Scott Brown Has Big Shoes To Fill
Scott Brown’s new Senate seat in Massachusetts has an interesting history, and no, it’s not related to the Murdering Motorist but instead it reminds us of the proud heritage of the GOP:
As the new senator from Massachusetts, Scott Brown, said: “It’s not the Ted Kennedy seat. It’s not the Democrat seat. It’s the people’s seat.”Instead of Ted, let’s remember an honorable and courageous Republican senator who once filled the seat to which Scott Brown was elected.
Senator Charles Sumner (R-MA) was one of the founders of the Republican Party. Angered by Sumner’s denunciations of slavery, a Democrat congressman beat him nearly to death on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Sumner responded with a classic denunciation of the Democratic Party for promoting The Barbarism of Slavery.
During the GOP’s 1860 election campaign, Senator Sumner gave a speech that speaks to us today:
“If ever there was a moment when every faculty should be bent to the service, and all invigorated by an inspiring zeal, it is now, while the battle between Civilization and Barbarism is still undecided.
Happily, a political party is at hand whose purpose is to combine and direct all generous energies for the salvation of the country. The work must be done, and there is no other organization by which it can be done. A party with such an origin and such a necessity cannot be for a day, or for this election only.
If bad men conspire for slavery, good men must combine for freedom. And when this triumph is won, securing the immediate object of our organization, the Republican Party will not die, but, purified by long contest with slavery, and filled with higher life, it will be lifted to yet other efforts for the good of man.
Others may dwell on the past as secure; but to my mind, under the laws of a beneficent God, the future also is secure, on the single condition that we press forward in the work with heart and soul, forgetting self, turning from all temptations of the hour, and, intent only on the cause.”
The day he died, Charles Sumner urged Republicans to stay true to the principles of our Grand Old Party: “My bill, the civil rights bill – don’t let it fail.” The Republican-controlled 43rd Congress honored his memory by passing the 1875 Civil Rights Act.
Ironic, then, that the mainstream media narrative for every Obama setback – including the Mass Senate election – is always couched in cries of “racism”.
An expansive doff of the fedora to GrandOldPartisan.org
I wonder if this is the finish of Obama-ism. It’ll certainly waken many Americans up.
To borrow and mangle Churchill, this is at the very least the end of the beginning.
I don’t see your point, here. It is just a seat in the U.S. Senate, it has no talismanic power.
I don’t mean to imply that it does, but its certainly got an interesting history which goes completely against the guess of anyone who’d only seen its voting record in the last few decades.
In the same way, there are some fascinating (if you like that sort of thing) back stories of staunch Tories who used to represent constituencies which would now elect a lampost with a red rosette and vice versa. Sometimes its interesting to find out a bit of the history, just for its own sake.