Speech of Sumner to Congress

September 17, 1852

Included in the paper is a copy of half of Sumner’s speech, with which he proposed the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law.   The article appreciates the speech, and commends it for wide reading.  “But it is not without its vulnerable points…. It clearly demonstrates the unconstitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law … But, beyond this, it does not travel an inch…. …this would be merely to go over the same ground again, and to ultimate in the universal supremacy of the Slave Power as at the present time. This is not statesmanship, but infatuation.  Our cry still is, ‘No Union with Slaveholders!'”