C. Edwards Lester, Life and public services of Charles Sumner: Born Jan. 6, 1811. Died March 11, 1874.

[315] ‘The Hotel of the Beatitudes.’ According to a Hindoo proverb, the snail sees nothing but its own shell, and thinks it the grandest palace in the universe. This is another illustration of the delusion which we are called to witness.

It is natural that Senators thus insensible to the true character of Slavery should evince an equal insensibility to the true character of the Constitution. This is shown in the claim now made, and pressed with unprecedented energy, degrading the work of our fathers, that by virtue of the Constitution the pretended property in man is placed beyond the reach of Congressional prohibition even within Congressional jurisdiction, so that the slave-master may at all times enter the broad outlying territories of the Union with the victims of his oppression, and there continue to hold them by lash and chain.

Such are two assumptions, the first of fact, and the second of Constitutional Law, now vaunted without apology or hesitation. I meet them both. To the first I oppose the essential Barbarism of Slavery, in all its influences, whether high or low,—as Satan is Satan still, whether towering in the sky or squatting in the toad. To the second I oppose the unanswerable, irresistible truth, that the Constitution of the United States nowhere recognizes property in man. These two assumptions naturally go together. They are ‘twins’ suckled by the same wolf. They are the ‘couple’ in the present slave-hunt. And the latter cannot be answered without exposing the former. It is only when Slavery is exhibited in its truly hateful character that we fully appreciate the absurdity of the assumption, which, in defiance of express letter in the Constitution, and without a single sentence, phrase, or word upholding human bondage, yet foists into this blameless text the barbarous idea that man can hold property in man.

On former occasions I have discussed Slavery only incidentally; as, in unfolding the principle that Slavery is Sectional and Freedom National; in exposing the unconstitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Bill; in vindicating the Prohibition of Slavery in the Missouri Territory; in exhibiting the imbecility, throughout the Revolution, of the Slave States, and especially of South Carolina; and, lastly, in unmasking the Crime against Kansas. On all these occasions, where I spoke at length, I said too little of the character of Slavery,—partly because other topics were presented, and partly from a prevailing disinclination to press the argument against those whom I knew to have all the sensitiveness of a sick man. But, God be praised, this time has passed, and the debate is now lifted from details to principles. Grander debate has not occurred