In 1851, a coalition of Democratic and Free Soil legislators gained control of the Massachusetts General Court. In exchange for Free Soil support for Democratic governor
George Boutwell, the Free Soil Party named Sumner its choice for U.S. Senate. Despite the private agreement, conservative Democrats opposed his candidacy and called for a less radical candidate. The impasse was broken after three months and Sumner was elected on a parliamentary technicality by a one-vote majority on April 24, 1851, in part thanks to the support of Senate President
Henry Wilson. His election marked a sharp break in Massachusetts politics, as his abolitionist politics contrasted sharply those of his best-known predecessor in the seat,
Daniel Webster, one of the foremost supporters of the
Compromise of 1850 and its
Fugitive Slave Act. For the first few sessions, Sumner did not promote any of his controversial causes. On August 26, 1852, he delivered his
maiden speech, despite strenuous efforts to dissuade him. This oratorical effort was published as a pamphlet with the popular abolitionist motto, "Freedom National; Slavery Sectional," as its title. In it, Sumner attacked the
Fugitive Slave Act. Though both major party platforms affirmed every provision of the
Compromise of 1850 as final, including the Fugitive Slave Act, Sumner called for its repeal. For more than three hours, he denounced it as a violation of the Constitution, an affront to the public conscience, and an offence against
divine law. After his speech, a senator from
Alabama urged that there be no reply: "The ravings of a maniac may sometimes be dangerous, but the barking of a puppy never did any harm." Sumner's outspoken opposition to slavery made him few friends in the Senate.
"Crime against Kansas" and beating by Preston Brooks On May 19 and 20, 1856, during the civil unrest known as "
Bleeding Kansas," Sumner denounced the
Kansas–Nebraska Act in his "Crime against Kansas" speech. The long speech argued for Kansas's immediate admission as a free state and denounced "
Slave Power"—the political power of the slave owners. Their motivation, he alleged, was to spread slavery even to free territories: Sumner verbally attacked authors of the Act,
Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois and
Andrew Butler of South Carolina: Sumner's reference to slavery as Butler's "mistress" sought to highlight the sexual depravity of the institution — and possibly of Butler himself. An interview with a man who'd been enslaved by Butler, uncovered decades later by the historian Zaakir Tameez, suggests Butler fathered two children with a mistress he kept in his house, likely a slave. Beyond criticizing Douglas and Butler, Sumner denounced his former Senate colleague
David Atchison, who had violently seized polling locations to manipulate the territorial elections in Kansas, comparing him to
Catiline, the soldier and politician who led a failed coup attempt against the Roman state. Maintaining the analogy, Sumner presented himself as a modern
Cicero, saving the American republic from anti-democratic conspirators. ' 1856 attack on SumnerOn the afternoon of May 22, Representative
Preston Brooks, Butler's first cousin once removed, confronted Sumner in the Senate chamber and beat him severely on the head, using a thick
gutta-percha cane with a gold head. Sumner was knocked down and trapped under the heavy desk, which was bolted to the floor. Blinded by his own blood, he staggered up the aisle and collapsed into unconsciousness. Brooks continued to beat the motionless Sumner until his cane broke, at which point he continued to strike Sumner with the remaining piece. Several other senators attempted to help Sumner, but were blocked by
Laurence Keitt, who brandished a pistol and shouted, "Let them be!" The episode became a symbol of polarization in the antebellum period; Sumner became a martyr in the North and Brooks a hero in the South. Thousands attended rallies in support of Sumner throughout the North.
Louisa May Alcott described a rally in Boston on November 3 in a letter to Anna Alcott: Eight hundred gentlemen on horseback escorted him and formed a line up Beacon St. through which he rode smiling and bowing.... The streets were lined with wreaths, flags, and loving people to welcome the good man back.... I could not hear the speeches at the State House so I tore down Hancock St. and got a place opposite his house. I saw him go in, and soon after the cheers of the horsemen and crowd brought him smiling to the window, he only bowed, but when the leader of the cavalcade cried out "Three cheers for the mother of Charles Sumner!" he stepped back and soon appeared leading an old lady who nodded, waved her hand, put down the curtain, and then with a few dozen more cheers the crowd dispersed. Numerous African Americans wrote to Sumner after the caning, some of whom not only sympathized but also identified with him. Brooks had described his attack on Sumner as a "flogging", as if to debase Sumner and imply he was no better than a slave. As a result, some Black Americans felt he too now bore the scars of slavery. More than a million copies of Sumner's "Crime against Kansas" speech were distributed.
