The Crime Against Kansas: The Apologies for the Crime; The True Remedy
Delivered to the United States Senate, 19-20 May 1856
by
Hon. Charles Sumner
[Excerpts]
MR. PRESIDENT, -- You are now called to redress
a great wrong. Seldom in the history of nations is such a question
presented. Tariffs, army bills, navy bills, land bills, are important,
and justly occupy your care; but these all belong to the course of ordinary
legislation. As means and instruments only, they are necessarily
subordinate to the conservation of Government itself. Grant them
or deny them, in greater or less degree, and you inflict no shock.
The machinery of Government continues to move. The State does not
cease to exist. Far otherwise is it with the eminent question now
before you, involving the peace of the whole country, with our good name
in history forevermore.
Take down your map, Sir, and you will find that
the Territory of Kansas, more than any other region, occupies the middle
spot of North America, equally distant from the Atlantic on the east and
the Pacific on the west, from the frozen waters of Hudson's Bay on the
north and the tepid Gulf Stream on the south, -- constituting the precise
geographical centre of the whole vast Continent. To such advantages
of situation, on the very highway between two oceans, are added a soil
of unsurpassed richness, and a fascinating, undulating beauty of surface,
with a health-giving climate, calculated to nurture a powerful and generous
people, worthy to be a central pivot of American institutions. A
few short months have hardly passed since this spacious mediterranean country
was open only to the savage, who ran wild in its woods and prairies; and
now it has drawn to its bosom a population of freemen larger than Athens
crowded within her historic gates....
Against this Territory, thus fortunate in position
and population, a Crime has been committed which is without example in
the records of the Past. Not in plundered provinces or in the cruelties
of selfish governors will you find its parallel....
The wickedness which I now begin to expose is
immeasurably aggravated by the motive which prompted it. Not in any
common lust for power did this uncommon tragedy have its origin.
It is the rape of a virgin Territory, compelling it to the hateful embrace
of Slavery; and it may be clearly traced to a depraved desire for a new
Slave State, hideous offspring of such a crime, in the hope of adding to
the power of Slavery in the National Government. Yes, Sir, when the
whole world, alike Christian and Turk, is rising up to condemn this wrong,
making it a hissing to the nations, here in our Republic, force -- ay,
Sir, FORCE -- is openly employed in compelling Kansas to this pollution,
and all for the sake of political power. There is the simple fact,
which you will vainly attempt to deny, but which in itself presents an
essential wickedness that makes other public crimes seem like public virtues.
This enormity, vast beyond comparison, swells
to dimensions of crime which the imagination toils in vain to grasp, when
it is understood that for this purpose are hazarded the horrors of intestine
feud, not only in this distant Territory, but everywhere throughout the
country. The muster has begun. The strife is no longer local,
but national. Even now, while I speak, portents lower in the horizon,
threatening to darken the land, which already palpitates with the mutterings
of civil war....
Such is the Crime which you are to judge.
The criminal also must be dragged into the day, what you may see and measure
the power by which all this wrong is sustained. From no common source
could it proceed. In its perpetration was needed a spirit of vaulting
ambition which would hesitate at nothing; a hardihood of purpose insensible
to the judgment of mankind; a madness for Slavery, in spite of Constitution,
laws, and all the great examples of our history; also consciousness of
power such as comes from the habit of power; a combination of energies
found only in a hundred arms directed by a hundred eyes; a control of Public
Opinion through venal pens and a prostituted press; an ability to subsidize
crowds in every vocation of life, -- the politician with his local importance,
the lawyer with his subtle tongue, and even the authority of the judge
on the bench, -- with a familiar use of men in places high and low, so
that none, from the President to the lowest border postmaster, should decline
to be its tool: all these things, and more, were needed, and they
were found in the Slave Power of our Republic. There, Sir, stands
the criminal, unmasked before you, heartless, grasping, and tyrannical,
with an audacity beyond that of Verres, a subtlety beyond that of Machiavel,
a meanness beyond that of Bacon, and an ability beyond that of Hastings.
Justice to Kansas can be secured only by the prostration of this influence;
for this is the Power behind -- greater than any President -- which succors
and sustains the Crime....
