Therefore, insisting upon the rights of colored persons here, I insist upon their rights everywhere. Nor do I see how I can abandon their rights here without abandoning them everywhere. We are Senators of the United States, bound to consider the whole country in all its extent, and to do nothing here which shall do mischief elsewhere; nor can we yield to any local pressure, or any imagined local interests, and thus forget the cause of justice.
It is vain to say that this measure is temporary; for, in plain terms, it undertakes to amend the charter of Washington. It is vain to say, also, that there is another bill now on your calendar regulating this whole question. Who can say that this bill will become a law? Ay, Sir, who can say, that, in the hurried hours of these closing days of a weary session, the bill will even be considered again? And yet on these grounds we are asked to abandon the present assertion of the rights of colored persons. If the bill conferring these rights can pass, so also can the present measure. If it be practical to assert these rights on one bill, it is equally practical to assert them on another, where such assertion is germane. It only remains that Senators should stand firm.
For myself, I will not sanction injustice; nor will I miss any opportunity of asserting the rights of an oppressed race. I may be alone; but, to the extent of my powers, I mean to be right.
Mr. Morrill appealed to Mr. Sumner to withdraw his opposition, saying: “Now, as a question of practical statesmanship, I submit to my honorable friend whether it is not the part of wisdom to say we will do this now and we will consider the other question when it comes up.” Mr. Harlan moved to amend by adding, “who have borne arms in the military service of the United States, and have been honorably discharged therefrom.” This amendment, limiting Mr. Sumner’s proposition, was agreed to,—Yeas 26, Nays 12.
May 28th, Mr. Sumner spoke again, and adduced the details of the recent outrage in Tennessee, saying, in conclusion:—
We all feel, Sir, the brutality of this act. It was done by a white man on the person of a colored woman. Would he have been the author of such a brutality, had the woman been white? No; because she was black, he thus insulted human nature, and performed an act never to be read without a blush that he is a member of the human family. And how are we to discountenance such acts? Is it by keeping alive this odious discrimination of color, by imparting to it the sanction of law, by investing it with the authority of this Chamber? I appeal to you, Senators, as men of humanity, do not continue a discrimination, which, proceeding from this Chamber, must exercise a far-reaching influence. It is not simply the question of a few voters more or less in the District, but it is a question of human rights everywhere throughout this land, involving the national character and its good name forevermore.
Again, in reply to Mr. Reverdy Johnson, Mr. Sumner said:—
But the Senator thinks that I am not logical, because I quote an outrage in Tennessee having its origin in the prejudice of color, and insist that here in this Chamber we shall not found legislation on a prejudice of color. Sir, I submit the question to the judgment of the Senate: Am I illogical, or is the Senator so? I insist, Sir, that you cannot sanction injustice here, especially you cannot sanction a prejudice founded on color, without quickening that prejudice, and sustaining it, wherever it now unhappily exists throughout our whole country.
At the next stage of the joint resolution, the question recurred on concurring with the amendment in Committee of the Whole:—
“Provided, That there shall be no exclusion of any persons from the register, on account of color, who have borne arms in the military service of the United States, and have been honorably discharged therefrom.”