Ralph Waldo Emerson remarked, "I do not see how a barbarous community and a civilised community can constitute one state. I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom." Conversely, Brooks was praised by Southern newspapers. The
Richmond Enquirer editorialized that Sumner should be caned "every morning" and Southerners sent Brooks hundreds of new canes in endorsement of his assault. Southern lawmakers made rings out of the cane's remains, which they wore on neck chains to show solidarity with Brooks. Historian
William Gienapp has concluded that Brooks's "assault was of critical importance in transforming the struggling Republican party into a major political force." Theological and legal scholar William R. Long characterized the speech as "a most rebarbative and vituperative speech on the Senate floor", which "flows with Latin quotations and references to English and Roman history." In his eyes, the speech was "a gauntlet thrown down, a challenge to the 'Slave Power' to admit once and for all that it were encircling the free states with their tentacular grip and gradually siphoning off the breath of democracy-loving citizens." When he spent months convalescing, his political enemies ridiculed him and accused him of cowardice for not resuming his duties. The
Massachusetts General Court reelected him in November 1856, believing that his vacant chair in the Senate chamber served as a powerful symbol of
free speech and resistance to slavery. When Sumner returned to the Senate in 1857, he was unable to last a day. His doctors advised a sea voyage and "a complete separation from the cares and responsibilities that must beset him at home." He sailed for Europe and immediately found relief. During two months in Paris in the spring of 1857, he renewed friendships, especially with
Thomas Gold Appleton, dined out frequently, and attended the opera. His contacts there included
Alexis de Tocqueville, poet
Alphonse de Lamartine, former French Prime Minister
François Guizot,
Ivan Turgenev, and
Harriet Beecher Stowe. Sumner toured several countries, including
Prussia and
Scotland, before returning to Washington, where he spent only a few days in the Senate in December. Both then and during several later attempts to return to work, he found himself exhausted just listening to Senate business. He sailed once more for Europe on May 22, 1858, the second anniversary of Brooks's attack. In Paris, prominent physician
Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard diagnosed Sumner's condition as spinal cord damage that he could treat by
burning the skin along the spinal cord. Sumner chose to refuse anaesthesia, which was thought to reduce the effectiveness of the procedure. Observers both at the time and since doubted Brown-Séquard's efforts were of value. After spending weeks recovering from these treatments, Sumner resumed his touring, this time as far east as Dresden and Prague and south to Italy twice. In France he visited Brittany and Normandy, as well as Montpellier. He wrote his brother: "If anyone cares to know how I am doing, you can say better and better." In 1859, Sumner returned to the Senate permanently. Though fellow Republicans advised a less strident tone, he answered: "When crime and criminals are thrust before us, they are to be met by all the energies that God has given us by argument, scorn, sarcasm and denunciation." He delivered his first return speech, "The Barbarism of Slavery," on June 4, 1860. He attacked attempts to depict
slavery as a benevolent institution, said it stifled economic development in the South, and that it left slaveholders reliant on "the bludgeon, the revolver, and the bowie-knife". He addressed an anticipated objection on the part of one of his colleagues: "Say, sir, in your madness, that you own the sun, the stars, the moon; but do not say that you own a man, endowed with a soul that shall live immortal, when sun and moon and stars have passed away." Even allies found his language too strong, one calling it "harsh, vindictive, and slightly brutal". He spent the summer rallying the anti-slavery forces for
the election of 1860 and opposing talk of compromise.
Civil War After the Civil War began, Sumner was among the
Radical Republicans who advocated immediate abolition of slavery and the destruction of the Southern planter class. Although like-minded on slavery, the Radicals were loosely organized and disagreed on issues such as the tariff and currency. Other Radicals in the Senate included
Zachariah Chandler and
Benjamin Wade. Throughout the war, Sumner had been the special champion of black Americans, being the most vigorous advocate of emancipation, of enlisting blacks in the Union Army, and of the establishment of the
Freedmen's Bureau.
