Charles Sumner
American abolitionist and statesman (1811-1874) · United States · On the map · Politicians · Died at 63
Charles Sumner was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate from 1851 until his death in 1874.
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Sumner's birthplace at 58 Irving Street, Beacon Hill, Boston
Lithograph of Preston Brooks' 1856 attack on Sumner
1860 steel-engraved portrait of Sumner
Sumner puts head in British lion's mouth - Harper's Weekly, 1872
President Ulysses S. Grant, photographed by Mathew Brady in 1869.The Dominican Republic annexation treaty caused bitter contention between President Grant and Senator Sumner.
Sumner in his later years
Death of SumnerAbout this person
Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading American advocate for the abolition of slavery, and after the war he was a key figure in the Reconstruction era, during which he and other Radical Republicans successfully fought to end slavery and ensure basic rights for Black Americans. He continued advocating for racial equality until his death, lobbying in his final days for a civil rights bill that served as a model for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Historians credit Sumner with coining the phrase "equality before the law," which he first used as part of an early attempt to integrate Boston's public school system.
