Adams’ disciples—notably Charles Sumner, William Seward, and Samuel Chase—held that all Americans, regardless of race, were entitled to common law rights and to the natural rights of mankind, and that the states had no legitimate authority to interfere with these rights. [read post]

Documents include anti-slavery amendment petitions from the Women's Loyal National League, Charles Sumner's failed efforts to broaden the language of the Thirteenth Amendment, Democratic opposition speeches declaring that the proposed abolition amendment was an unconstitutional attempt to alter an irrevocably pro-slavery Constitution, the House of Representatives' failed first effort to pass the amendment, Frederick Douglass's "The Final Test of… [read post]