Emancipation The Radicals desired the immediate emancipation of slaves and persistently lobbied for it as wartime policy, but Lincoln resisted, because it might prompt the
border slave states to join the
Confederacy. On November 8, 1861, the
Union Navy warship intercepted the British steamer . Two Confederate diplomats aboard were placed into port custody. In response to the capture, the British government dispatched 8,000 troops to the
Canada–United States border and sought to strengthen the
Royal Navy. Lincoln quietly but reluctantly ordered the captives' release to British custody and apologized. After the
Trent affair, Sumner's reputation improved among conservative Northerners. He joined fellow Republicans in overriding President
Andrew Johnson's vetoes, though his most radical ideas were not implemented. Sumner favored partial male suffrage with a
literacy requirement for all Southerners in order to vote. Instead, Congress imposed a loyalty requirement the following year; Sumner was strongly supportive. He introduced a civil rights bill in 1872 to mandate equal accommodation in all public places and required suits brought under the bill to be argued in the federal courts. The bill failed, but Sumner revived it in the next Congress, and on his deathbed begged visitors to see that it did not fail. Sumner repeatedly tried to remove the word "white" from naturalization laws. He introduced bills to that effect in 1868 and 1869, but neither came to a vote. On July 2, 1870, Sumner moved to amend a pending bill in a way that would strike the word "white" wherever in all Congressional acts pertaining to
naturalization of immigrants. On July 4, 1870, he said: Senators undertake to disturb us ... by reminding us of the possibility of large numbers swarming from
China; but the answer to all this is very obvious and very simple. If the Chinese come here, they will come for citizenship or merely for labor. If they come for citizenship, then in this desire do they give a pledge of loyalty to our institutions; and where is the peril in such vows? They are peaceful and industrious; how can their citizenship be the occasion of solicitude? He accused legislators promoting anti-Chinese legislation of betraying the principles of the
Declaration of Independence: "Worse than any heathen or pagan abroad are those in our midst who are false to our institutions." Sumner's bill failed, and from 1870 to 1943, and in some cases as late as 1952, Chinese and other Asians were ineligible for naturalized U.S. citizenship. Sumner remained a champion of civil rights for blacks. He co-authored the
Civil Rights Act of 1875 with
John Mercer Langston and introduced the bill in the
Senate on May 13, 1870. The bill passed a year after his death, in February 1875, and President Grant signed it into law on March 1. It was the last civil rights legislation for 82 years until the passage of the
Civil Rights Act of 1957. The
Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 1883 when it decided a group of cases known as the
Civil Rights Cases. When Johnson
was impeached, Sumner voted for conviction at his trial. He was only sorry that he had to vote on each article of impeachment, for as he said, he would have rather voted, "Guilty of all, and infinitely more."
Alaska annexation Throughout March 1867, Secretary
William H. Seward and Russian representative Edouard de Stoeckl met in Washington, D.C., and negotiated a treaty for the annexation and sale of the Russian American territory of Alaska to the United States for $7,200,000. President Johnson submitted the treaty to Congress for ratification with Sumner's approval, and on April 9, his foreign relations committee approved and sent the treaty to the Senate. In a three-hour speech, Sumner spoke in favor of the treaty on the Senate floor, describing Alaska's imperial history, natural resources, population, and climate. Sumner wanted to block British expansion from Canada, arguing that Alaska was geographically and financially strategic, especially for the Pacific Coast States. He said Alaska would increase America's borders, spread republican institutions, and represent an act of friendship with Russia. The treaty won its needed two-thirds majority by one vote. By federal law, Native Alaskan tribes, including the
Inuit, the
Aleut, and the
Athabascan, were entitled only to land that they inhabited. Sumner said the new territory should be called by its Aleutian name,
Alaska, meaning "great land." He advocated for free public education and equal protection laws for U.S. citizens in Alaska.
