Charles
Sumner,
the son of a lawyer, was born in Boston,
Massachusetts
on 6th January, 1811. After graduating from Harvard
University
in 1833 he was admitted to the bar. Sumner developed radical political
opinions and after reading An
Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans
by Lydia Maria Child he became active
in the campaign against slavery. Sumner
also advocated education and prison reform.
Sumner joined the Whig Party but in 1848
helped to form the Free Soil Party.
The following year he made a legal challenge against segregated schools
in Boston. In 1851, with the support of
the Democratic Party, Sumner was elected
to Congress. He now became the Senate's leading opponent of slavery.
After one speech Sumner made against pro-slavery groups in Kansas
in 1856 he was beaten unconscious by Preston
Brooks, a congressman from South Carolina.
His injuries stopped him from attending the Senate for the next three
years.
During the secession crisis in 1860-61, Sumner argued against any
compromise deal and became one of the leaders of the Radical
Republicans in Congress. On the outbreak of the American
Civil War, he advocated the use of black
troops
to bring an end to slavery. As chairman of the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations, Sumner showed considerable political skill in preventing
European intervention in the conflict.
Sumner
clashed with Abraham
Lincoln
over his treatment of Major
General John C. Fremont.
On
30th August, 1861, Fremont, the commander of the Union Army in St.
Louis, proclaimed that all slaves owned by Confederates in Missouri
were free. Lincoln asked Fremont to modify his order and free only
slaves owned by Missourians actively working for the South. When Fremont
refused, he was sacked and replaced by the conservative
General Henry Halleck. Sumner
wrote to Lincoln complaining about his actions and remarked how sad
it was "to have the power of a god and not use it godlike".
The
situation was repeated in May, 1863, when General
David Hunter began enlisting black soldiers
in the occupied districts of South Carolina. Soon
afterwards Hunter
issued a statement that all slaves owned by Confederates in the area
were free. Abraham
Lincoln
was furious and instructed him to disband the 1st
South Carolina (African Descent) regiment
and to retract his proclamation. Sumner supporting Hunter telling
Lincoln that the Union could only be saved by freeing the slaves.
Sumner also disagreed with Abraham
Lincoln
over suffrage. Sumner wanted all African Americans to have the vote
whereas Lincoln favoured partial enfranchisement. Sumner thought that
universal suffrage would help the government arguing that "the
only Unionists of the South are black". Despite their many disagreements,
the two men remained close friends. On one occasion Lincoln told Sumner
"the only difference between you and me is a difference of a
month or six weeks in time."
Despite
their insistance that the white power structure in the South should
be removed, most Radical
Republicans
argued that the deated forces should be treated leniently. Even while
the American Civil War was going on
Sumner argued that: "A humane and civilised people cannot suddenly
become inhumane and uncivilized. We cannot be cruel, or barbarous,
or savage, because the Rebels we now meet in warfare are cruel, barbarous
and savage. We cannot imitate the detested example."
In
1866 Sumner and the Radical
Republicans advocated the passing of the Civil
Rights Bill,
legislation that was designed to protect freed slaves from Southern
Black Codes (laws that placed severe
restrictions on freed slaves such as prohibiting their right to vote,
forbidding them to sit on juries, limiting their right to testify
against white men, carrying weapons in public places and working in
certain occupations).
Sumner also opposed the policies of President Andrew
Johnson and argued in Congress that Southern plantations
should be taken from their owners and divided among the former slaves.
They also attacked Johnson when he attempted to
veto the extension of the Freeman's
Bureau, the Civil
Rights Bill and the Reconstruction
Acts.
However, the Radical
Republicans
were able to get the Reconstruction
Acts passed in 1867 and 1868. Sumner also urged
an extensive programme of economic aid, land distribution and free
education for freed slaves.
In November, 1867, the
Judiciary Committee voted 5-4 that Andrew
Johnson
be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. The majority report
written by George H. Williams
contained a series of charges including pardoning traitors, profiting
from the illegal disposal of railroads in Tennessee, defying Congress,
denying the right to reconstruct the South and attempts to prevent
the ratification of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
On 30th March, 1868, Johnson's
impeachment trial began. Sumner led the attack arguing that: "This
is one of the last great battles with slavery. Driven from the legislative
chambers, driven from the field of war, this monstrous power has found
a refuge in the executive mansion, where, in utter disregard of the
Constitution and laws, it seeks to exercise its ancient, far-reaching
sway. All this is very plain. Nobody can question it. Andrew Johnson
is the impersonation of the tyrannical slave power. In him it lives
again. He is the lineal successor of John C. Calhoun and Jefferson
Davis; and he gathers about him the same supporters."
