Speech Of Hon Charles Sumner Of Massachusetts On Maritime Rights

Author : Charles Sumner
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781330994122
Total Pages : 34 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (941 download)

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Download or read book Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts written by Charles Sumner and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-08 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts: Delivered in the Senate of the United States, May 31, 1872 The sundry civil appropriation bill coming up as unfinished business. Mr. Sumner moved to postpone inde nitely its consideration, and proceeded to review the report of the Committee on the Sale of Arms to French agents. Mr. Sumner then said: Mr. President: I have no hesitation in declaring myself a member of the Republican party and one of the straitest of the sect. I doubt if any Senator can point to earlier or more constant service in its behalf. I began at the beginning, and from that early day have never failed to sustain its candidates and to advance its principles. For these I have labored always by speech and vote, in the Senate and elsewhere, at first with few only, but at last as success began to dawn then with multitudes flocking forward. In this cause I never asked who were my associates or how many they would number. In the consciousness of right I was willing to be alone. To such a party, with which so much of thy life is intertwined, I have no common attachment. Not without regret can I see it suffer; not without a pang can I see it changed from its original character, for such a change is death. Therefore do not ask, with no common feeling, that the peril which menaces it may pass away. I stood by its cradle; let me not follow its hearse. Origin and Object of the Republican Party. Turning hack to its birth, I recall a speech of my own at a State convention in Massachusetts, as far back as September 7, 1854, where I vindicated its principles and announced its name in these words: "As Republicans we go forth to encounter the Oligarchs of Slavery." The report records the applause with which this name was received by the excited multitude. Years of conflict ensued, in which the good cause constantly gained. At last, in the summer of 1800, Abraham Lincoln was nominated by this party as its candidate for the Presidency; and here pardon me if I refer again to myself. On my way home from the Senate I was detained in New York by the invitation of party friends to speak at the Cooper Institute on the issues of the pending election. The speech was made July 12, and, I believe. was the earliest of the campaign. As published at the time it was entitled "Origin, Necessity, anti Permanence of the Republican Party," and to exhibit these was its precise object. Both the necessity and permanence of the party were asserted. A brief passage, which I take from the report in the New York Herald, will show the duly and destiny I ventured then to hold up. Alter dwelling on the evils of Slavery and the corruptions it had engendered, including the purchase of votes at the polls, I proceeded as follows: "Therefore just so long as the present false theories of slavery prevail, whether concerning its character morally, economically, and socially, or concerning its prerogatives under the Constitution, just so long as the Slave Oligarchy, which is the sleepless and unhesitating agent of Slavery in all its pretensions, continues to exist as a political power, the Republican party must endure. [Applause.] If bad men conspire for Slavery, good men must combine for Freedom. ['Good, good!'] Nor can the holy war be ended until the barbarism now dominant in the Republic is overthrown and the Pagan power is driven from our Jerusalem. [Applause.] And when the triumph is won, securing the immediate object of our organization, the Republican party will not die, but purified by its long contest with Slavery and filled with higher life, it will be lifted to yet other efforts with nobler aims for the no of man. [Applause, three cheers for Lincoln.]" Such, on the eve of the presidential election, was my description of the Republican party and my aspiration for its future. It was not to die, but purified by long contest with Slavery and filled with higher life, we were to beho."