Such is the Crime and such the criminal which
it is my duty to expose; and, by the blessing of God, this duty shall be
done completely to the end. But this will not be enough. The
Apologies which, with strange hardihood, are offered for the Crime must
be torn away, so that it shall stand forth without a single rag or fig-leaf
to cover its vileness. And, finally, the True Remedy must be shown....
Before entering upon the argument, I must say
something of a general character, particularly in response to what has
fallen from Senators who have raised themselves to eminence on this floor
in championship of human wrong: I mean the Senator from South Carolina
[Mr. Butler] and the Senator from Illinois [Mr. Douglas], who, though unlike
as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, yet, like this couple, sally forth together
in the same adventure. I regret much to miss the elder Senator from
his seat; but the cause against which he has run a tilt, with such ebullition
of animosity, demands that the opportunity of exposing him should not be
lost; and it is for the cause that I speak. The Senator from South
Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous
knight, with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen
a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others,
is always lovely to him, -- though polluted in the sight of the world,
is chaste in his sight: I mean the harlot Slavery. For her
his tongue is always profuse in words. Let her be impeached in character,
or any proposition be made to shut her out from the extension of her wantonness,
and no extravagance of manner or hardihood of assertion is then too great
for this Senator. The frenzy of Don Quixote in behalf of his wench
Dulcinea del Toboso is all surpassed. The asserted rights of Slavery,
which shock equality of all kinds, are cloaked by a fantastic claim of
equality. If the Slave States cannot enjoy what, in mockery of the
great fathers of the Republic, he misnames Equality under the Constitution,
-- in other words, the full power in the National Territories to compel
fellow-men to unpaid toil, to separate husband and wife, and to sell little
children at the auction-block, -- then, Sir, the chivalric Senator will
conduct the State of South Carolina out of the Union! Heroic knight!
Exalted Senator! A second Moses come for a second exodus!
Not content with this poor menace, which we have
been twice told was "measured," the Senator, in the unrestrained chivalry
of his nature, has undertaken to apply opprobrious words to those who differ
from him on this floor. He calls them "sectional and fanatical";
and resistance to the Usurpation of Kansas he denounces as "an uncalculating
fanaticism." To be sure, these charges lack all grace of originality
and all sentiment of truth; but the adventurous Senator does not hesitate.
He is the uncompromising, unblushing representative on this floor of a
flagrant sectionalism, now domineering over the Republic, -- and yet, with
a ludicrous ignorance of his own position, unable to see himself as others
see him, or with an effrontery which even his white head ought not to protect
from rebuke, he applies to those here who resist his sectionalism the very
epithet which designates himself. The men who strive to bring back
the Government to its original policy, when Freedom and not Slavery was
national, while Slavery and not Freedom was sectional, he arraigns as sectional.
This will not do. It involves too great a perversion of terms.
I tell that Senator that it is to himself, and to the "organization" of
which he is the "committed advocate," that this epithet belongs.
I now fasten it upon them. For myself, I care little for names; but,
since the question is raised here, I affirm that the Republican party of
the Union is in no just sense sectional, but, more than any other party,
national, -- and that it now goes forth to dislodge from the high places
that tyrannical sectionalism of which the Senator from South Carolina is
one of the maddest zealots.
To the charge of fanaticism I also reply.
Sir, fanaticism is found in an enthusiasm or exaggeration of opinion, particularly
on religious subjects; but there may be fanaticism for evil as well as
for good. Now I will not deny that there are persons among us loving
Liberty too well for personal good in a selfish generation. Such
there may be; and, for the sake of their example, would that there were
more! In calling them "fanatics," you cast contumely upon the noble
army of martyrs, from the earliest day down to this hour, -- upon
the great tribunes of human rights, by whom life, liberty, and happiness
on earth have been secured, -- upon the long line of devoted patriots,
who, throughout history have truly loved their country, -- and upon all
who, in noble aspiration for the general good, and in forgetfulness of
self, have stood out before their age, and gathered into their generous
bosoms the shafts of tyranny and wrong, in order to make a pathway for
Truth; -- you discredit Luther, when alone he nailed his articles to the
door of the church at Wittenberg, and then to the imperial demand that
he should retract firmly replied, "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise,
so help me God!".... And in this same dreary catalogue faithful History
must record all who now, in an enlightened age, and in a land of boasted
Freedom, stand up, in perversion of the Constitution, and in denial of
immortal truth, to fasten a new shackle upon their fellow-man. If
the Senator wishes to see fanatics, let him look round among his own associates,
-- let him look at himself....
