Part 1

Statesman Edition Vol. XIX

Charles Sumner

HIS COMPLETE WORKS

With Introduction BY HON. GEORGE FRISBIE HOAR

BOSTON LEE AND SHEPARD MCM

COPYRIGHT, 1882, BY FRANCIS V. BALCH, EXECUTOR.

COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY LEE AND SHEPARD.

Statesman Edition. LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND COPIES. OF WHICH THIS IS No. 320

Norwood Press: NORWOOD, MASS., U.S.A.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME XIX.

PAGE

COLORED SCHOOLS IN WASHINGTON. Speech in the Senate, February 8, 1871 1

HON. JOHN COVODE, LATE REPRESENTATIVE OF PENNSYLVANIA. Speech in the Senate, on his Death, February 10, 1871 12

ITALIAN UNITY AGAIN. Letter to a Public Meeting at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, February 21, 1871 15

VIOLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, AND USURPATIONS OF WAR POWERS. Speech in the Senate, on his San Domingo Resolutions, March 27, 1871 16

PERSONAL RELATIONS WITH THE PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY OF STATE. AN EXPLANATION IN REPLY TO AN ASSAULT. Statement prepared for Presentation to the Senate, March, 1871 99

THE KU-KLUX-KLAN. Speech in the Senate, on the Bill to enforce the Provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, April 13, 1871 125

OUR DUTY AGAINST WRONG. Letter to the Reform League, New York, May 8, 1871 131

POWER OF THE SENATE TO IMPRISON RECUSANT WITNESSES. Speeches in the Senate, May 18 and 27, 1871 132

THE HAYTIAN MEDAL. Response to the Letter of Presentation, July 13, 1871 154

EQUALITY OF RIGHTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Letter to George W. Walker, President of the Board of School Directors of Jefferson, Texas, July 28, 1871 158

PEACE AND THE REPUBLIC FOR FRANCE. Remarks in Music Hall, Boston, introducing M. Athanase Coquerel, of Paris, October 9, 1871 159

THE GREAT FIRE AT CHICAGO, AND OUR DUTY. Speech at Faneuil Hall, at a Meeting for the Relief of Sufferers at Chicago, October 10, 1871 161

RIGHTS AND DUTIES OR OUR COLORED FELLOW-CITIZENS. Letter to the National Convention of Colored Citizens at Columbia, South Carolina, October 12, 1871 164

ONE TERM FOR PRESIDENT. Resolution and Remarks in the Senate, December 21, 1871 168

THE BEST PORTRAITS IN ENGRAVING. Article in “The City,” an Illustrated Magazine, New York, January 1, 1872 175

EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW PROTECTED BY NATIONAL STATUTE. Speeches in the Senate, on his Supplementary Civil Rights Bill, as an Amendment to the Amnesty Bill. January 15, 17, 31, February 5, and May 21, 1872 203

COLORED SCHOOLS IN WASHINGTON.

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, FEBRUARY 8, 1871.

On the motion of Mr. Patterson, of New Hampshire, Chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia, to strike out from a bill relative to schools in the District the clause,--

“And no distinction, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, shall be made in the admission of pupils to any of the schools under the control of the Board of Education, or in the mode of education or treatment of pupils in such schools,”--

Mr. Sumner said:--

MR. PRESIDENT,--My friend, the Chairman of the Committee, says that this proposition is correct in principle. But to my mind nothing is clearer than that where anything is correct in principle it must by inevitable law be correct in practice. Nobody here makes this law,--not the Senate, not Congress. By a higher law than any from human power, whatever is correct in principle must be correct in practice.

I stand on this rule. It is the teaching of all history; it is the teaching of human life; especially is it the teaching of our national experience during these latter eventful years. How often have propositions been opposed in this Chamber as correct in principle, but not practical! And how often what was correct in principle triumphed over every obstacle! When the proposition for the abolition of Slavery in the District was brought forward, we were told that it was correct in principle, but that it would not work well,--that it was not practical! So when the proposition was brought forward to give the colored people the right to testify in court, we were assured that it was correct in principle, but that it would not be practical.

The same objection was made to the proposition that colored people should ride in the horse-cars; and I was gravely told that white people would not use the cars, if they were opened to colored people. The proposition prevailed, and you and others know whether any injury therefrom has been done to the cars.

Then, again, when it was proposed to give the ballot to all, it was announced that it might be correct in principle, but that it was not practical; and I, Sir, was seriously assured by an eminent citizen that it would bring about massacre at the polls.