CSS Alabama claims Sumner was well regarded in the United Kingdom, but after the war he sacrificed his reputation in the U.K. with his stand on U.S. claims for British breaches of neutrality. The U.S. had claims against Britain for the damage inflicted by Confederate raiding ships fitted out in British ports. Sumner held that since Britain had accorded the rights of
belligerents to the Confederacy, it was responsible for extending the duration of the war and consequent losses. In 1869, he asserted that Britain should pay damages for not merely the raiders, but also "that other damage, immense and infinite, caused by the prolongation of the war", specifically the
British blockade runners, which were estimated to have given the Confederacy 60% of its weapons, 1/3 of the lead for its bullets, 3/4 ingredients for its powder, and most of the cloth for its uniforms; Sumner claimed the supplies delivered by the blockade runners lengthened the war by two years. He demanded $2,000,000,000 for these "national claims" in addition to $125,000,000 for damages from the raiders. Sumner did not expect that Britain ever would or could pay this sum, but he suggested that Britain turn over Canada as payment. This proposition offended many Britons, but was taken seriously by many Americans, including the Secretary of State, whose support for it nearly derailed the settlement with Great Britain in the months before the arbitration conference met at Geneva. At the
Geneva arbitration conference in 1871, which settled U.S. claims against Britain, the panel of arbitrators refused to consider those "national claims." Sumner had some influence over
J. Lothrop Motley, the U.S.
ambassador to Britain, causing him to disregard the instructions of
Secretary of State Hamilton Fish on the matter. This offended President Grant, but while it would be given as the official reason for Motley's removal, was not really so pressing: the dismissal took place a year after Motley's alleged misbehavior, and the real reason was an act of spite by Grant against Sumner. In July and November 1869, under Grant's authority and with the State Department's permission on the second trip,
Orville Babcock, Grant's private secretary, secretly negotiated a treaty with President
Buenaventura Báez of the Dominican Republic. The initial treaty had not been authorized by the State Department, but the island nation was on the verge of a civil war between Báez and ex-President Marcos A. Cabral. Grant sent in the U.S. Navy to keep the Dominican Republic free from invasion and civil war while the treaty negotiations took place. This military action was controversial since the naval protection was unauthorized by Congress. The official treaty, drafted by Secretary of State
Hamilton Fish in October 1869, annexed the Dominican Republic to the United States, gave eventual statehood, the lease of
Samaná Bay for $150,000 yearly, and a $1,500,000 payment of the Dominican national debt. In January 1870, in order to gain support for the treaty, Grant visited Sumner's Washington home and mistakenly believed that Sumner had consented to the treaty. Sumner said that he had only promised to give the treaty friendly consideration. This meeting led to bitter contention between Sumner and Grant. The treaty was formally submitted to the
United States Senate on January 10, 1870. , photographed by Mathew Brady in 1869.The Dominican Republic annexation treaty caused bitter contention between President Grant and Senator Sumner. Sumner, opposed to American imperialism in the
Caribbean and fearful that annexation would lead to the conquest of the neighboring black republic of Haiti, became convinced that corruption lay behind the treaty, and that men close to Grant shared in the corruption. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he initially withheld his opinion on the treaty on January 18, 1870. Sumner had been leaked information from Assistant Secretary of State
Bancroft Davis that U.S. Naval ships were being used to protect Báez. Sumner's committee voted against annexation and, at Sumner's suggestion and possibly to save the party from an ugly fight or Grant from embarrassment, the Senate debated the treaty behind closed doors in executive session. Grant persisted and sent messages to Congress in favor of annexation on March 14 and May 31, 1870. In closed session, Sumner spoke out against the treaty, warning that there would be difficulty with the foreign nationals, noting the chronic rebellion on the island and the risk that the independence of Haiti, recognized by the U.S. in 1862, would be lost. He said that Grant's use of the U.S. Navy as a protectorate was a violation of international law and unconstitutional. Finally, on June 30, 1870, the treaty was voted on by the Senate and failed to gain the 2/3 majority required for passage. The next day, Grant, feeling betrayed by Sumner, retaliated by ordering the dismissal of Sumner's close friend
John Lothrop Motley, Ambassador to Britain. By autumn, Sumner's personal hostility to Grant was public knowledge, and he blamed the Secretary of State for failing to resign rather than let Grant have his way. The two men, friends until then, became bitter enemies. In December 1870, still fearful that Grant meant to acquire Santo Domingo somehow, Sumner gave a fiercely critical speech accusing him of usurpation and Babcock of unethical conduct. Already Grant, supported by Fish, had initiated a campaign to depose Sumner from the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Although Sumner said he was an "Administration man," in addition to having stopped Grant's Dominican Republic treaty attempt, Sumner had defeated Grant's full repeal of the
Tenure of Office Act, blocked Grant's nomination of
Alexander Stewart as Secretary of Treasury, and been a constant harassing force pushing Reconstruction policies faster than Grant had been willing to go. Grant also resented Sumner's superior manner. Told that Sumner did not believe in the Bible, Grant supposedly said he was not surprised: "He didn't write it." As the rift between Grant and Sumner increased, Sumner's health began to decline. When the 42nd U.S. Congress convened on March 4, 1871, senators affiliated with Grant, known as "New Radicals" voted to oust Sumner from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairmanship.
