mercantile classes from the most sordid motives of private gain. To what extent this evil disposition has been carried, what causes have stimulated it, in what acts it has manifested itself, and what consequences may be expected to follow from it in future, will be explained by the distinguished orator who is to address you this evening. His position as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has given him an acquaintance with the subject equal, if not superior, to that of any other person in the country. He needs no introduction from me. His name is an introduction and a passport in any free community between the Atlantic and the Pacific seas; therefore, without saying more, I will give way for CHARLES SUMNER, of Massachusetts.”

Amid the most marked demonstrations of satisfaction, expressed frequently by long-continued applause and hearty cheers, Mr. Sumner proceeded in the delivery of his discourse. The meeting adjourned about an hour before midnight.

Three New York newspapers and two in Boston printed the entire speech on the day following its delivery.

SPEECH.

FELLOW-CITIZENS,--From the beginning of the war in which we are now engaged, the public interest has alternated anxiously between the current of events at home and the more distant current abroad. Foreign Relations have been hardly less absorbing than Domestic Relations. At times the latter seem to wait upon the former, and a packet from Europe is like a messenger from the seat of war. Rumors of foreign intervention are constant, now in the form of mediation, and then in the form of recognition; and more than once the country has been summoned to confront the menace of England, and of France, too, in open combination with Rebel Slavemongers battling in the name of Slavery to build an infamous power on the destruction of this Republic.

It is well for us to turn aside from battle and siege at home, from the blazing lines of Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and Charleston, to glance for a moment at the perils from abroad: of course I mean from England and France; for these are the only foreign powers thus far moved to intermeddle on the side of Slavery. The subject to which I invite attention may want the attraction of waving standards or victorious marches; but, more than any conflict of arms, it concerns the civilization of the age. If foreign powers can justly interfere against human freedom, this Republic will not be the only sufferer.

* * * * *

There is always a natural order in unfolding a subject, and I shall try to pursue it on this occasion, under the following heads.

_First._ The perils to our country from foreign powers, especially foreshadowed in the unexpected and persistent conduct of England and France since the outbreak of the war.

_Secondly._ The nature of foreign intervention by mediation, with the principles applicable thereto, illustrated by historic instances, showing especially how England, by conspicuous, wide-spread, and most determined intervention to promote the extinction of African Slavery, _is irrevocably committed against any act or policy that can encourage this criminal pretension_.

_Thirdly._ The nature of foreign intervention by recognition, with the principles applicable thereto, illustrated by historic instances, showing that by the practice of nations, and especially by the declared sentiments of British statesmen, _there can be no foreign recognition of an insurgent power, where the contest for independence is still pending_.

_Fourthly._ The moral impossibility of foreign recognition, even if the pretended power be _de facto_ independent, where it is composed of Rebel Slavemongers seeking to found a _new_ power with Slavery for its declared “corner-stone.” Pardon the truthful plainness of the terms I employ. I am to speak not merely of Slaveholders, but of people to whom Slavery is a passion and a business, therefore Slavemongers,--now in rebellion for the sake of Slavery, therefore Rebel Slavemongers.

_Fifthly._ The absurdity and wrong of conceding ocean belligerence to a pretended power, which, in the first place, is without a Prize Court, so that it cannot be an ocean belligerent _in fact_,--and, in the second place, even if ocean belligerent _in fact_, is of such an odious character that its recognition is a moral impossibility.

From this review, touching upon the present and the past, leaning upon history and upon law, enlightened always by principles which are an unerring guide, our conclusion will be easy.

I.

The perils to our country, foreshadowed in the action of foreign powers since the outbreak of the war, first invite attention.

There is something in the tendencies of nations which must not be neglected. Like individuals, nations influence each other; like the heavenly bodies, they are disturbed by each other in their appointed orbits. Apparent even in peace, this becomes more so in the convulsions of war, whether from the withdrawal of customary forces or from their increased momentum. It is the nature of war to enlarge as it continues. Beginning between two nations, it gradually widens its circle, ingulfing other nations in its fiery maelström. Such is human history. Nor is it different, if the war be for independence. Foreign powers may for a while keep out of the conflict; but examples of history show how difficult this has been.