at least was kept blameless.
And now, after generations have passed, surrounded by the light of
Christian truth and in the very blaze of human freedom, it is proposed
to admit into the Constitution the twin idea of inequality in rights,
and thus openly set at naught the first principles of the Declaration
of Independence and the guarantee of republican government itself,
while you blot out a whole race politically. For some time we have
been carefully expunging from the statute-books the word 'white,' and
now it is proposed to insert into the Constitution itself a distinction
of color."

Upon this foundation Mr. Sumner spoke at great length, his speech
filling forty-one columns of the _Congressional Globe_. It would
hardly be proper indeed to call it a speech. It was a great historic
review of the foundation of the Republics of the world, an exhaustive
analysis of what constituted a true republic, closing with an eloquent
plea for the ballot for the freedmen. He demanded "enfranchisement
for the sake of the public security and public faith." He pleaded for
the ballot as "the great guarantee." The ballot, he declared, "is a
peacemaker, a schoolmaster, a protector." "Show me," said he, as he
approached the conclusion of his speech--"show me a creature with erect
countenance and looking to heaven, made in the image of God, and I show
you a man who, of whatever country or race--whether darkened by
equatorial sun or blanched with the northern cold--is an equal with you
before the heavenly Father, and equally with you entitled to all the
rights of human nature." . . . "You cannot deny these rights without
impiety. God has so linked the National welfare with National duty
that you cannot deny these rights without peril to the Republic. It is
not enough that you have given liberty. By the same title that we
claim liberty do we claim equality also. . . . The Roman Cato, after
declaring his belief in the immortality of the soul, added, that if
this were an error it was an error that he loved; and now, declaring
my belief in liberty and equality as the God-given birthright of all
men, let me say in the same spirit, if this be an error it is an error
which I love; if this be a fault it is a fault which I shall be slow to
renounce; if this be an illusion it is an illusion which I pray may
wrap the world in its angelic form."

Mr. Sumner's speech may be regarded as an exhaustive and masterly
essay, unfolding and illustrat