10
10
0
Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811 – March 11, 1874) was an American politician and United States Senator from Massachusetts. As an academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the anti-slavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the U.S. Senate during the American Civil War. He worked hard to destroy the Confederacy, free all the slaves, and keep on good terms with Europe. During Reconstruction, he fought to minimize the power of the ex-Confederates and guarantee equal rights to the freedmen. He fell into a dispute with fellow Republican President Ulysses Grant on the question of taking control of Santo Domingo. Grant's allies stripped Sumner of his power in the Senate in 1871, and he joined the Liberal Republican movement in an effort to defeat Grant's reelection in 1872.
Sumner changed his political party several times as anti-slavery coalitions rose and fell in the 1830s and 1840s before coalescing in the 1850s as the Republican Party, the affiliation with which he became best known. He devoted his enormous energies to the destruction of what Republicans called the Slave Power, the influence over the federal government of Southern slave owners who sought the continuation and expansion of slavery.[1] In 1856, a South Carolina Congressman, Democrat Preston Brooks, nearly killed Sumner on the Senate floor two days after Sumner delivered an intensely anti-slavery speech called "The Crime Against Kansas."[2] In the speech, Sumner characterized the attacker's cousin,[3][4] South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, a Democrat, as a pimp for slavery.[5] The episode played a major role in the coming of the Civil War. During the war, Sumner was a leader of the Radical Republican faction that criticized President Abraham Lincoln for being too moderate on the South. One of the most learned statesmen of the era, he specialized in foreign affairs, and worked closely with Abraham Lincoln to keep the British and the French from intervening on the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Sumner's expertise and energy made him a powerful chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
As the chief Radical leader in the Senate during Reconstruction, Sumner fought hard to provide equal civil and voting rights for the freedmen on the grounds that "consent of the governed" was a basic principle of American republicanism, and to block ex-Confederates from power so they would not reverse the gains made from the Union's victory in the Civil War. Sumner, teaming with House leader Thaddeus Stevens, battled Andrew Johnson's reconstruction plans and sought to impose a Radical program on the South. Although Sumner forcefully advocated the annexation of Alaska in the Senate, he was against the annexation of the Dominican Republic, then known by the name of its capital, Santo Domingo. After leading Senators to defeat President Ulysses S. Grant's Santo Domingo Treaty in 1870, Sumner broke with Grant, and denounced him in such terms that reconciliation was impossible. In 1871, President Grant and his Secretary of State Hamilton Fish retaliated; through Grant's supporters in the Senate, Sumner was deposed as head of the Foreign Relations Committee. Sumner had become convinced that Grant was a corrupt despot and that the success of Reconstruction policies called for new national leadership. Sumner bitterly opposed Grant's reelection by supporting the Liberal Republican candidate Horace Greeley in 1872 and lost his power inside the Republican Party. Less than two years later, he died in office.
Sumner changed his political party several times as anti-slavery coalitions rose and fell in the 1830s and 1840s before coalescing in the 1850s as the Republican Party, the affiliation with which he became best known. He devoted his enormous energies to the destruction of what Republicans called the Slave Power, the influence over the federal government of Southern slave owners who sought the continuation and expansion of slavery.[1] In 1856, a South Carolina Congressman, Democrat Preston Brooks, nearly killed Sumner on the Senate floor two days after Sumner delivered an intensely anti-slavery speech called "The Crime Against Kansas."[2] In the speech, Sumner characterized the attacker's cousin,[3][4] South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, a Democrat, as a pimp for slavery.[5] The episode played a major role in the coming of the Civil War. During the war, Sumner was a leader of the Radical Republican faction that criticized President Abraham Lincoln for being too moderate on the South. One of the most learned statesmen of the era, he specialized in foreign affairs, and worked closely with Abraham Lincoln to keep the British and the French from intervening on the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Sumner's expertise and energy made him a powerful chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
As the chief Radical leader in the Senate during Reconstruction, Sumner fought hard to provide equal civil and voting rights for the freedmen on the grounds that "consent of the governed" was a basic principle of American republicanism, and to block ex-Confederates from power so they would not reverse the gains made from the Union's victory in the Civil War. Sumner, teaming with House leader Thaddeus Stevens, battled Andrew Johnson's reconstruction plans and sought to impose a Radical program on the South. Although Sumner forcefully advocated the annexation of Alaska in the Senate, he was against the annexation of the Dominican Republic, then known by the name of its capital, Santo Domingo. After leading Senators to defeat President Ulysses S. Grant's Santo Domingo Treaty in 1870, Sumner broke with Grant, and denounced him in such terms that reconciliation was impossible. In 1871, President Grant and his Secretary of State Hamilton Fish retaliated; through Grant's supporters in the Senate, Sumner was deposed as head of the Foreign Relations Committee. Sumner had become convinced that Grant was a corrupt despot and that the success of Reconstruction policies called for new national leadership. Sumner bitterly opposed Grant's reelection by supporting the Liberal Republican candidate Horace Greeley in 1872 and lost his power inside the Republican Party. Less than two years later, he died in office.