Now that it is proposed to apply the same principle to the schools, we are again assured, with equal seriousness and gravity, that, though correct in principle, it is not practical. Sir, I take issue on that general proposition. I insist that whatever is correct in principle is practical. Anything else would make this world a failure, and obedience to the laws of God impossible.

The provision which my friend would strike out is simply to carry into education the same principle which we have carried into the court-room, into the horse-car, and to the ballot-box: that is all. If there be any argument in favor of the provision in these other cases, allow me to say that it is stronger in the school-room, inasmuch as the child is more impressionable than the man. You should not begin life with a rule that sanctions a prejudice. Therefore do I insist, especially for the sake of children, for the sake of those tender years most susceptible to human influence, that we should banish a rule which will make them grow up with a separation which will be to them a burden: a burden to the white; for every prejudice is a burden to him who has it; and a burden to the black, who will suffer always under the degradation.

With what consistency can you deny to the child equal rights in the school-room and then give him equal rights at the ballot-box? Having already accorded equal rights at the ballot-box, I insist upon his equal right in the school-room also. One is the complement of the other. It is not enough to give him a separate school, where he may have the same kind of education with the white child. He will not have the same kind of education. Every child, white or black, has a right to be placed under precisely the same influences, with the same teachers, in the same school-room, without any discrimination founded on his color. You disown distinctions of sect: why keep up those of color?

A great protection to the colored child, and a great assurance of his education, will be that he is educated on the same benches and by the same teachers with the white child. You may give him what is sometimes called an equivalent in another school; but this is not equality. His right is to equality, and not to equivalency. He has equality only when he comes into your common-school and finds no exclusion there on account of his skin.

Strike out this provision, and you will say to the children of this District: “There is a prejudice of color which we sanction; continue it; grow up with it in your souls.” And worse still, the prejudice which you sanction will extend from this centre over the whole country. This is a centre, and not a corner. What we do here will be an example in distant places.

My friend says that this provision will hurt the schools. Pardon me; he is mistaken. It will help the schools. Everything that brings the schools into harmony with great principles and with divine truth must help them. Anything that makes them antagonistic to great principles and to divine truth hurts them. Strike out this provision, and you hurt them seriously, vitally,--you stab them here in the house of their friends. In a bill to promote education you deal it a fatal blow.

Sir, as I cherish education, as I love freedom, as at all times I stand by human rights, so do I cherish, love, and stand by this safeguard. It is worth the whole bill. Strike it out, and the bill is too poor to be adopted. If it should be passed, thus shorn,--I say it, Sir, because I must say it,--it will bring disgrace upon Congress.

To the colored people here we owe, certainly, equality; we owe to them the practical recognition of the promises of the Declaration of Independence; and still further, we must see that the common schools of this District are an example throughout the country. We cannot afford to do less. Everywhere throughout the region lately cursed by Slavery this dark prejudice still lingers and lowers. From our vantage-ground here we must strike it, and, according to our power, destroy it. But if the proposition of my friend prevails, you will encourage and foster it.

Now, Sir, against the statement of my friend, the Chairman, I oppose the statement of experts,--I oppose a statement which, I venture to say here, cannot be answered. It is not my statement. I should not venture to say anything like that of anything that I said. I oppose a Report made by the Trustees of the Colored Schools in Washington, and I ask the attention of the Senate to what I read. It is a Report made to the Secretary of the Interior, December 31, 1870, and communicated to the Senate by the Secretary, January 18, 1871.[1] Under the head of “Need of Additional Legislation” the Trustees of the Colored Schools express themselves as follows:--

“It is our judgment that the best interests of the colored people of this capital, and not theirs alone, but those of all classes, require the abrogation of all laws and institutions creating or tending to perpetuate distinctions based on color, and the enactment in their stead of such provisions as shall secure equal privileges to all classes of citizens. The laws creating the present system of separate schools for colored children in this District were enacted as a temporary expedient to meet a condition of things which has now passed away.”[2]

How wise is that remark! These are colored men who wrote this. They say:--

“The laws creating the present system of separate schools for colored children in this District were enacted as a temporary expedient to meet a condition of things which has now passed away.”