Mr. President, I mean to keep absolutely within
the limits of parliamentary propriety. I make no personal imputations,
but only with frankness, such as belongs to the occasion and my own character,
describe a great historical act, now enrolled in the Capitol. Sir,
the Nebraska Bill was in every respect a swindle. It was a swindle
of the North by the South. On the part of those who had already completely
enjoyed their share of the Missouri Compromise, it was a swindle of those
whose share was yet absolutely untouched; and the plea of unconstitutionality
set up -- like the plea of usury after the borrowed money has been enjoyed
-- did not make it less a swindle. Urged as a bill of peace, it was
a swindle of the whole country. Urged as opening the doors to slave-masters
with their slaves, it was a swindle of Popular Sovereignty in its asserted
doctrine. Urged as sanctioning Popular Sovereignty, it was a swindle
of slave-masters in their asserted rights. It was a swindle of a
broad territory, thus cheated of protection against Slavery. It was
a swindle of a great cause, early espoused by Washington, Franklin, and
Jefferson, surrounded by the best fathers of the Republic. Sir, it
was a swindle of God-given, inalienable rights. Turn it over, look
at it on all sides, and it is everywhere a swindle; and if the word I now
employ has not the authority of classical usage, it has, on this occasion,
the indubitable authority of fitness. No other word will adequately
express the mingled meanness and wickedness of the cheat....
[Sumner characterizes the electoral fraud, mob
violence, and tainted government of pro-slavery Kansas.]
Thus was the Crime consummated. Slavery
stands erect, clanking its chains on the Territory of Kansas, surrounded
by a code of death, and trampling upon all cherished liberties, whether
of speech, the press, the bar, the trial by jury, or the electoral franchise.
And, Sir, all this is done, not merely to introduce a wrong which in itself
is a denial of all rights, and in dread of which mothers have taken the
lives of their offspring, -- not merely, as is sometimes said, to protect
Slavery in Missouri, since it is futile for this State to complain of Freedom
on the side of Kansas, when Freedom exists without complaint on the side
of Iowa, and also on the side of Illinois, -- but it is done for the sake
of political power, in order to bring two new slaveholding Senators upon
this floor, and thus to fortify in the National Government the desperate
chances of a waning Oligarchy. As the gallant ship, voyaging on pleasant
summer seas, is assailed by a pirate crew, and plundered of doubloons and
dollars, so is this beautiful Territory now assailed in peace and prosperity,
and robbed of its political power for the sake of Slavery. Even now
the black flag of the land pirates from Missouri waves at the mast-head;
in their laws you hear the pirate yell and see the flash of the pirate
knife; while, incredible to relate, the President, gathering the Slave
Power at his back, testifies a pirate sympathy.
Sir, all this was done in the name of Popular
Sovereignty. And this is the close of the tragedy. Popular
Sovereignty, which, when truly understood, is a fountain of just power,
has ended in Popular Slavery, -- not in the subjection of the unhappy African
race merely, but of this proud Caucasian blood which you boast. The
profession with which you began, of All by the People, is lost in the wretched
reality of Nothing for the People....
With regret I come again upon the Senator from
South Carolina [Mr. Butler], who, omnipresent in this debate, overflows
with rage at the simple suggestion that Kansas has applied for admission
as a State, and, with incoherent phrase, discharges the loose expectoration
of his speech, now upon her representative, and then upon her people.
There was no extravagance of the ancient Parliamentary debate which he
did not repeat; nor was there any possible deviation from truth which he
did not make, -- with so much of passion, I gladly add, as to save him
from the suspicion of intentional aberration. But the Senator touches
nothing which he does not disfigure -- with error, sometimes of principle,
sometimes of fact. He shows an incapacity of accuracy, whether in
stating the Constitution or in stating the law, whether in details of statistics
or diversions of scholarship. He cannot ope[n] his mouth, but out
there flies a blunder....
