COLORED SCHOOLS IN WASHINGTON.
Speech in the Senate, February 8, 1871.
On the motion of Mr. Patterson, of New Hampshire, Chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia, to strike out from a bill relative to schools in the District the clause,—
“And no distinction, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, shall be made in the admission of pupils to any of the schools under the control of the Board of Education, or in the mode of education or treatment of pupils in such schools,”—
Mr. Sumner said:—
MR. PRESIDENT,—My friend, the Chairman of the Committee, says that this proposition is correct in principle. But to my mind nothing is clearer than that where anything is correct in principle it must by inevitable law be correct in practice. Nobody here makes this law,—not the Senate, not Congress. By a higher law than any from human power, whatever is correct in principle must be correct in practice.
I stand on this rule. It is the teaching of all history; it is the teaching of human life; especially is it the teaching of our national experience during these latter eventful years. How often have propositions been opposed in this Chamber as correct in principle, but not practical! And how often what was correct in principle triumphed over every obstacle! When the proposition for the abolition of Slavery in the District was brought forward, we were told that it was correct in principle, but that it would not work well,—that it was not practical! So when the proposition was brought forward to give the colored people the right to testify in court, we were assured that it was correct in principle, but that it would not be practical.
The same objection was made to the proposition that colored people should ride in the horse-cars; and I was gravely told that white people would not use the cars, if they were opened to colored people. The proposition prevailed, and you and others know whether any injury therefrom has been done to the cars.
Then, again, when it was proposed to give the ballot to all, it was announced that it might be correct in principle, but that it was not practical; and I, Sir, was seriously assured by an eminent citizen that it would bring about massacre at the polls.