One of the most severe and acidic anti-slavery discourses of the period. Sumner’s “Crimes Against Kansas” refer to the proslavery violence that was sweeping across the Kansas. He compared slavery expansion into the new States as “the rape of a virgin territory” and as a transparent attempt at building the proslavery voting block in Congress.

The speech so incensed southerners that South Carolina Congressman, Preston Smith Brooks, beat Sumner to the point of unconsciousness on the floor of Senate two days later.

[Kansas and Slavery] Sumner, Charles. The Crime Against Kansas. The Apologies for the Crime. The True Remedy. Speech of Hon. Charles Sumner, in the Senate of the United States, 19^th and 20^th May, 1856. Boston. John P. Jewett & Company. 1856. 94pp.

Very crisp and clean example; small loss at wraps as shown, blind stamp on ffep and front wrap and faint stamp to front wrap, blindstamped elsewhere. One leaf torn [no loss]. Nearly pristine interior.

Very desirable.