Charles Sumner - Wikipedia
Posted from en.wikipedia.org
Birthday
American History
Law
Lawyer
Civil War
Posted 6 y ago
Responses: 6
7
7
0
Thanks, my friend Maj Marty Hogan for letting us know that January 6 is the anniversary of the birth of American politician and United States Senator from Massachusetts Charles Sumner.
He is perhaps most famous for being caned in 1856 by South Carolina Congressman, Democrat Preston Brooks, who nearly killed Sumner on the Senate floor two days after Sumner delivered an intensely anti-slavery speech called "The Crime Against Kansas.
Rest in peace Charles Sumner!
Charles Sumner VideoClip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Segf7qXL85E
Image: Senator Charles Sumner
Background from battlefields.org/learn/biographies/charles-sumner
"Charles Sumner
DATE OF BIRTH - DEATH
January 6, 1811 – March 11, 1874
Famous for his scathing criticism of the Kansas-Nebraska Act that provoked an attack upon himself in the Senate Chamber, Charles Sumner was a prominent voice of the anti-slavery North. Charles was born in Boston, on January 6, 1811, the son of a Harvard educated lawyer and abolitionist, Charles Pinckney Sumner. The younger Charles followed a similar path, graduating Harvard College and Harvard Law School in the 1830s. He developed a zeal for law but a visit to Washington, D.C. soured his taste for politics. Sumner practiced law in Boston and then studied in Europe for the rest of the decade. After he returned home in the 1840s, Sumner primarily became an editor and lecturer. On July 4, 1845, he delivered an oration on “The True Grandeur of Nations” that redefined his career. Sumner’s passionate address demonstrated his talents. His physical appearance at six feet and four inches matched his powerful voice and outspoken opinions.
Sumner assisted Horace Mann with reforming public education in their native state, advocated prison reform, and opposed war with Mexico. Though initially against pursuing a political career, Sumner rallied northern Whigs, known as the “Conscience Whigs,” together when their parent party split following the nomination of Zachary Taylor, a slaveholding southerner, for president. This schism ultimately produced the Free Soil Party. Though unsuccessful in carrying a single state in the 1848 presidential election, Sumner expressed satisfaction that their efforts brought the issue of slavery to the forefront of American politics.
Three years later, a coalition between the Free Soilers and Massachusetts Democrats pushed Sumner through to the United States Senate, representing his native state. Sumner had opposed the Compromise of 1850 and Fugitive Slave Act and continued to campaign against slavery once he became a senator. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, immediately drawing Sumner’s rebuke. When, two years later, the effects of the bill produced violence in Kansas between pro- and anti-slavery proponents, Sumner monitored the situation from afar and gathered his thoughts into an address titled “The Crime Against Kansas.” He delivered this speech for two days on May 19-20, 1856.
Sumner particularly singled out Andrew P. Butler, a United States Senator from South Carolina who co-authored the Kansas-Nebraska Act with Stephen Douglas. Two days later, Preston Brooks, a United States Representative from South Carolina and cousin to Butler, approached Sumner while he was alone in the Senate chamber and beat him with a cane. His traumatic injuries kept Sumner absent through most of the next four years as a congressman, but he was nevertheless reelected to a second term and continued to oppose any compromise with the south in the years leading up to the Civil War.
During the war, he served as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. In this role, he diplomatically handled the Trent Affair, in which two captured Confederate diplomats were captured from a British ship. Sumner worked to convince President Abraham Lincoln to release the diplomats to calm tensions with the British government and prevent their interference in the Civil War. Overall, his, however, his platform was more radical for the time, actively pushing for emancipation, the use of black soldiers, the establishment of the Freedman’s Bureau, and a punitive approach to Reconstruction. In his mind, the southern states had committed “state suicide” and had devolved to the legal status of territories seeking to enter the United States.
Opposition to his vision for Reconstruction frustrated Sumner. Abraham Lincoln had not shared his radical view, and Andrew Johnson did not carry out the stringent policies for Reconstruction and southern readmission in the United States sought by Sumner. In 1871, Ulysses S. Grant removed Sumner from the Committee on Foreign Relations and a reconciliatory gesture by Sumner toward the south to remove names of battles from regimental flags only produced censure from the Massachusetts legislature. A campaign to repair Sumner’s name resulted in the legislature rescinding their remarks on March 10, 1874. Sumner listened as the resolution was presented that day in the Senate and returned to his Washington, D.C. home. That night he had a heart attack and died the following day, his legacy restored as a man who devoutly advocated for the union and his fellow man."