Liberal Republican revolt Sumner now turned against Grant. Like many other reformers, he decried the corruption in Grant's administration. Sumner believed that the civil rights program he championed could not be carried through by a corrupt government. In 1872, he joined the
Liberal Republican Party, which had been started by reformist Republicans such as
Horace Greeley. The Liberal Republicans supported black suffrage, the three Reconstruction amendments, and the basic civil rights already protected by law, but also called for amnesty for ex-Confederates and decried the Republican governments in the South elected with the help of black votes, belittled the terrorism of the Ku Klux Klan, and argued that the time had come to restore "home rule" in the South, which in practical terms meant white Democratic rule. For Sumner's civil rights bill they gave no support at all, but Sumner joined them because he had become convinced that the time had come for reconciliation, and that Democrats were sincere in declaring that they would abide by the Reconstruction settlement.
Conciliation to South Sumner never saw his support for civil rights as hostile to the South. On the contrary, he had always contended that a guarantee of equality was the one condition essential for true reconciliation. Unlike some other Radical Republicans, he had strongly opposed any hanging or imprisonment of Confederate leaders. In December 1872, he introduced a Senate resolution providing that Civil War battle names should not appear as "battle honors" on the regimental flags of the U.S. Army. The proposal was not new: Sumner had offered a similar resolution on May 8, 1862, and in 1865 he had proposed that no painting hanging in the Capitol portray scenes from the Civil War, because, as he saw it, keeping alive the memories of a war between a people was barbarous. His proposal did not affect the vast majority of battle-flags, as nearly all the regiments that fought had been state regiments, and these were not covered. But Sumner's idea was that any U.S. regiment that would in the future enlist Southerners as well as Northerners should not carry on its ensigns any insult to those who joined it. His resolution had no chance of passing, but its presentation offended Union army veterans. The Massachusetts legislature censured Sumner for giving "an insult to the loyal soldiery of the nation" and as "meeting the unqualified condemnation of the people of the Commonwealth." Poet
John Greenleaf Whittier led an effort to rescind that censure the following year. He succeeded early in 1874 with the help of abolitionist
Joshua Bowen Smith, who was serving in the legislature that year. Sumner was able to hear the rescinding resolution presented to the Senate on the last day he was there. He died the next afternoon.
Virginius Affair On October 30, 1873, the
Virginius, a munitions and troop transportation ship supporting the
Cuban Rebellion and flying the U.S. flag, was captured by Spanish authorities. After a hasty trial in
Santiago, Cuba, Spain executed 53 crew members, including American and British citizens. Sumner sympathized with the Cuban rebels and those executed by Spain, but refused to support U.S. military intervention or the annexation of Cuba. On November 17, 1873, Sumner stated his views in an interview on the
Virginius Affair at a local library in
Boston. Sumner, who opposed the Cuban insurgent neutrality of the Grant Administration, believed that the United States needed to support the
First Spanish Republic.
Death Long ailing, Charles Sumner died of a
heart attack at his home in Washington, D.C., on March 11, 1874, aged 63. He
lay in state at the
United States Capitol rotunda, the second senator (Henry Clay being the first, in 1852) and fourth person so honored. At his March 16 burial in
Mount Auburn Cemetery in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, the pallbearers included
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Oliver Wendell Holmes,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, and
John Greenleaf Whittier. In the aftermath,
Mississippi Senator
Lucius Lamar's eulogy for Sumner was controversial enough considering his Southern heritage that the incident resulted in Lamar's inclusion in
John F. Kennedy's book
Profiles in Courage. ==Historical interpretations==