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Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 3, Chapter 30: addresses before colleges and lyceums.—active interest in reforms.—friendships.—personal life.—1845-1850. (search)
s, and maintained that before that principle no distinctions of birth, race, or color could stand. The argument was a protest against civil discriminations founded on physical conditions, or on any conditions which are independent of character or attainment, and was eloquent in its appeal to the higher sentiments. It introduced into the discussions of the period the term equality before the law, taken from the French, and then unfamiliar to the English language. It marks the beginning of Sumners warfare on caste, and of his persistent advocacy of equal civil and political rights for all, irrespective of condition and race, which continued through his life. Its general thought as well as some of its points and authorities appeared often in his prolonged contention in the Senate for the rights of the colored people. Chief-Justice Shaw gave the opinion of the court adversely to Sumner; Roberts v. City of Boston. Cushing's Reports, vol. v. p. 206. but the Legislature a few year