No Property in Man: Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, on the Proposed Amendment of the Constitution Abolishing Slavery Through the...

No Property in Man: Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, on the Proposed Amendment of the Constitution Abolishing Slavery Through the...
ISBN-10
1330605403
ISBN-13
9781330605400
Series
No Property in Man
Category
Political Science
Pages
34
Language
English
Published
2015-09-27
Author
Charles Sumner

Description

Excerpt from No Property in Man: Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, on the Proposed Amendment of the Constitution Abolishing Slavery Through the United States; In the Senate of the United States, April 8th, 1864 Constitution and to know the fatal words by which the sacrifice was commanded. The trembling with which he began its perusal would be succeeded by joy as he finished it; for he would find nothing in that golden text, not a single sentence, phrase, or word even, to serve as origin, authority, or apology, for the outrage. And then his astonishment, already knowing no bounds, would break forth anew, as he exclaimed, "Shameful and irrational as is slavery, it is not more shameful or irrational than that unsupported interpretation which undertakes to make your Constitution the final guardian and conservator of this terrible and unpardonable denial of human rights." Such a stranger as I have described, coming from afar, with eyes which no local bias had distorted, and with understanding which no local custom had disturbed, would naturally see the Constitution precisely as it is in its actual text, and he would interpret it in its true sense, without prepossession or prejudice. Of course he would know, what all jurisprudence teaches and what all reason confirms, that human rights cannot be taken away by any indirection or by any vain imagining of something that was intended but was not said, and, as a natural consequence, that slavery can exist - if exist it can at all - only by virtue of a positive text, and that what is true of slavery is true also of all its incidents; and the enlightened stranger would insist that, in all interpretation of the Constitution, that cardinal principal must never for a moment be out of mind, but must be kept ever forward as guide and master, that slavery cannot stand on inference, nor can any support of slavery stand on inference. Thus informed, and in the light of a pervasive principle, "How far that little candle throws his beams!" he would peruse the Constitution from beginning to end, from its opening preamble to its final amendment, and then the joyful opinion would be given. There are three things which he would observe: first and foremost, that the dismal words "slave" and "slavery" do not appear in the Constitution; so that if the unnatural pretension of property in man lurk anywhere in that text, it is under a feigned name or an alias, which of itself is cause of suspicion, while an imperative rule renders its recognition impossible. Next, he would consider the preamble, which is the key to open the whole succeeding instrument; but here no single word can be found which does not open the Constitution to freedom and close it to slavery. The object of the Constitution is announced to be "in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity;" all of which, in every particular, is absolutely inconsistent with slavery. And thirdly, he would observe those time-honored, most efficacious, chain-breaking words in the Amendments: "No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

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