Text of the FREEDOM NATIONAL; SLAVERY SECTIONAL Speech by Charles Sumner to repeal the national Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
Charles Sumner’s 1851 election marked a stark reversal by Massachusetts voters since his abolitionist politics contrasted sharply with those of his renowned predecessor, Daniel Webster, one of the proponents of the Compromise of 1850 and its constituent Fugitive Slave Act. Sumner’s inflexible sectional agitation made him “The South’s most hated foe and the Negro’s bravest friend.”
At right, a scarce, early CDV of Sumner by J. W. Hurn, Philadelphia, PA, c. 1850.
At left, a 31-page pamphlet recites the recent speech by Senator Charles Sumner. Printed in Washington, DC, still with its original covers, it contains the stalwart Abolitionist’s well-researched, day-long address before Congress of August 26, 1852. In it, Sumner levels scathing indictments on slavery and southern hegemony in arguing for repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act, which required every U.S. citizen to inform police and aid in returning escaped slaves to their masters.
On page 8, Sumner’s examination of the Constitution and the writings and recorded statements of its framers, concludes: “Thus distinctly and constantly, from the very lips of the framers of the Constitution, we learn the falsehood of the recent assumptions in [their] favor of Slavery and in derogation of Freedom.” He says on page 16, in part:
“At last, in 1850, we have another Act, passed by both Houses of Congress and approved by the President, familiarly known as the Fugitive Slave Bill. As I read this statute, I am filled with painful emotions. The masterly subtlety with which it is drawn, might challenge admiration, if exerted for a benevolent purpose; but in an age of sensibility and refinement, a machine of torture, however skilful [sic] and apt, cannot be regarded without horror. Sir, in the name of the Constitution which it violates; of my country which it dishonors; of Christianity which it offends, I arraign this enactment, and now hold it up to the judgment of the Senate authority and the world … Sir, there is no attribute of God which does not unite against this Act.”
And, regarding the Act’s denying rights for persons claimed as fugitives, on page 21, in part: “These proceedings determine … not merely Liberty for a day or a year, but for life, and the Liberty of generations that shall come after [and that] ‘No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, without a Trial by Jury.'”
The 1850s would prove a contentious and violent decade with three weak presidents and a Congress out of touch with an electorate that frequently came to blows over slavery’s expansion.
Senator Sumner’s anti-slavery speeches became even longer and pointedly vehement. Incensed over the murderous sack of Lawrence, KS, by pro-slavery militia on May 21, 1856, Sumner delivered a two-day-long speech wherein he unleashed a personal tirade against SC Senator Andrew Butler, declaring, “Senator Butler has chosen a mistress: I mean the harlot, slavery.” Two days later, a distant cousin of Butler, Congressman Preston Brooks, in a thoroughly drunken condition, visited the Senate Chamber already in session to unleash a frenzy of blows with a gold-headed, walking stick upon Sumner who nearly died from head wounds. Two southern representatives accompanying Brooks had used a pistol to prevent anyone intervening.
To celebrate the caning, Southern lawmakers presented Brooks with canes. Sumner afterwards suffered from what we now term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and would not permanently return to Congress for three and a half years. Congress would not repeal the Fugitive Slave Law until January 28, 1864.