Baltimore & the Fifteenth Amendment, May 19, 1870
An Interactive Historical Investigation by David Troy © 1996
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CHARLES
SUMNER
Abolitionist Politician, Social Reformer. Portrait taken from Metcalf & Clark Lithograph. |
| CHARLES SUMNER was born in Massachusetts and was educated at Harvard University. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1851 on a Democratic and Free-Soiler ticket. He severely criticized his colleague, Andrew Pickens Butler (a South Carolina Senator), in a speech called "The Crime Against Kansas." That week, Preston Smith Brooks, Butler's nephew, beat Sumner with his cane on the Senate floor. Sumner was badly injured and took a break from politics. In 1860, he started fighting again for emancipation, negro suffrage and open schools. He differed with Ulysses Grant on matters of foreign policy and opposed him in his second election bid. He died in 1874. Source: Summarized from Microsoft Encarta. |
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