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen PO1 H Gene Lawrence PO2 Kevin Parker CPT Scott Sharon SSG William Jones SGT John " Mac " McConnell SP5 Mark Kuzinski Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL LTC Greg Henning LTC Jeff Shearer CWO3 Dennis M. PO3 Bob McCord SGT (Join to see)
He is perhaps most famous for being caned in 1856 by South Carolina Congressman, Democrat Preston Brooks, who nearly killed Sumner on the Senate floor two days after Sumner delivered an intensely anti-slavery speech called "The Crime Against Kansas.
Rest in peace Charles Sumner!
Charles Sumner VideoClip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Segf7qXL85E
Image: Senator Charles Sumner
Background from battlefields.org/learn/biographies/charles-sumner
"Charles Sumner
DATE OF BIRTH - DEATH
January 6, 1811 – March 11, 1874
Famous for his scathing criticism of the Kansas-Nebraska Act that provoked an attack upon himself in the Senate Chamber, Charles Sumner was a prominent voice of the anti-slavery North. Charles was born in Boston, on January 6, 1811, the son of a Harvard educated lawyer and abolitionist, Charles Pinckney Sumner. The younger Charles followed a similar path, graduating Harvard College and Harvard Law School in the 1830s. He developed a zeal for law but a visit to Washington, D.C. soured his taste for politics. Sumner practiced law in Boston and then studied in Europe for the rest of the decade. After he returned home in the 1840s, Sumner primarily became an editor and lecturer. On July 4, 1845, he delivered an oration on “The True Grandeur of Nations” that redefined his career. Sumner’s passionate address demonstrated his talents. His physical appearance at six feet and four inches matched his powerful voice and outspoken opinions.
Sumner assisted Horace Mann with reforming public education in their native state, advocated prison reform, and opposed war with Mexico. Though initially against pursuing a political career, Sumner rallied northern Whigs, known as the “Conscience Whigs,” together when their parent party split following the nomination of Zachary Taylor, a slaveholding southerner, for president. This schism ultimately produced the Free Soil Party. Though unsuccessful in carrying a single state in the 1848 presidential election, Sumner expressed satisfaction that their efforts brought the issue of slavery to the forefront of American politics.
Three years later, a coalition between the Free Soilers and Massachusetts Democrats pushed Sumner through to the United States Senate, representing his native state. Sumner had opposed the Compromise of 1850 and Fugitive Slave Act and continued to campaign against slavery once he became a senator. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, immediately drawing Sumner’s rebuke. When, two years later, the effects of the bill produced violence in Kansas between pro- and anti-slavery proponents, Sumner monitored the situation from afar and gathered his thoughts into an address titled “The Crime Against Kansas.” He delivered this speech for two days on May 19-20, 1856.
Sumner particularly singled out Andrew P. Butler, a United States Senator from South Carolina who co-authored the Kansas-Nebraska Act with Stephen Douglas. Two days later, Preston Brooks, a United States Representative from South Carolina and cousin to Butler, approached Sumner while he was alone in the Senate chamber and beat him with a cane. His traumatic injuries kept Sumner absent through most of the next four years as a congressman, but he was nevertheless reelected to a second term and continued to oppose any compromise with the south in the years leading up to the Civil War.
During the war, he served as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations. In this role, he diplomatically handled the Trent Affair, in which two captured Confederate diplomats were captured from a British ship. Sumner worked to convince President Abraham Lincoln to release the diplomats to calm tensions with the British government and prevent their interference in the Civil War. Overall, his, however, his platform was more radical for the time, actively pushing for emancipation, the use of black soldiers, the establishment of the Freedman’s Bureau, and a punitive approach to Reconstruction. In his mind, the southern states had committed “state suicide” and had devolved to the legal status of territories seeking to enter the United States.
Opposition to his vision for Reconstruction frustrated Sumner. Abraham Lincoln had not shared his radical view, and Andrew Johnson did not carry out the stringent policies for Reconstruction and southern readmission in the United States sought by Sumner. In 1871, Ulysses S. Grant removed Sumner from the Committee on Foreign Relations and a reconciliatory gesture by Sumner toward the south to remove names of battles from regimental flags only produced censure from the Massachusetts legislature. A campaign to repair Sumner’s name resulted in the legislature rescinding their remarks on March 10, 1874. Sumner listened as the resolution was presented that day in the Senate and returned to his Washington, D.C. home. That night he had a heart attack and died the following day, his legacy restored as a man who devoutly advocated for the union and his fellow man."
FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen PO1 H Gene Lawrence PO2 Kevin Parker CPT Scott Sharon SSG William Jones SGT John " Mac " McConnell SP5 Mark Kuzinski Lt Col Charlie Brown Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj William W. "Bill" Price SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL LTC Greg Henning LTC Jeff Shearer CWO3 Dennis M. PO3 Bob McCord SGT (Join to see)
(7)
(0)
3
3
0
3
3
0
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google