But it is against the people of Kansas that the
sensibilities of the Senator are particularly aroused. Coming, as
he announces, "from a State," -- ay, Sir, from South Carolina, -- he turns
with lordly disgust from this newly formed community, which he will not
recognize even as "a member of the body politic." Pray, Sir, by what
title does he indulge in this egotism? Has he read the history of
the "State" which he represents? He cannot, surely, forget its shameful
imbecility from Slavery, confessed throughout the Revolution, followed
by its more shameful assumptions for Slavery since. He cannot forget
its wretched persistence in the slave-trade, as the very apple of its eye,
and the condition of its participation in the Union. He cannot forget
its Constitution, which is republican only in name, confirming power in
the hands of the few, and founding the qualifications of its legislators
on "a settled freehold estate of five hundred acres of land and ten negroes."
And yet the Senator to whom this "State" has in part committed the guardianship
of its good name, instead of moving with backward-treading steps to cover
its nakedness, rushes forward, in the very ecstasy of madness, to expose
it, by provoking comparison with Kansas. South Carolina is old; Kansas
is young. South Carolina counts in centuries, where Kansas counts
by years. But a beneficent example may be born in a day; and I venture
to declare, that against the two centuries of the older "State" may be
set already the two years of trial, evolving corresponding virtue, in the
younger community. In the one is the long wail of Slavery; in the
other, the hymn of Freedom. And if we glance at special achievement,
it will be difficult to find anything in the history of South Carolina
which presents so much of heroic spirit in an heroic cause as shines in
that repulse of the Missouri invaders by the beleaguered town of Lawrence,
where even the women gave their effective efforts to Freedom....
Were the whole history of South Carolina blotted out of existence, from
its very beginning down to the day of the last election of the Senator
to his present seat on this floor, civilization might lose -- I do not
say how little, but surely less than it has already gained by the example
of Kansas, in that valiant struggle against oppression, and in the development
of a new science of emigration. Already in Lawrence alone are newspapers
and schools, including a High School, -- and throughout this infant Territory
there is more of educated talent, in proportion to its inhabitants, than
in his vaunted "State." Ah, Sir, I tell the Senator, that Kansas,
welcome as a Free State, "a ministering angel shall be" to the Republic,
when South Carolina, in the cloak of darkness which she hugs, "lies howling...."
The contest, which, beginning in Kansas, reaches
us will be transferred soon from Congress to that broader stage, where
every citizen is not only spectator, but actor; and to their judgment I
confidently turn. To the People, about to exercise the electoral
franchise, in choosing a Chief Magistrate of the Republic, I appeal, to
vindicate the electoral franchise in Kansas. Let the ballot-box of
the Union, with multitudinous might, protect the ballot-box in that Territory.
Let the voters everywhere, while rejoicing in their own rights, help guard
the equal rights of distant fellow-citizens, that the shrines of popular
institutions, now desecrated, may be sanctified anew, -- that the ballot-box,
now plundered, may be restored, -- and that the cry, "I am an American
citizen," shall no longer be impotent against outrage. In just regard
for free labor, which you would blast by deadly contact with slave labor,
-- in Christian sympathy with the slave, whom you would task and sell,
-- in stern condemnation of the Crime consummated on that beautiful soil,
-- in rescue of fellow-citizens, now subjugated to Tyrannical Usurpation,
-- in dutiful respect for the early Fathers, whose aspirations are ignobly
thwarted, -- in the name of the Constitution outraged, of the Laws trampled
down, of Justice banished, of Humanity degraded, of Peace destroyed, of
Freedom crushed to earth, -- and in the name of the Heavenly Father, whose
service is perfect freedom, I make this last appeal.
SOURCE: The Works of Charles Sumner,
vol. IV (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1870-1873), pages 125-249.
This document and others linked to it through
the America's Civil War World Wide Web site are produced and made
available for the non-profit educational use of students at the University
of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee. Visitors to these pages are enjoined
against copyright infringement or for-profit applications.
|
