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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—MassachusettsSUMNER, Charles
(1811—1874)
Senate Years of Service:
1851-1855; 1855-1857; 1857-1873; 1873-1874
Party:
Free Soil; Opposition; Republican; Liberal Republican
SUMNER, Charles, a Senator from Massachusetts; born in Boston, Mass., January 6, 1811; attended the Boston Latin School; graduated from Harvard University in 1830 and from the Harvard Law School in 1833; admitted to the bar the following year and commenced the practice of law in Boston, Mass.; lectured at the Harvard Law School 1836-1837; traveled extensively in Europe 1837-1840; declined the Whig nomination in 1846 for election to the Thirtieth Congress; one of the founders of the Free Soil Party in 1848; unsuccessful candidate for election in 1848 on the Free Soil ticket to the Thirty-first Congress; elected to the United States Senate in 1851 as a Free Soiler; reelected as a Republican in 1857, 1863, and 1869 and served from April 24, 1851, until his death; in response to his “Crime Against Kansas” speech, was assaulted by Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina on May 22, 1856, while in his seat in the Senate, and was absent on account of injuries received until December 1859; chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations (Thirty-seventh through Forty-first Congresses), Committee on Privileges and Elections (Forty-second Congress); removed as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations in 1871 as a result of differences with President Ulysses S. Grant over policy in Santo Domingo; died in Washington, D.C., March 11, 1874; lay in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, March 13, 1874; interment in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass.
Bibliography
Dictionary of American Biography
; Donald, David Herbert. Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War
. New York: Knopf, 1960; Donald, David Herbert. Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man
. New York: Knopf, 1970.
Blue, Frederick J. Charles Sumner and the Conscience of the North
. Arlington Heights, IL: Harlan Davidson, 1994.
___. “The Poet and the Reformer: Longfellow, Sumner, and the Bonds of Male Friendship.” Journal of the Early Republic
15 (Summer 1995): 273-97.
Bourke, Paul F., and Donald A. DeBats. “Charles Sumner, the London Ballot Society, and the Senate Debate of March 1867.” Perspectives in American History
1 (1984): 343-357.
Chaplin, Jeremiah, and Jane Dunbar Chaplin. The Life of Charles Sumner
. Boston: D. Lothrop & Co., 1874.
Cohen, Victor H. “Charles Sumner and Foreign Relations.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 1951.
Cornell, William Mason, ed. Charles Sumner: Memoir and Eulogies
. Boston: J.H. Earle, 1874.
Dawes, Anna Laurens. Charles Sumner
. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1892.
Donald, David Herbert. Charles Sumner
. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. A one volume, unabridged republication of Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War
(1960) and Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man
(1970), with new introduction by the author.
___. Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War
. 1960. Reprint. Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1987.
___. Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970.
Filippelli, Ronald L. “Charles Sumner, Doctor Jackson, and the Mountain.” Pennsylvania History
38 (April 1971): 152-62.
Freidel, Frank. “Francis Lieber, Charles Sumner, and Slavery.” Journal of Southern History
9 (February 1943): 75-93.
Gienapp, William E. “The Crime Against Sumner: The Caning of Charles Sumner and the Rise of the Republican Party.” Civil War History
25 (September 1979): 218-45.
Gradin, Harlan Joel. “Losing Control: The Caning of Charles Sumner and the Breakdown of Antebellum Political Culture.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1991.
Grimke, Archibald Henry. The Life of Charles Sumner, the Scholar in Politics
. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1892.
Harsha, David Addison. The Life of Charles Sumner
. New York: Dayton & Burdick, 1856.
Haynes, George Henry. Charles Sumner
. Philadelphia: G.W. Jacobs & Co., 1909.
Hoffert, Sylvia D. “The Brooks-Sumner Affair: Prelude to Civil War.” Civil War Times Illustrated
11 (October 1972): 35-40.
Jager, Ronald B. “Charles Sumner, the Constitution, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875.” New England Quarterly
42 (September 1969): 350-72.
Kazarian, Richard, Jr. “Working Radicals: The Early Political Careers of William Seward, Thaddeus Stevens, Henry Wilson, Charles Sumner, Salmon P. Chase, and Hannibal Hamlin.” Ph.D. dissertation, Brown University, 1981.
Ledbetter, Bill. “Charles Sumner: Political Activist for the New England Transcendentalists.” Historian
44 (May 1982): 347-63.
Lester, Charles Edwards. Life and Public Services of Charles Sumner
. New York: United States Publishing Co., 1874.
Nancarrow, Douglas Merrill. “An Analysis of the Rhetorical and Historical Role Played by the Hon. Charles A. Sumner in the Ratification of the Treaty to Purchase Russian America.” Ph.D. dissertation, Washington State University, 1980.
Nason, Elias. The Life and Times of Charles Sumner
. Boston: B.B. Russell, 1874.
Palmer, Beverly Wilson, ed. “From Small Minority to Great Cause: Letters of Charles Sumner to Salmon P. Chase.” Ohio History
93 (Summer-Autumn 1984): 164-83.
___, ed. The Papers of Charles Sumner
. Alexandria, VA: Chadwyck-Healey, 1988. Microfilm. 85 reels and guide.
___, ed. The Selected Letters of Charles Sumner
. 2 vols. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990.
Peyton, Thomas Joseph, Jr. “Charles Sumner and United States Foreign Relations During the American Civil War.” Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, 1972.
Pierce, Edward Lillie. Memoirs and Letters of Charles Sumner
. 4 vols. 1877-1894. Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1969.
Pierson, Michael D. “‘All Southern Society is Assailed by the Foulest Charges’: Charles Sumner’s ‘The Crime Against Kansas’ and the Escalation of Republican Anti-slavery Rhetoric.” The New England Quarterly
LXVIII (December 1995): 531-557.
Ruchames, Louis. “Charles Sumner and American Historiography.” Journal of Negro History
38 (April 1953): 139-60.
Schurz, Carl. Charles Sumner, an Essay
. Edited by Arthur Reed Hogue. 1951. Reprint. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1972.
Shannon, Margaret. “Charles Sumner and the Alaska Purchase.” In Russian America: The Forgotten Frontier
, edited by Barbara Sweetland Smith and Redmond J. Barnett, pp. 109-19. Tacoma: Washington State Historical Society, 1990.
Shotwell, Walter Gaston. Life of Charles Sumner
. New York: T.Y. Crowell & Co., 1910.
Stocker, Glenn. “Charles Sumner’s Rhetoric of Insult.” Southern Speech Communication Journal
38 (Spring 1973): 223-34.
Storey, Moorfield. Charles Sumner
. 1900. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1972.
Sumner, Charles. Charles Sumner: His Complete Works
. 15 vols. 1870-1883. Reprint of 1900 ed. (20 vols.). New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969.
Taylor, Anne-Marie. Young Charles Sumner and the Legacy of the American Enlightenment, 1811-1851
. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001.
U.S. Congress. Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of Charles Sumner (a Senator of Massachusetts)
. 43d Cong., 1st sess., 1873-1874. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1874.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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