Charles Sumner

Charles Sumner (1811–1874) was an American statesman and lawyer from Boston who led the anti-slavery forces in the US Senate for over two decades. Educated at Harvard Law School where he was mentored by Justice Joseph Story, Sumner was an eloquent scholar who abandoned a lucrative legal practice to fight the expansion of slavery, elected to the Senate in 1851 by a coalition of Free Soilers and Democrats.

In May 1856, following his blistering anti-slavery speech 'The Crime Against Kansas', Sumner was savagely beaten unconscious at his Senate desk with a gold-headed cane by South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks, becoming an enduring martyr for Northern anti-slavery conviction. Returning to the Senate, he led the Radical Republicans during the Civil War, pressing Lincoln for immediate emancipation, managing foreign relations as Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, and authoring the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1875.