Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811 – March 11, 1874) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874. Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading American advocate for the abolition of slavery. He chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1861 to 1871, until he lost the position following a dispute with President Ulysses S. Grant over the attempted annexation of Santo Domingo. After breaking with Grant, he joined the Liberal Republican Party, spending his final two years in the Senate alienated from his party. Sumner had a controversial and divisive legacy for many years after his death, but in recent decades, his historical reputation has improved in recognition of his early support for racial equality.
For other people named Charles Sumner, see Charles Sumner (disambiguation).
Charles Sumner
January 6, 1811
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
March 11, 1874 (aged 63)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Whig (1840–1848)
Free Soil (1848–1854)
Republican (1854–70)
Liberal Republican (1870–1872)
Radical Republicans (1854–70)
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Sumner began his political activism as a member of various anti-slavery groups, leading to his election to the U.S. Senate in 1851 as a member of the Free Soil Party; he soon became a founding member of the Republican Party. In the Senate, he devoted his efforts to opposing the "Slave Power,"[1] which in 1856 culminated in a vicious beating, almost to the point of death, by Representative Preston Brooks on the Senate floor.[2] Sumner's severe injuries and extended absence from the Senate made him a symbol of the anti-slavery cause. Though he did not return to the Senate until 1859, Massachusetts reelected him in 1857, leaving his empty desk as a reminder of the incident, which polarized the nation as the Civil War approached.
During the war, Sumner led the Radical Republican faction, which was critical of President Abraham Lincoln for being too moderate toward the South. As chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, Sumner worked to ensure that the United Kingdom and France did not intervene on behalf of the Confederate States. After the Union won the war and Lincoln was assassinated, Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens led congressional efforts to grant equal civil and voting rights to freedmen and to block ex-Confederates from power so they would not reverse the gains derived from the Union's victory in the war. President Andrew Johnson's persistent opposition to these efforts played a role in his impeachment in 1868.
During the Grant administration, Sumner fell out of favor with his party. He supported the annexation of Alaska but opposed Grant's proposal to annex Santo Domingo. After leading senators to defeat the Santo Domingo Treaty in 1870, Sumner denounced him in such terms that reconciliation was impossible, and Senate Republicans stripped him of his power. Sumner opposed Grant's 1872 reelection and supported Liberal Republican Horace Greeley. He died in office less than two years later.
Early political activism[edit]
Sumner embarked on a public political career in 1845, when he emerged as one of the most prominent critics of slavery in the city of Boston and the state of Massachusetts, a hotbed of abolitionist sentiment.
In July, Sumner delivered the Boston Independence Day oration, on the subject The True Grandeur of Nations. His speech was critical of the move toward war with Mexico and an impassioned appeal for freedom and peace.[12] Sumner considered the conflict a war of aggression but was primarily concerned that captured territories would expand slavery westward. He soon became a sought-after orator for formal occasions throughout Boston. His lofty themes and stately eloquence made a profound impression. His platform presence was imposing. He stood 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) tall, with a massive frame. His voice was clear and powerful. His gestures were unconventional and individual, but vigorous and impressive. His literary style was florid, with much detail, allusion, and quotation, often from the Bible as well as the Greeks and Romans.[12] Longfellow wrote that he delivered speeches "like a cannoneer ramming down cartridges", while Sumner himself said that "you might as well look for a joke in the Book of Revelation."[23]
Following the annexation of Texas as a slave state in December, Sumner took an active role in the anti-slavery movement. In 1847, he denounced the declaration of war against Mexico with such vigor that he was recognized as a leader of the "Conscience" faction of the Massachusetts Whig Party. He declined the Whig nomination for the United States House of Representatives in 1848,[12] instead helping organize the Free Soil Party and becoming chairman of the state party's executive committee, a position he used to advocate for abolition and build a coalition that included anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats.[24]
Sumner also took an active role in other social causes. He worked with Horace Mann to improve Massachusetts's system of public education, advocated prison reform, and represented the plaintiffs in Roberts v. City of Boston, which challenged the legality of racial segregation in public schools. Arguing before the Massachusetts Supreme Court, Sumner noted that schools for blacks were physically inferior and that segregation bred harmful psychological and sociological effects—arguments made in Brown v. Board of Education over a century later.[25] Sumner lost the case, but the Massachusetts General Court abolished school segregation in 1855.
The following are named after Charles Sumner:
There is a statue of Sumner in Cambridge, Massachusetts by sculptor Anne Whitney and another statue of Sumner in Boston, Massachusetts by sculptor Thomas Ball.
