We will not – we cannot dishonor the revered authors of our Constitution, by supposing that they set their hands to it believing that slavery was to be perpetual – that the Republic, which they had reared to its giant stature, & which had snatched from Heaven
the sacred fire of Freedom, was to be bound, like another Prometheus, in the adamantine chains of fate, while Slavery, like another vulture, preyed upon its vitals.

Charles Sumner
Boston, Sept. 16th, 1848