That condition of things was a part of the legacy of Slavery. They then proceed:--

“That they recognize and tend to perpetuate a cruel, unreasonable, and unchristian prejudice, which has been and is the source of untold wrong and injustice to that class of the community which we represent, is ample reason for their modification. The experience of this community for the last few years has fully demonstrated that the association of different races, in their daily occupations and civic duties, is as consistent with the general convenience as it is with justice. And custom is now fully reconciled at this capital to the seating side by side of white and colored people in the railway car, the jury-box, the municipal and Government offices, in the city councils, and even in the Halls of the two Houses of Congress. Yet, while the fathers may sit together in those high places of honor and trust, the children are required by law to be educated apart. We see neither reason nor justice in this discrimination. If the fathers are fit to associate, why are not the children equally so?”[3]

I should like my honorable friend, the Chairman, to answer that question, when I have finished this Report: “If the fathers are fit to associate, why are not the children equally so?” The Report then proceeds:--

“Children, naturally, are not affected by this prejudice of race or color. To educate them in separate schools tends to beget and intensify it in their young minds, and so to perpetuate it to future generations. If it is the intention of the United States that these children shall become citizens in fact, equal before the law with all others, why train them to recognize these unjust and impolitic distinctions?”[4]

Here I would interpose the further inquiry, Why will you make your school-house the nursery of prejudice inconsistent with the declared principles of your institutions? The Report proceeds:--

“To do so is not only contrary to reason, but also to the injunction of Scripture, which says, ‘Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.’”[5]

And yet, could my friend prevail, he would train up a child in the way he should _not_ go; but he would not, I know, encourage him in this prejudice. The Report proceeds:--

“Objection to the step here recommended has been made on the ground of expediency. Every advanced step in the same direction has been opposed on the same superficial allegation.

“The right of the colored man to ride in the railway cars, to cast the ballot, to sit on the jury, to hold office, and even to bear arms in defence of his country, has encountered the same objection. We are confident that it will prove of no greater weight in the present case than it has in the others. There is no argument for equality at the ballot-box, in the cars, on the jury, in holding office and bearing arms, which is not equally applicable in the present case. We may go further, and insist that equality in the other cases requires equality here; otherwise the whole system is incomplete and inharmonious.”[6]

Now my friend, the Chairman, would make the system incomplete and inharmonious. He would continue here at the base that discord which he would be one of the last to recognize in the higher stages. The Report proceeds:--

“It is worthy of note in this connection, that some of the most distinguished men in literary, social, and political circles in this section of the country have recently, in setting forth their claims to be considered the best and truest friends of the people of color, taken pains to inform the public that they were reared with colored children, played with them in the sports of childhood, and were even suckled by colored nurses in infancy; hence, that no prejudice against color exists on their part. If this be so, then with what show of consistency or reason can they object to the children of both classes sitting side by side in school?

“That the custom of separation on account of color must disappear from our public schools, as it has from our halls of justice and of legislation, we regard as but a question of time. Whether this unjust, unreasonable, and unchristian discrimination against our children shall continue at the capital of this great Republic is for the wisdom of Congress to determine.

“We deem it proper to add, that a bill now before the honorable Senate, entitled ‘A bill to secure equal rights in the public schools of Washington and Georgetown,’ (Senate, No. 361, Forty-First Congress, Second Session,) reported to that body May 6, 1870, by Mr. Senator Sumner, meets our approbation. It is plain and simple, and prescribes the true rule of equality for our schools. This bill is in the nature of a ‘corner-stone.’”[7]

This Report, so honorable to these Trustees, showing that they have a true appreciation of principle, also of what they owe to themselves and their race, and I trust also a true appreciation of what they may justly expect from Congress, concludes as follows:--

“In conclusion, the Trustees suggest that those equal educational advantages to which all children are entitled, in accordance with the great principle of Equality before the Law, can be obtained only through the common school, where all children meet together in the enjoyment of the same opportunities, the same improvements, and the same instructions. Whatever then is done for white children will be shared by their colored brethren, and all shall enjoy the same care and supervision.”[8]

This is signed, “William Syphax, William H. A. Wormley, Trustees of Colored Schools.”

There is then a Minority Report, signed, “Charles King, Trustee of Colored Schools of Washington and Georgetown,” dissenting in some respects from the Majority Report, but coïnciding with it absolutely on this most important question. From the Minority Report I read as follows:--

“In reference to schools of mixed races I think a difference of opinion may exist among the real friends of the colored people; but the time is rapidly approaching when this discrimination must be obliterated all over our country, and I know of no better locality in which to make a beginning than in the District of Columbia, and no better time than the present.”[9]

Sir, these are wise words. That is well put; whatever may be the difficulties elsewhere, they should not be allowed to prevail here. This member of the Board knows “no better locality in which to make a beginning than in the District of Columbia, and no better time than the present.”

