December 2, 1866.
DEAR SIR,—I am glad that our colored fellow-citizens are about to assemble in convention to consider how best to promote their welfare, and to secure those equal rights to which they are justly entitled.
You seek nothing less than a revolution. But you will succeed. The revolution must prevail. What are called civil rights have been accorded already; but every argument for these is equally important for political rights, which cannot be denied without the grossest wrong. Let the colored citizens persevere. Let them calmly, but constantly, insist upon those equal rights which are the promise of our institutions. They should appeal to Congress, and they should also appeal to the courts.
I cannot doubt the power and duty of Congress and of the courts to set aside every inequality founded on color. It will be the wonder of posterity that a constitution absolutely free from all discrimination of color was so perverted in its construction as to sanction this discrimination,—as if such a wrong could be derived from a text which contains no single word even to suggest it. The fountain-head is pure: the waters which flow from it must be equally pure.
Accept my best wishes, and believe me, dear Sir, faithfully yours,
Charles Sumner.
J. M. Langston, Esq.