Massachusetts Senator and Abolitionist Charles Sumner Argues for and End to The Fugitive Slave Bill, A Full Decade Before It Was Repealed

Charles Sumner

Book

[ABOLITION & SLAVERY] SUMNER, Charles. Defence of Massachusetts. Speeches of Hon. Charles Sumner, on the Boston Memorial for the Repeal of the Fugitive Slave Bill, and in Reply To Messrs. Jones of Tennessee, Butler of South Carolina, And Mason of Virginia in the Senate of the United States, June 26 and 28, 1854. Washington, D.C.: Buell & Blanchard Printers, 1854. The Memorial referred to in the title was a request by 2900 undersigners, chiefly men of Boston, Mass., to repeal the Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850. What follows is a transcription of Massachusetts Senator and famous abolitionist Charles Sumner's speeches in the ensuing debate: "[Mr Jones.] asks, 'Can anyone suppose that, if the Fugitive Slave Act be repealed, this Union can exist?' To which I reply at once, that if the Union in any way be dependent on an Act-- I cannot call it a law-- so revolting in every regard as to that which he refers, then it ought not to exist..." Sumner goes on to argue, amongst other things, that the Fugitive Slave Act is parallel to the hated Stamp Act that sparked the Revolutionary War, as well as to make spirited rebukes against the pro-slavery Senators Butler, Mason, and Jones: "The veteran Senator from Virginia [Mr. Mason] complained that I had characterized one of his "constituents", a person who went all the way from Virginia to Boston in pursuit of a slave, as a Slave-Hunter. Sire, I choose to call things by their right names. White I call white, and black I call black. And where a person degrades himself to the work of chasing a fellow man, who, under the guidance of the north star, has saught a freeman's home far away from the cofle and the chain, that person, whomsoever he may be, I call a Slave-Hunter." Eight sheets folded to make one sixteen-page signature, which is stitched along the left edge. Foxing, pages chipped along margins. Delicate but in good condition and uncommon.

Item #17970

Price: $285.00