He then proceeds:--

“Let all discrimination on account of color be avoided in the public schools of Washington, let them be amply provided for in respect to funds and teachers, and a very few years will see the example followed all over our free country. The colored race will feel the stimulating effects of direct competition with the white race, their ambition and self-respect will grow under its influence and add dignity to their character, and rapidly develop a style and type of manhood that must place them on an equality with any of the other races of men.

“We have seen this prejudice die out on the field of battle, where white and colored have fought together for the same flag. It has been met and conquered at the ballot-box and in the halls of our local and general Legislatures, and why should it not receive the same fate in our school-rooms? Why educate American youth in the idea that superiority exists in the color of the skin, when our Declaration of Independence, of which we boast so much, flatly contradicts it?”[10]

Now, Sir, I might well leave this whole question on this remarkable statement by these colored Trustees. They have spoken for themselves, for their race, and for us. Who can speak better? I know not if anything can be added to their Reports. I content myself with one further word, concluding as I began.

The Senator from New Hampshire finds the principle correct, but not practical. To that I say, Try it. Try the principle, and it will be found practical. It will work. Never was there any correct principle that would not work. I know it is sometimes said that white parents would not send their children to the schools. How long would that be? One week, two weeks, one month, two months. Some might do so possibly for a brief time, just as for a brief time white persons refused to enter the street cars when they were opened to colored persons. It did not last long. According to my experience, men are not in the habit of biting off their own noses for any very long time. Life is too short to prolong this process; and I do not believe that the people of the District of Columbia would reject for their children the advantages of the common schools simply because these schools were brought into harmony with the promises of the Declaration of Independence.

HON. JOHN COVODE, LATE REPRESENTATIVE OF PENNSYLVANIA.

SPEECH IN THE SENATE, ON HIS DEATH, FEBRUARY 10, 1871.

MR. PRESIDENT,--I venture to interpose a brief word of sincere homage to the late JOHN COVODE. I call him John Covode, for so I heard him called always. Others are known by some title of honor or office, but he was known only by the simple name he bore. This familiar designation harmonized with his unassuming life and character.

During his long service in Congress I was in the Senate, so that I have been his contemporary. And now that he has gone before me, I owe my testimony to the simplicity, integrity, and patriotism of his public life. Always simple, always honest, always patriotic, he leaves a name which must be preserved in the history of Congress. In the long list of its members he will stand forth with an individuality not to be forgotten. How constantly and indefatigably he toiled the records of the other House declare. He was a doer rather than a speaker; but is not doing more than speech, unless in those rare cases where a speech is an act? But his speech had a plainness not without effect, especially before the people, where the facts and figures which he presented with honest voice were eloquent.

The Rebellion found this faithful Representative in his place, and from the first moment to the last he gave to its suppression time, inexhaustible energy, and that infinite treasure, the life of a son. He was for the most vigorous measures, whether in the field or in statesmanship. Slavery had no sanctity for him, and he insisted upon striking it. So also, when the Rebellion was suppressed, he insisted always upon those Equal Rights for All, without which the Declaration of Independence is an unperformed promise, and our nation a political bankrupt. In all these things he showed character and became a practical leader. There is heroism elsewhere than on fields of battle, and he displayed it. He was a civic hero. And here the bitterness which he encountered was the tribute to his virtue.

In doing honor to this much-deserving servant, I cannot err, if I add that nobody had more at heart the welfare of the Republican Party, with which, in his judgment, were associated the best interests of the Nation. He felt, that, giving to his party, he gave to his country and to mankind. His strong sense and the completeness of his devotion to party made him strenuous always for those commanding principles by which Humanity is advanced. Therefore was he for the unity of the party, that it might be directed with all its force for the good cause. Therefore was he against outside and disturbing questions, calculated to distract and divide. He saw the wrong they did to the party, and, in the relation of cause and effect, to the country. And here that frankness which was part of his nature became a power. He was always frank, whether with the people, with Congress, or with the President. I cannot forget his frankness with Abraham Lincoln, who, you know, liked frankness. On more than one occasion, with this good President his frankness conquered. Honorable as was such a victory to the simple Representative, it was more honorable to the President.