Charles Sumner

Charles Sumner
Brady-Handy Photograph Collection · Public domain · source
Name	Charles Sumner
Caption	Charles Sumner, c. 1855
Office	United States Senator from Massachusetts
Term start	April 24, 1851
Term end	March 11, 1874
Predecessor	Robert Rantoul Jr.
Successor	William B. Washburn
Office2	Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Term start2	March 4, 1861
Term end2	March 4, 1871
Predecessor2	James M. Mason
Successor2	Simon Cameron
Birth date	6 January 1811
Birth place	Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Death date	11 March 1874
Death place	Washington, D.C., U.S.
Party	Whig (1840–1848), Free Soil (1848–1854), Republican (1854–1874)
Alma mater	Harvard College, Harvard Law School
Spouse	Alice Mason Hooper, 1866, 1873

Charles Sumner was a prominent United States Senator from Massachusetts and a leading figure in the Radical Republican faction during the mid-19th century. A staunch and uncompromising abolitionist, he dedicated his political career to the destruction of slavery and the establishment of equal rights for African Americans. His powerful oratory, legislative efforts, and personal sacrifice made him a foundational and controversial architect of the Reconstruction era and the broader post-Civil War civil rights struggle.

Early life and education

Charles Sumner was born in Boston into a modest family. He attended the Boston Latin School before entering Harvard College at age 15, graduating in 1830. He then studied at the Harvard Law School under the renowned jurist Joseph Story. Admitted to the bar in 1834, Sumner found legal practice unfulfilling and turned his attention to scholarship and reform. A three-year tour of Europe from 1837 to 1840 exposed him to international law and deepened his liberal convictions, while also allowing him to form friendships with intellectuals like William Wordsworth and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Upon returning to Boston, he began lecturing against war and advocating for educational and prison reform, which established his reputation as a moral crusader.

Pre-Civil War political career and abolitionism

Sumner’s opposition to slavery propelled him into politics. Initially a Whig, he broke with the party over its compromises on slavery and helped found the Free Soil Party in 1848. His famous "Freedom National; Slavery Sectional" speech that year argued the United States Constitution was an anti-slavery document. In 1851, a coalition of Free Soilers and Democrats in the Massachusetts General Court elected him to the United States Senate. He quickly became the Senate's most vocal abolitionist, delivering scathing speeches against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and opposing the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, which repealed the Missouri Compromise. His moral absolutism and refusal to courtesies with slaveholding colleagues made him both admired in the North and despised in the South.

The "Crime Against Kansas" speech and caning

On May 19–20, 1856, Sumner delivered his most famous speech, "The Crime Against Kansas," a blistering attack on the violence in Kansas and the authors of the Kansas–Nebraska Act. He personally insulted Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, comparing him to a pimp for slavery. Two days later, Butler's cousin, Congressman Preston Brooks, attacked Sumner at his desk in the Senate chamber, beating him severely with a metal-topped cane. The Caning of Charles Sumner left Sumner with physical and psychological trauma that kept him out of the Senate for three years. The incident became a powerful propaganda tool for the emerging Republican Party, galvanizing anti-slavery sentiment in the North and exemplifying the violent defense of the "Slave Power."

Role in the Civil War and Reconstruction

Returning to the Senate in 1859, Sumner became a leading voice for emancipation once the American Civil War began. As chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he worked diligently to prevent European recognition of the Confederate States of America. He was a key advisor to President Abraham Lincoln, though he often pushed for more radical measures, and he hailed the Emancipation Proclamation as a transformative act. During Reconstruction, Sumner was a foremost Radical Republican, advocating for full civil and political rights for freedmen. He argued that the seceded states had committed "state suicide" and should be readmitted only after guaranteeing racial equality. He strongly opposed President Andrew Johnson's lenient policies and voted for his impeachment.

Civil rights advocacy and legislative efforts

Sumner’s civil rights advocacy was the core of his career. He introduced the first bill to desegregate public streetcars in Washington, D.C., in 1862. His most persistent fight was for a federal civil rights law. Beginning in 1870, he repeatedly introduced a bill mandating equal access to public accommodations, schools, and juries. Though it failed during his lifetime, it became the blueprint for the landmark but short-lived Civil Rights Act of 1875. He was also a principal author of the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery and a strong supporter of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. He championed the creation of the Freedmen's Bureau and fought for the redistribution of Confederate land to freedmen, a policy known as "40 acres and a mule."

Later career and death

In his final years, Sumner continued his legislative work but faced political challenges. A bitter split with President Ulysses S. Grant over foreign policy and the Alabama Claims diminished his influence within the Republican Party. His personal life was marked by a brief, unhappy marriage to Alice Mason Hooper that ended in separation. Despite declining health, he remained in the Senate, tirelessly advocating for his civil rights bill. He suffered a severe heart attack in the Capitol in March 1874 and died in Washington, D.C. on March 11, 1874. His death was mourned nationally, and his body lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda. Charles Sumner is remembered as a moral visionary whose uncompromising stance against slavery and for equality left an indelible mark on the struggle for civil rights in America.