Sumner was bitterly disappointed when the Senate vote was one short
of the required two-thirds majority for conviction. Sumner and other
Radical Republicans were angry that
not all the Republican Party voted
for a conviction and Benjamin Butler
claimed that Johnson had bribed two of the senators who switched their
votes at the last moment.
President Ulysses S. Grant was also criticised
by Sumner for not doing more for black civil
rights. This upset senior members of the Republican
Party and he was removed as chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee. Sumner lost all faith in Grant and in the 1872 presidential
election he supported his rival, Horace Greeley.
Charles Sumner died of a heart attack on 11th March, 1874.
The attack on Charles Sumner by Preston
Brooks (1856)
(1)
Charles Sumner, speech on the Mexican War (1847)
A
war of conquest is bad; but the present war has darker shadows. It
is a war for the extension of slavery over a territory which has already
been purged by Mexican authority from this stain and curse. Fresh
markets of human beings are to be established; further opportunities
for this hateful traffic are to be opened; the lash of the overseer
is to be quickened in new regions; and the wretched slave is to be
hurried to unaccustomed fields of toil. It can hardly be believed
that now, more than eighteen hundred years since the dawn of the Christian
era, a government, professing the law of charity and justice, should
be employed in war to extend an institution which exists in defiance
of these sacred principles.
It has already been shown
that the annexation of Texas was consummated for this purpose. The
Mexican War is a continuance, a prolongation, of the same efforts;
and the success which crowned the first emboldens the partisans of
the latter, who now, as before, profess to extend the area of freedom,
while they are establishing a new sphere for slavery.
The authorities already
adduced in regard to the objects of annexation illustrate the real
objects of the Mexican War. Declarations have also been made, upon
the floor of Congress, which throw light upon it. Mr. Sims, of South
Carolina, has said that "he had no doubt that every foot of territory
we shall permanently occupy, south of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes,
will be slave territory"; and, in reply to his colleague, Mr.
Burt, who inquired whether this opinion was "in consequence of
the known determination of the Southern people that their institutions
shall be carried into that country, if acquired," said, in words
that furnish a key to the whole project, "It is founded on the
known determination of the Southern people that their institutions
shall be carried there; it is founded in the laws of God, written
on the climate and soil of the country: nothing but slave labor can
cultivate, profitably, that region of country."
But it is not merely proposed
to open new markets for slavery: it is also designed to confirm and
fortify the "Slave Power." Here is a distinction which should
not fail to be borne in mind. Slavery is odious as an institution,
if viewed in the light of morals and Christianity. On this account
alone we should refrain from rendering it any voluntary support. But
it has been made the basis of a political combination, to which has
not inaptly been applied the designation of the "Slave Power."
The slaveholders of the
country - who are not supposed to exceed 200,000 or at most 300,000
in numbers - by the spirit
of union which animates them, by the strong sense of a common interest,
and by the audacity of their leaders, have erected themselves into
a new "estate," as it were, under the Constitution. Disregarding
the sentiments of many of the great framers of that instrument, who
notoriously considered slavery as temporary, they proclaim it a permanent
institution; and, with a strange inconsistency, at once press its
title to a paramount influence in the general government,
while they deny the right of that government to interfere, in any
way, with its existence. According to them, it may never be restrained
or abolished by the general government, though it may be indefinitely
extended.
(2)
Charles Sumner, speech on the subject of segregation of schools (1849)
The
school is the little world where the child is trained for the larger
world of life. It is the microcosm preparatory to the macrocosm, and
therefore it must cherish and develop the virtues and the sympathies
needed in the larger world. And since, according to our institutions,
all classes, without distinction of color, meet in the performance
of civil duties, so should they all, without distinction of color,
meet in the school, beginning there those relations of equality which
the constitution and laws promise to all.
As the
state derives strength from the unity and solidarity of its citizens
without distinction of class, so the school derives
strength from the unity and solidarity of all classes beneath its
roof. In this way the poor, the humble, and the neglected not only
share the companionship of the more favored but enjoy also the protection
of their presence, which draws toward the school a more watchful superintendence.
A degraded or neglected class, if left to themselves, will become
more degraded or neglected.
Happily, our educational
system, by the blending of all classes, draws upon the whole school
that attention which is too
generally accorded only to the favored few, and thus secures to the
poor their portion of the fruitful sunshine. But the colored children,
placed apart in separate schools, are deprived of this peculiar advantage.
Nothing is more clear than that the welfare of classes, as well as
of individuals, is promoted by mutual acquaintance.
Prejudice is the child
of ignorance. It is sure to prevail, where people do not know each
other. Society and intercourse are means established by Providence
for human improvement. They remove antipathies, promote mutual adaptation
and conciliation, and establish relations of reciprocal regard. Whoso
sets up barriers to these thwarts the ways of Providence, crosses
the tendencies of human nature, and directly interferes with the laws
of God.
