SUMNER ON THE 15TH AMENDMENT (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.)--RECONSTRUCTION. SUMNER, CHARLES. Autograph Manuscript Page from an undelivered speech. One page folio. Np, before February, 1870
Apparently unpublished manuscript by the Senator who is best remembered for his outspoken abolitionist stance and his encounter with the cane-wielding Preston Brooks of South Carolina, who very nearly beat Sumner to death on the Senate floor. Sumner is resolute in his refusal to compromise on the issue of equality. "(4) This attempted exclusion is unjust. It constitutes a part of that terrible system of injustice, which is the product of Slavery. It is slavery still living and breathing among us which dictates this exclusion. When the influence of Slavery has finally disappeared nothing will excite more wonder than the palpable injustice which it organized even against free colored persons." "(5) A Proposition to confer the whole power of govt. upon all of a certain complexion-constitutes an oligarchy of the skin-the most senseless & disgusting oligarchy of all history. No argt., no reason & no practice can make any such oligarchy otherwise than detestable. The only true rule will be found in that Equality before the law, which knows no distinction of persons."
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