Share on Facebook

Charles Sumner Biography

U.S. Senator

Charles Sumner was a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts (1851-74) who was active before and after the Civil War in the movement to abolish slavery and give equal rights to black Americans. In 1856 Sumner read a hot-tempered speech, "The Crime Against Kansas," in which he condemned his opponents on the issue, including South Carolina's Senator Andrew P. Butler. Two days later Preston Brooks, Butler's nephew and a Congressman from South Carolina, entered the Senate chamber and beat Sumner unconscious with a cane. Brooks was a hero to his constituents and was re-elected; Sumner, who took three years to recover from the beating, was a martyr to his contituents and was re-elected. Sumner was one of the most powerful members of the Radical Republicans, whose insistence on immediate equal rights for blacks (and punitive measures against slaveowners) caused him to clash with presidents Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson and Ulysses Grant.

Blog posts mentioning Charles Sumner:

• Happy Birthday, Charles Sumner!