(3)
Salmon
Chase,
letter to Charles Sumner (28th April, 1851)
From the
bottom of my heart I congratulate you - no, not you, but all the friends
of freedom everywhere upon your election to the Senate. Now I feel
as if I had a brother colleague - one with whom I shall sympathize
and be able fully to act. Hale, glorious and noble fellow as he is
is yet too much an off-hand man himself to be patient of consultation
- while Seward, though meaning to maintain his own position as an
antislavery man, means to maintain it in the Whig Party and only in
the Whig Party. Wade, who has been elected to be my colleague, is
not known to me personally. None of them are to me as you are.
(4)
Charles Sumner, speech at a Republican
Party
meeting in Worcester (1st October, 1861)
It is often
said that war will make an end to Slavery. This is probable. But it
is surer still not overthrow of Slavery will make an end of the war.
(5)
Carl
Schurz
wrote about Charles Sumner in his autobiography published in 1906.
Charles Sumner was strikingly
unlike all the public men surrounding him - just as Lincoln was, but
in the opposite sense. Sumner was a born Puritan character, an aristocrat
by instinct and culture, a democrat by study and reflection, a revolutionary
power by the dogmatic intensity of his determination to impose his
principles upon the world at any cost. His notions of right and wrong
were absolute. When someone asked him whether he ever looked at the
other side of the slavery question, he answered: "There is no
other side." No answer could have been more characteristic. Not
that he was merely unwilling to see the other side of the question
of that nature - he was unable to see it.
(6)
In a speech made on 7th July, 1862, Charles Sumner attacked President
Lincoln's decision to allow Black
Codes to continue.
A government
organized by Congress and appointed by the President is to enforce
laws and institutions, some of which are abhorrent to civilization.
Take for instance, the Revised Code of North Carolina, which I have
before me. "Any free person, who shall teach, or attempt to teach,
any slave to read or write, the use of figures excepted, or shall
give or sell to such slave any book or pamphlet, shall be deemed guilty
of a misdemeanor, if a white man or woman, shall be fined not less
than one hundred nor more than two hundred dollars, or imprisoned,
and if a free person of colour, shall be fined, imprisoned, or whipped
not exceeding thirty-nine nor less than twenty lashes.
Here is another specimen: "If any person shall willfully bring
into the State, with an intent to circulate, or shall aid or abet
the bringing into, or the circulation or publication, the State, any
written or printed in or out of the State, the evident tendency whereof
is to cause slaves to become discontented with the bondage in which
they are held by their masters and the laws regulating the same, and
free negroes to be dissatisfied with their social condition and the
denial to them of political privileges, and thereby to excite among
the said slaves and free negroes a disposition to make conspiracies,
insurrections, or resistance against the peace and quiet of the public,
such person so offending shall be deemed guilty of felony, and on
conviction thereof shall, for the first offence, be imprisoned not
less than one year, and be put in the pillory and whipped, at the
discretion of the court, and for the second offence shall suffer death."
(7)
Carl Schurz, Reminiscences (1906)
Lincoln
regarded and esteemed Sumner as the outspoken conscience of the advanced
anti-slavery sentiment, the confidence and hearty cooperation of which
was to him of the highest moment in the common struggle. While it
required all his fortitude to bear Sumner's intractable insistence,
Lincoln did not at all deprecate Sumner's agitation for all immediate
emancipation policy, even though it did reflect upon the course of
the administration. On the contrary, he rather welcomed everything
that would prepare the public mind for the approaching development.
(8)
Charles Sumner, speech at the impeachment trial of President Andrew
Johnson (May, 1868)
This is
one of the last great battles with slavery. Driven from the legislative
chambers, driven from the field of war, this monstrous power has found
a refuge in the executive mansion, where, in utter disregard of the
Constitution and laws, it seeks to exercise its ancient, far-reaching
sway. All this is very plain. Nobody can question it. Andrew Johnson
is the impersonation of the tyrannical slave power. In him it lives
again. He is the lineal successor of John C. Calhoun and Jefferson
Davis; and he gathers about him the same supporters.
This formal accusation is founded on certain recent transgressions,
enumerated in articles of impeachment, but it is wrong to suppose
that this is the whole case. It is very wrong to try this impeachment
merely on these articles. It is unpardonable to higgle over words
and phrases when, for more than two years, the tyrannical pretensions
of this offender, now in evidence before the Senate have been manifest
in their terrible heartrending consequences.
This usurpation, with its brutalities and indecencies, became manifest
as long ago as the winter of 1866, when, being President, and bound
by his oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution,
and to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, he took to
himself legislative powers in the reconstruction of the Rebel states;
and, in carrying forward this usurpation, nullified an act of Congress,
intended as the cornerstone of Reconstruction, by virtue of which
Rebels are excluded from office under the government of the United
States.
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