Sir, it is not fit, it is not decent, that such a person should be commemorated by a vote of Congress,—especially at this time, when Liberty is at last recognized. If you have money to commemorate the dead, let it be in honor of the defenders of Liberty gathered to their fathers. There was John Quincy Adams. There, also, was Joshua R. Giddings. Let their busts be placed in the Court-Room, where with marble lips they can plead always for human rights, teaching judge and advocate the glory and the beauty of justice. Then will you do something not entirely unworthy of a regenerated land, something to be an example for future times, something to help fix the standard of history.
I know that in the Court-Room there are busts of the other Chief Justices. Very well. So in the Hall of the Doges, at Venice, there are pictures of all who filled that high office in unbroken succession, with the exception of Marino Falieri, who, although as venerable from years as Taney, was deemed unworthy of a place in the historic line. Where his picture should have been is a vacant space, testifying always to the justice of the Republic. Let such a vacant space in our Court-Room testify to the justice of our Republic, and may it speak in warning to every one who would betray Liberty!
The appropriation was vindicated by Mr. Trumbull, Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, and Mr. Carlile, of West Virginia. It was opposed by Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, and Mr. Wade, of Ohio. Mr. Sumner then obtained the floor.
At last I have the floor again. I rose at once to reply to the Senator from Maryland [Mr. Johnson], when he made his objurgatory vindication of the proposed bust; but the floor was given to others. And now, as I look at the clock, I see that I can only begin what I have to say.
Again let me declare that I am sorry to be drawn into this debate. But they who seek to canonize one of the tools of Slavery are responsible. Taney shall not be recognized as a saint by any vote of Congress, if I can help it.
The Senator has a bad cause, and I inferred that he thought so himself,—first, because he talked so loud, and, secondly, because he became personal. A good cause would have been discussed in softer voice, and without personality. The Senator becomes personal easily. In the sweep of his movement, he brushed against my distinguished friend from New Hampshire [Mr. Hale], and also against my colleague and myself, simply because we could not join in this oblation to the author of the Dred Scott decision. The Senator from New Hampshire and my colleague have already answered him in proper terms. But I say for my colleague what he could not say for himself. He can bear gibes for not being a lawyer. He is not, like the Senator, a counsellor of the Supreme Court of the United States, but in all the duties of Senator he is in every respect the equal of the Senator from Maryland.——
Here Mr. Sumner was arrested by the Vice-President announcing that the hour fixed for a recess had arrived. The consideration of the bill was never resumed, and it expired with the session. Had opportunity occurred, Mr. Sumner would have continued:—
I have already said that Chief Justice Taney, in pronouncing that fatal judgment, falsified history. Judicial error is aggravated by such a falsification; and here the evidence is complete. His statement is precise, that for more than a century before the Declaration of Independence and the adoption of our Constitution people of the African race had “been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations”; and this unhappy asseveration culminates in the words, “and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect, and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit.” And he adds: “This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals, as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing or supposed to be open to dispute.” This is plain, though failing in the precision which belongs to the bench. But how untrue! All this naturally ends in shutting out the unhappy African from citizenship, involving the right to sue in the courts of the United States.